To DNG or Not to DNG?

I received a question in the comment section the other day from some one asking about DNG and what the rest of the folks thought about it. The question was answered by a person that said something to the effect that they thought most people using Lightroom were converting to DNG upon import. It got me thinking about whether or not that was true. Most people I run into DON’T convert to DNG. I get lots of questions on it because they think that maybe they should, but they’re not yet doing it. Personally, I think it’s because there’s still some confusion about what it is and what is does to your photos.

Most of the people I talk to are “afraid” of what DNG will do to their original. When they ask what happens to their raw file I tell them that it gets converted to this non-proprietary open file format that will stand the test of time even if a camera manufacturer isn’t around one day to support their legacy formats. Then they ask what the benefits are. Well, one of them is of course the fact that you’d be able to use your raw files 50 years from now even if your camera manufacturer wasn’t around or decided not to support their file format anymore.

The other added benefit of DNG is that the file size is about 20% smaller than its corresponding Raw file. Is that cool? Yep. But does it install this discomfort in people wondering how they squeeze 20% out of the raw file without doing some quality damage to it? Youbetcha! I can’t blame them either. It sounds hokey to think that you can have a smaller file without some sort of quality loss. Now mind you, there is no loss of quality in the DNG file but again, I’m just telling you what I hear from folks out there and reasons they give for not using or not understanding DNG.

One more thing. DNG file store all of your metadata and raw settings with the file itself – it doesn’t need a sidecar XMP file like raw files do. That’s great and all but I use Lightroom so I don’t have to worry as much about sidecars as I would if I just used Camera Raw. And Lightroom doesn’t automatically update the DNG file if you make changes. You still manually need to go to the Photo menu to save the settings.

Personally, I think the whole DNG thing is a good one. Everyone’s lives would be easier if all raw formats were DNG-like and consistent with each other. We wouldn’t have to worry about where and what programs opened them, and Adobe wouldn’t have the nightmare they have with Camera Raw and Lightroom and all those different file formats they have to support. However, I’m afraid its not catching on (at least from the folks that I talk) to for a few reasons. Here’s why:

1. People don’t like to think 50 years ahead, today. I have trouble just thinking about this weekend And I always figure that if Nikon decides to not support my raw files one day, there’s some 15 year old in his room that’ll code up a raw conversion program in his sleep.

2. I think mentally, we have this barrier that prohibits us from throwing away our raw files. In reality, if you convert to DNG that’s what you’re supposed to do. Throw away the raw files and your DNGs become your new permanent images that you backup for ever and ever. But the raw files came from our camera and for some reason we have this block that just makes us feel like we can never throw them away because, well, they’re the ones straight from our camera. But that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. You’re not supposed to keep raw and DNG because then it gets even more confusing.

3. Speaking about raw and DNG files, don’t even give me the option to embed the original raw file into the DNG. Now I’m taking up almost twice the space of the original file. Again, its confusing. It instills doubt to a newcomer and is one more reason why I may likely just not do it if I have questions about it.

4. Most don’t understand how the DNG file can be 20% smaller than the raw file without losing some kind of quality. Again, it just sounds hokey even though it’s not.

5. There’s just too many scary choices when converting to DNG. If its the latest greatest format that I’m supposed to be using then just do it. Don’t let me see or deal with terms like “Linear Demosaiced”.

So, while I totally get the whole DNG thing and I know its a good thing I still don’t convert to it. I always hope to and I have the best intentions but I just don’t do it. Maybe one day when my camera shoots in the DNG format I’ll make the jump. Or, maybe some one will convince me to do it before then. Who knows?

How about you? What do you do with your raw files? And more importantly, why? Leave a comment and let us know.

Lightroom and the New Year

Happy New Year folks! I hope you all had a safe, happy, and fun holiday. Now its time to get back to work. Here’s a few things for you to consider doing (if you’re not already) when it comes to Lightroom for the new year.

1. Collections – Collections are like little photo albums. They’re a quick easy way for you to always be one click away from your favorite photos. I have a video that talks a little about smart collections here and Scott has a really great post where he talks more about his collection workflow.

2. Delete more photos – One way to help wrangle your Lightroom experience is to simply have less photos in your catalog. I’ve got over 10,000 images in my catalog from 2009. You know how many made it to my portfolio or were sent off to the people I was photographing? Less than 1000. That’s 9000 photos that really don’t serve much of a purpose. A smaller photo library makes it easier on everything – you, your storage devices, and your computer. For you, its less photos to deal with and backup. For your computer, it means a smaller faster catalog. Really try to become a good photo editor and edit down to only your best photos. I’m on my way. I took a couple hundred photos of the family over Christmas and New Years. Last night I sat down and delete a lot of them so now I’m down to about 35. I felt liberated
(kidding of course, but you know what I mean).

