[stevebrot]

In RED. Some data anonymized.

Was this a manual "save" or are you set to automatically write XMP to file?


Steve

[stevebrot]

Thanks. So, why is my EXIF data not showing that information?
Or, how do I get it to show that information?

See my comment above ^ ^ ^

FWIW...my DNGs are similarly without XMP metadata. That said, my exported JPGs are rich with many entries in that section.


Steve

[RGlasel]

The most obvious benefit is to users who use a separate software tool for document management and wish to have a copy of all relevant information with the source file.

Thanks for doing this analysis and nicely steering around the black hole of DMS. In my view, there should be a very clear separation between the files generated by digital cameras and post-processed images; with LR I let it do all organizing of the DNGs on import when it copies files from my camera to a separate hard drive. I don't touch the SD cards until they are full and have been out of the camera for a few months (at which point I format the card) and if I touch a file in LR, I export it as a JPEG or TIFF.

My wife is the staff coordinator for the Yearbook Club at a decent sized high school. She basically uses a digital shoebox for about 10,000 original SOOC JPEGs every year, after 7-8 months of randomly copying images to shared network folders, Dropbox, her two portable hard drives and two of the school board's laptops, that number reaches about 30,000 and managing that pile of bits is ruining our lives. (It drives me crazy watching time get wasted trying to figure out which images have already been edited, hunting for the folder with the pictures of the school musical, etc.) Deciding which photos end up uploaded to the printer's cloud app is like trying to get a money bill passed by the U.S. Congress, it is good that students are involved, but with no logical management of edited images (someone needs to develop GIT for Photos, the "share-everything-with-everyone" model used by Sharepoint and cloud filesharing services is for the birds) it can take months to lock down individual pages in the yearbook.

[MarkJerling]

See my comment above ^ ^ ^

FWIW...my DNGs are similarly without XMP metadata. That said, my exported JPGs are rich with many entries in that section.


Steve

Sorry Steve, that went right over my head. What I will do is go and look a the file sizes between what's on the computer and what's on the memory-card before copying to the computer and opening in Lightroom and I'll report back.

[stevebrot]

Sorry Steve, that went right over my head. What I will do is go and look a the file sizes between what's on the computer and what's on the memory-card before copying to the computer and opening in Lightroom and I'll report back.

It's all OK. I have been deep into the EXIF and other metadata as well as the details of many things DNG for several years and this is all familiar territory. If you want to see LR write to your camera-generated DNG, follow the directions below.

1) Import a throw-away DNG from your camera and wait ten minutes.

2) Select it in the Library module and perform either <CTRL><S> (Windows) or <Command><S> (Mac OS) to manually add the XMP to the DNG and then examine the file metadata. Also note that the file's time stamp will be the same as the when you did the keyboard shortcut to write the XMP.


Steve

[stevebrot]

That said, my exported JPGs are rich with many entries in that section.

This fact saved my bacon several months ago when I accidentally deleted the virtual copies for several important images. With the virtual copies went the record of all the LR post-processing that went into the image creation. Fortunately, I routinely save off most of the LR XMP metadata on export to JPEG or TIFF and was able to apply the XMP from a file published to Flickr to a new virtual copy to recreate the Develop module processing steps. Very cool, eh?


Steve

[Kerrowdown]

Another vote for DNG... that's also what my cameras are set to produce as well.

[MarkJerling]

It's all OK. I have been deep into the EXIF and other metadata as well as the details of many things DNG for several years and this is all familiar territory. If you want to see LR write to your camera-generated DNG, follow the directions below.

1) Import a throw-away DNG from your camera and wait ten minutes.

2) Select it in the Library module and perform either <CTRL><S> (Windows) or <Command><S> (Mac OS) to manually add the XMP to the DNG and then examine the file metadata. Also note that the file's time stamp will be the same as the when you did the keyboard shortcut to write the XMP.


Steve

Thanks. I'll give that a go and report back. (Possibly not before Friday / Saturday)

[PDL]

I really hate XML files, not for any particular reason, but still.

Writing data back into a RAW file (unless it is my decision as with the use of ExifTool) is bad form in my opinion. RAW processors should not be altering the base file - ever. (Note: ExifTool is not a RAW Processor).

So now I have a dual file location workflow, one labeled LR and one not. When I am out in the wild, I use LR to provide family and friends images so they can get some sleep (as my slide shows are want to do). I follow my std workflow of using ExifToolGUI on my old barely alive 2008 laptop to Load up the LensID field for LR to see the appropriate lens. On my last trip I used two manual lenses, a Bower 8mm fisheye and a Vivitar 300mm telephoto. LR does not know how to deal with those lenses so I update the image files, I will also look to see if the K-3II GPS actually geotagged the files and I update them if it is not too much work since Google broke the map interface on ExifToolGUI. I do use LR to create panoramas, but I am starting to lean more towards using Affinity Photo when I get home.

When I get back to my big machine at home, I copy the unaltered version of the files to my primary box and run through the ExifTool method of updating LensID and "fixing" bad GPS. Those files are then imported to Capture One (v20 as of today) without ever having to go through Adobe. Capture One keeps the information about modifications made to the RAW file in the catalogue - as that is what catalogues are for. I have disabled xml files, as I have found over the years that they are a real pain in the patoote to deal with.

What is my point you ask. LR will modify DNG files. Now that Microsoft has released a RAW file codex suit back into Windows 10, I am shooting PEF's so if I do something in LR will not write stuff back into it. (Yes, LR 6.14 will read K-3II files, but later versions - I don't know about)

[stevebrot]

Writing data back into a RAW file (unless it is my decision as with the use of ExifTool) is bad form in my opinion.

I heartily agree and the fact that LR may do so points out a fundamental truth about DNG. Its role as a container for raw capture data is coincidental to its broader purpose within the Adobe universe as a sort of common input "currency" for Adobe products. Yes, DNG may be leveraged by other tools, but with similar proprietary limitations. In other words, DNG as a "digital negative" suffers from limitations similar to that of my film negatives, that being that without my processing notes the negative by itself is of limited value.

What is my point you ask. LR will modify DNG files.

Just a small correction...LR "may" modify DNG if asked to do so or if set to do so as an automated process.


Steve

[newmikey]

...Its role as a container for raw capture data is coincidental to its broader purpose within the Adobe universe as a sort of common input "currency" for Adobe products. Yes, DNG may be leveraged by other tools, but with similar proprietary limitations. In other words, DNG as a "digital negative" suffers from limitations similar to that of my film negatives, that being that without my processing notes the negative by itself is of limited value.

Absolutely! I've never really understood why people were so easily swayed to trust their perfectly good proprietary raw files to a DNG converter or why they would choose to use a camera which limits its raw output to the DNG format. But then I've never stepped into the "Adobe universe" even many years ago before we had such awesome (free) tools such as RT/DT and before Gimp had grown to its current level of competence. Even if you use Adobe products now, who knows they will still do so in a year, five years etc? RT, DT and other converters have no issue today reading and converting even the .BAY raws output by one of my very first digital cameras, the Casio QT4000 and those files on my drive date back to 2003! That is 16 years and counting with zero compatibility issues - I have to see Adobe products repeat that trick.

[Urs]

I store DNG on my HD and backup on external drive. In the beginning I shot mostly jpegs which I regret today since I cant get as much out of those anymore as I can of raw files.