Usefulness of embedded RAW file in DNG file

[Marc St.Onge]

If the DNG file is a better version of the RAW file (NEF, in my case) then what use is embedding the RAW file while converting it to DNG?  Isn't that just doubling the file size for nothing?

I'm still in the middle of reading the DAM book, so maybe I haven't gotten to the answer yet but I'm too impatient to wait .

Marc

[AlanDunne]

Hi,

in general Peter recommends that you do not imbed the original RAW file. He gives some examples where it may make sense to do so. For example, for higly rated files where you feel that the camera vendors s/w would do a better job of rendering the RAW, you could save the original RAW in the DNG for archival purposes. This avoids having sidecar xmp files associated with the RAW.

I know that I have some images that require the use of the RAW converter in DXO. For these I have a special label in bridge that I use to indicate separate processing to use the save embedded original raw feature in ACR.

Others on other forums have also indicated that there may be some EXIF data that can be read by the vendor s/w that are not sufficiently documented to include in the DNG converter. If you think this EXIF may be important, then this could be another reaon,

I believe Peter would concur that this is a feature that should be used sparingly ... unless you own shares in a disk drive company!

Cheers ... Alan

[peterkrogh]

Right on, Alan.
Peter

[johnbeardy]

Are you sure about this?

Others on other forums have also indicated that there may be some EXIF data that can be read by the vendor s/w that are not sufficiently documented to include in the DNG converter. If you think this EXIF may be important, then this could be another reaon.

I thought that this undocumented EXIF (I assume the Makernote data) was extracted regardless of whether you embed the original, and that later versions of DNG converter may be able to extract some of this info. So this wouldn't be a reason for embedding.

[peterkrogh]

John,
While this information is saved, there is no good current way to get at it.  So if you want to have that Max Aperture data, then the only practical ways to keep it ire:

Embed the original File (lots of resources for a small amount of data).

You could also use the XML export script from http://www.barredrocksoftware.com and keep the data in a much more convenient size.