3. Print more – Make it a point to print more. And use the Print templates to make it easier. If you’re printing one photo on a page to hang on a wall then Lightroom has some good templates to start with. But if you’ve been on vacation and want to print more photos to a page, start getting creative with print templates to do it. Here’s a video I did a while back that may help but the point is to print more. Even if you just export a bunch of 4×6’s and send them to Costco.

4. Presets – If you’ve just started following this site then you’re missing a couple years worth of Lightroom presets. There’s a nifty little button on the right side called Presets that you can click and see all of them. Give ‘em a try. They’ll really speed things up for you as well as give you some neat ideas for processing your photos.

5. Backup – Lightroom’s preferences have backup options in it. I’ve written about it many times here. I also have an online training course dedicated to backing up Lightroom and your photos. Whatever you do, make sure you start a backup strategy if you haven’t already. Trust me, you’ll sleep better knowing you have.

Presets – How to Steal a Preset and Make it Your Own

First off, I hope you had a Merry Christmas weekend. I had a great time with my family and, of course, my kids got way too much stuff. Anyone else have in-laws that, even though you try to moderate how much you buy your kids (sorry, that Santa brings your kids), they still go out and buy crazy amounts of gifts for them? Its all good though and they had a blast which is what counts.

Anyway, its a vacation week for me but I had an idea for a quick article so I wanted to write about it. Its about stealing. Yep, I said it. Stealing! A while back there was a bit of controversy about a little program that let people see what Lightroom settings were applied to your photo on Flickr. If you followed back then, you may remember that my position on it is that its not stealing. So how can you actually steal a Lightroom preset? Its really not hard and I encourage you to try it. Lets look at mine for example (skip to Step 4 for the real education in this whole thing):

1) First install the preset just as you normally would. We’ll take the Develop module as an example. Let’s say you’ve installed my Fairytale Glow preset from this past November.

2) Now what happens when most people install some one elses preset is that they apply it and it looks cool, but not quite what they imagined. Maybe its too bright. And maybe the vignetting is too strong.

3) Then they apply it to another photo and ya know what? Its too bright again and they’re not crazy about the vignetting.

4) That’s your cue that its time for your own preset. All you have to do is change the Exposure setting and/or change the Vignetting setting to something that seems to work better for you.

5) Then right-click on the preset name in the Presets panel and choose Update with Current Settings. First, give it a cool name – you’re stealing remember, so you don’t want the same name as I use. If you haven’t made any other changes to the preset then its fine to just check everything and click OK. If you have made changes then just turn on those checkboxes and click OK.

That’s it. You’re now a thief You’ve taken something that wasn’t yours and made it your own. I’m joking of course. You didn’t steal crap did you? You’ve merely taken a recipe that I use and modified it to fit your own needs. Happy Thievery!

Q&A – Plug-in Follow Up

The other week I wrote about my all time favorite plug-in of 2009 and asked for your opinions as well. As I read through the comments I saw a lot of questions pop up so I figured I’d cover them today. Here goes:

Q. Lightroom has plug-ins? Did I miss this because I’m still on version 1?
A. Yup! And I gotta tell you. There is not an upgrade of software that I know of in our field that is a no-brainer more than Lightroom 2 over 1. So if you’re still holding out, get it!

Q. Matt, will you do a plug-in workflow video?
A. That’s actually a pretty good idea. Its not going to be revolutionary though. My plug-in workflow is simple. I process the photo in Lightroom, then I jump to Photoshop and do whatever edits I need to there, then I run whatever plug-in on the image, and finally save and jump back to Lightroom. I fit it in when I fit my Photoshop stuff in.

While I have a general order in which I do things (retouching first, and usually sharpening last), I’m not a real stickler for the order in which I do things. If I use, say Nik’s sharpening plug-in, and then decide I want to retouch more or convert to a black and white after, I’m cool with that. I’ve personally never seen it affect my photo negatively. All that said, it would be cool to see it all demonstrated so look for a video on the topic some time soon.

Q. I noticed most plug-ins have Lightroom versions and Photoshop versions. Which one do you use?A. I rarely (almost never) use the Lightroom version of a plug-in. Since all of my photos hit Photoshop at some point I find it easier to just do the plug-in stuff there.

Q. All plug-ins seem to have to work on an exported (JPG, PSD, or TIFF) version of the original raw file. Doesn’t that mean you lose the whole non-destructive-ness aspect of working in Lightroom?
A. Yep! And to the whole non-destructive thing I say Bah Humbug!
Actually, I’m not really a non-destructive purist so it doesn’t bother me to work on an exported copy. Check out a guest blog post I wrote a while back if you want to see my take on the whole non-destructive thing.

