Today I installed and tried the update to 9.6.0 Build 43 on my Mac. One of the first things I tried was exporting a RAW file to compressed DNG, and for me, a 60% file shrink without killing image quality is just great.
But the world is not only DXO.
Are these new files still compatible with other image processing tools, or is it a proprietary format that requires DxO PureRaw or PhotoLab?
They should be compatible with any tools compiled with Adobe DNG SDK 1.7.0 or later.
They can be edited further in Capture One 16.7.6 (checked myself) and perhaps some earlier C1 versions. There should be no problem with Lightroom. They donât work yet with Affinity (certainly not with 2.6.5, which I checked myself, and also not with Canva 3 version, as reported by someone in this forum). So far, they donât work with Windows Photos, even with âJPEG XL Extensionsâ installed.
You may also check the following links:
https://www.dxo.com/news/dng-compression/
https://support.dxo.com/hc/en-us/articles/34719400605725-Is-the-new-High-Fidelity-DNG-compression-truly-lossless
https://support.dxo.com/hc/en-us/articles/34450035269277-Why-does-DxO-PhotoLab-now-export-DNG-files-with-only-technical-corrections
https://www.dxo.com/technology/linear-dng/
https://www.dxo.com/news/linear-dng/
I just opened a compressed DNG from DXO in Canva Affinity v4231 Mac - works fine 
Size differences are really impressive.
Sony ARWs from an a7c2: 39.3 MB become 27MB.
Olympus ORFs from my old mft cameras: from 16.8 to 10.8 MB.
These are all good thingsâŚ
Would you personally dare to convert your whole files to the new format? Something like 15 years of work?
Absolutely NO. I archive original RAWs together with PL .DOP files or other settings.
Adobe has bad licensing history and too many lawyers 
I may use them only as intermediate files, if I want to use C1. However, I prefer to use full power of PL and export RGB TIFFs for C1 FaceRetouch only, perhaps some subtle color editing.
Please excuse my ignorance but, the only time I can envisage needing to keep an exported file, would be send it to someone who didnât have a particularly powerful computer.
Even then, my present workflow is to export to TIFF for printing or JPEG for websites or emails, deleting them after use.
What other uses would you need DNG files for?
Many cultural heritage organisations lika museums often standardize in DNG. There is a lot of people around the world using it. Hard to understand why Photolab has problems handle almost anyone elses DNG-exports.
Ah. So, for them, an archived, processed image is worth more than an original, unedited RAW?
That is interesting when compared with journalistic photography, where traceability of origin seems to be all important.
I can see the reasoning for both
Never heard of. Whatâs that?
Latest Affinity Canva seems to be 3.1.
Yes, but the image might not at all be processed just stored as is from scanning och repro photo. The museums often prefer one single standard format instead of houndreds of different RAW-formats.
They have control of the sources and high credibility since they have the analog films in their magazines. For this reason, they have control over credibility in a completely different way than many other actors. When they publish these digitized derivates on their sites we can be pretty sure they can guarantee the provenance too.
There is also a very convenient DNG-property and that is the possibility to process the DNG and bake a processed JPEG of suitable size into the same file. Than you have the RAW-data in the same single file as a JPEG that has been developed from that data. That is why more than one has suggested that photocontests shall use DNG in order to get control over the derivates in order to curb the cheating that has been very common when there is too much at stake for the contenders to handle (fame and/or money).
DNG is also used at least by some police-organizations since it even is possible to add the RAW-file to the same DNG. So DNG really has some unique features that a lot of RAW-huggers have hard to understand sometimes.
I just don´t know why there seem to be so many problems with DXO, Photolab and other converters like for example Capture One when exchanging DNG. Why not just do like I have seen with PhotoMechanic and FotoWare DAM too, by just call the Adobe DNG Converter software directly without any home cocked solutions some seems to have hard to abandon.
Welcome to the world of Adobeâs lobbying, which presents itself as a benchmark for the good of humanity.
To be precise, itâs version 3.1.0, build 4231.
Because many donât want to be dependent on Adobe. In the past â for decades now â it has repeatedly become clear that, whilst Adobe has established an âindustry standardâ such as PostScript or XMP, it has ultimately built in proprietary features to ensure that manufacturers and customers alike have to purchase Adobe licences so that everything works seamlessly with Adobe products. This is how a monopoly is secured. Microsoft has been doing the same for decades with file formats, for example for Office products.
At the start, of course, everything is completely open, customer-friendly and free of charge, and once the standard has been established, the pricing policy is gradually changed.
DNG really has its advantages. Since Open RAW never became an alternative DNG is as good as it gets now. There is nothing wrong with DNG I think in general. The problems are the implementations it seems.
We can think whatever we think about Adobe but where would we have been without them. They have set quite a few standards we are very dependant on today. From what I know XMP (Extensible Marcup Platform) is Adobe and the totally dominant metadata standard today. I can´t even think living without that. The PDF-file standard is a defacto standard for format stable datainterchange.
DNG is the attempt to get rid of the problems with the RAW-format mess. If it does create problems between different converters is more a thing that for example DXO and many others refuse to import files that there are now proprietary import adapters for. If they opened that we would not have that problem. TIFF is Adobe too I think. Adobe is even trying now with CAI and C2PA to create a standard for content credentials and provenence control. Not there yet but at least have taken an initiativa that has brought together tousands of companies to solve this and implement it.
The problem with the RAW Flaw is that the manufacturers will not agree on letting their fenced customers out of their fence. The manufacturers insist even on using unique codes for the RAW in their cameras despite we often can see that the only thing unique of a cameras RAW-format is that code. These codes prevents buyers of every new camera from using them with their normal converters until the RAW-converter manufacturers has found time and the right feeling to implement these adapters. In that special case I don´t blame Adobe either. DNG can really be seen as an attempt of a RAW-converter manufacturer to standardize to one single RAW-format in order to get a single import-format instead of houndreds.
The manufacturers of converters has a little hell to adapt to whatever the camera industry trows at them - not to mention what it costs them and ALL OF US - because in the end it is we consumers that has to pay for this idiotic order. In all this is a sign of how bad this industry is really working.
I have hard to see big american tech as entiredly evil as long as for example United Nation can get their thumbs out of âŚ. The same goes for Google or Microsoft. We can hate Google with all our white hate for a lot they have done and stand for but you can never take that rom them that they have created some sortr of possibility to harness and handle the total mess on Internet.
As long as the worlds standardisation organisations doesn´t step up and set the standards needed to get the industry to work efficiently world wide, I´m very glad Adobe and the other companies that have developed and support all these highly needed de facto standard solutions.
In the imaging industry it is NOT, IBM, Microsoft or any other company that has been the really important company. For me it is really Adobe and Nvidia.