Not all edits done and saved as DNG files seem to be recognized when opened in other programs

DxO PhotoLab
1

I used to develop my Raw files with DxO PhotoLab 5, save as Tiff and afterwards do my edits if necessary to those Tiff files, either in ACDSee or in Affinity Photo. Not long ago, because of comments I read in different forums and because the way in which I read PureRaw is commonly used, I began to save as DNG to further process the resulting files in ACDSee Develop Mode or to edit them in ACDSee’s Edit mode (with which one can open DNG files). I thought this could be a better workflow, until I realized the following:

I processed a RAW file (from a Sony camera) allowing, after choosing the Standard preset, the program to automatically set and correct Denoising, Lens Distortion, Lens Sharpness and also Smart Lighting. The rendering picked by PL 5 was the same as the camera I actually used (so I left it as it was). Then I applied to the image a bit of Cleat View Plus, I did a minimum tweaking in Selective Tone and desaturated and darkened a bit the greens with the HSL tool. Then I saved as DNG (all corrections applied) and just for comparing results, I saved as Tiff as well. The image I could see opened in DXO PL, the thumbnail from the DNG file and the Tiff file saved with DxO all looked the same.

But when I opened this DNG file on ACDSee (either in Develop or Edit mode) and on Affinity Photo (Develop Person/mode), the image did not look the same as how it looked the Tiff file or DNG’s thumbnail as saved by DxO. It looked very much alike the original Raw file (and I can tell because although the corrections applied were subtle, the original image was darker and duller than the processed one, and similarly dull and dark were the images as opened in the other programs mentioned). It seemed as if ACDSee and Affinity Photo were interpreting the original data from the Raw file, not taking into account all or some of the edits previously applied in DxO PL.

Not that no edits are taken into account as I checked. In order to verify, I tried doing some strong edits as could be totally darkening or lighting an image, or exaggerating the use of Clear View or applying a lot of Microcontrast, or other things of the kind, and these more obvious and stronger edits were reflected when opening the corresponding DNG file in the other programs (though I can’t say to what extent and with which amount of exactitude). But more subtle touches as I previously mentioned, seem not to properly or completely show.

Does anybody know why could this be? And if there are or might be certain edits that if made in DxO PL 5 and saved as DNG will afterwards be recognized by other programs, whilst there will be others that won’t? Might this be dependent on the program used to open the DNGs or is it a known issue no matter which program might be used -different from DxO PL- to open the DNG files generated by DXO PL?

I am not facing the same issue as I mentioned here if I save my developed files as Tiff and further work with those, but I would like to know if working with DNG files is somehow worth it, or if I’d better stick to my previous workflow and abandon converting to DNG.

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for a start there is “camera profile” thing … to have same 1:1 rendering you ALSO need to have the same color transform executed in a 3rd party raw converter that opens your DNG files …

PS: that “ALSO” about color transform is obviously necessary but not solely sufficient condition to receive the same rendering

PS2: and even if you will select the same dcp color profile in both converters it will not be a guarantee , as - for example - photolab does not follow dng standard 100% in applying it and the same might be true for a 3rd party raw converter ( so compare with ACR/LR as a “gold” standard )

1 Like
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RGB files like Tif are opened by other raw editors and no settings are applied.
DXO produces linear DNG files, effectively a Tif file in a DNG container. However, the white point is not set and raw converters will open the file as raw file and apply some default processing. Eg C1 applies sharpening which you don’t want. So the raw converter is changing the white point and maybe other settings which is why, I think, you are seeing differences. Some of these settings applied by the raw converter may be “under the hood” so best to use Tif if you are happy with the colours/tones in DXO or be prepared to use the raw converter to set your colours and tone.

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you can export tiff w/o WB applied if your raw converter supports that ( some do ) , so WB is not generally ( OK, not always ) a difference between “tiff” and “dng”

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Auser and IanS,
Thank you for your feedback. Your explanations were very clear. You have dissipated any doubts that I could have had regarding the subject I hereby put forward.

I will do as you firstly said, and I’ll return to follow the workflow I was using before I began to experiment converting to (saving as) DNG. I am happy with the results I achieve with DxO PL 5 so I will process my Raw files with it as I was doing, applying in it all the possible corrections, then I’ll convert to (export/save as) Tiff and if necessary, I’ll further edit the tiff files in ACDSee or Affinity Photo.

The only thing that I ought to take into account is that if I want to edit a Tiff file in ACDSee’s Develop mode, I’ll have to first open it in Affinity Photo and directly export as Tiff in order to convert the two pages Tiff files (delivered by DxO PL) into one-page Tiff files. ACDSee’s Develop mode can’t open a two pages Tiff files (which is what DxO exports to). ACDSee´s Edit mode can open two pages Tiff files, put it saves them as they were (again two pages in the case of the ones issued by DxO PL).

I will export as Tiff which has been for a long time my usual workflow.

Thanks again.