I hoped these Q&A’s helped clear a few things up. Feel free to drop a comment if you have any more questions and I’ll try to cover them in the upcoming video. Thanks!

Adobe Updates Lightroom 2.6 and ACR 5.6

Just a quick FYI. Adobe has released Lightroom 2.6 and Adobe Camera Raw 5.6 today. They’re basically updates for new camera so if you fall into that category (Nikon D3s, Canon 7D, etc…) then you’ll want to check it out. Also, a quick note for all the Lightroom 3 beta users out there. This update does not update the Lightroom 3 beta. Its only for Lightroom 2. You can find out more and download the update over at Adobe’s website.

Tip: Black and Whites…Difference Between RAW and JPEG

I know that most of us using Lightroom probably shoot raw most of the time. But I’m constantly importing photos from my point-and-shoot as well and those aren’t i the raw format. Plus, I’ll typically work with photos my family takes and they’re DEFINITELY not in the raw format. So when it comes to black and whites this tip is kinda important. See, if you import a RAW photo into Lightroom, it automatically adds contrast to the photo as part of Lightroom’s RAW conversion process. (If you look in the Tone Curve panel you’ll see that Medium Contrast is selected in the pop-up menu.) However, if you import JPEG photos, there is no contrast applied by Lightroom (Tone Curve is set to Linear). Since, contrast is huge when it comes to Black and Whites then try choosing Medium Contrast from the Point Curve pop-up menu before doing anything else. Heck, even try the Strong Contrast option as it may work well too. The main idea here, though, is that there is no contrast being added by default (like there is with raw files) so you’ll have to do it yourself.

Presets – The Cutting Edge

Its preset time again. This week I’ve got an one with an edgy feel to it. You’ll see it works perfectly for photos like the sample below. Its a little desaturated in nature with some extra exposure and a few other things packed in there. One quick note about the preset that I found was that you’ll probably need to tweak the Exposure setting the most. Depending on the brightness (or lack thereof) of the photo, I found the Exposure setting to be something I had to change significantly for just about everything. I left it pretty bright though since that’s the whole point of the preset is a very over-exposed look so don’t change it too much – just enough so a person’s skin isn’t totally white. I hope you enjoy it!

To install:
1) Unzip the preset zip file on to your desktop
2) Go to the Develop module. NOTE: YOU MUST BE THE DEVELOP MODULE
3) Go to the Presets panel on the left. Right click anywhere in it and choose Import.
4) Select the .lrtemplate files you unzipped in Step 1 and click Import NOTE: DO NOT IMPORT THE ZIP FILE

• Click here to download the presets
• Click here to see a sample of the preset.

My Official Favorite Plug-in of 2009

I thought it’d be fun to find out what everyone’s favorite Lightroom plug-in is. Now, I’m going to kick it off by giving you a very specific one because saying I love Nik’s Color Efex Pro, isn’t very specific. Its got a ton filters in it. So I’ll take it one step further by saying my official favorite most-used plug-in of the last year is the Brilliance/Warmth filter from Nik’s Color Efex. I use it on everything. Seriously, I find the Brilliance part of the filter to work like Vibrance (but just, well, better in most cases) and I like the warming part of it as well. I use it on every single landscape and outdoor photo I have because it just takes the photo that one extra step. Here’s a sample:

OK, so that’s my favorite plug-in. What’s yours? Try to be as specific as possible though. If you love onOne’s PhotoFrame, which frame do you end up using the most, or something along those lines. Thanks!

Cool T-Shirts + Cool Charity

If you’re looking for a great gift (for yourself or any of your photographer buddies) then you should check out these off camera flash t-shirts. Scott Kelby came up with the idea earlier this year and showed it around the office and we all thought it was great. Its geeky but hey, we’re geeks so its fun too. What’s really nice about it is that 100% of the profits will go to a charity (The Springs of Hope Kenya Orphanage). So if you want an early gift to yourself or a friend check out the article on Scott’s blog.

Presets – Fairytale Glow

I want to give a big thanks to everyone who provided some names for today’s preset. I’m actually using a combination of two names that were suggested – Fairytale Glow. I’m really happy with the way that this one came out. I find it works best on portraits (hopefully the name implies that) and photos that tend to be brighter in nature (notice the sky is blown out in the before version already). But give it a try on anything. That’s the cool thing about presets – they’re easy to try and easy to undo if you don’t like it. Let me know what you think.

To install:
1) Unzip the preset zip file on to your desktop
2) Go to the Develop module. NOTE: YOU MUST BE THE DEVELOP MODULE
3) Go to the Presets panel on the left. Right click anywhere in it and choose Import.
4) Select the .lrtemplate files you unzipped in Step 1 and click Import NOTE: DO NOT IMPORT THE ZIP FILE

• Click here to download the presets
• Click here to see a sample of the preset.