[Digikam-users] tags/keywords between Adobe Lightroom and Digikam

[Andrew Goodbody]

On 01/01/12 18:30, Ozzy wrote:
> This is a piece of info I previously posted in this mail list:
> "... Elle, just out of curiosity. What do you have against DNG? The way
> I see DNG's is as a secure way to store your negatives. I use Canon, so
> if one day Canon decides to stop supporting cr2 format I already have my
> negatives in an open-source digital negative format."

CR2 is supported already by open source programs. I do not need Canon to 
continue support for CR2, the open source community has already stepped 
up and developed the support. There is no program that I want to use 
that will accept DNG and not CR2. Canon's continued support or not is 
irrelevant.

> DNG is an open source format. CR2 is not. I keep converting all my CR2
> files to DNG. An extra step that gives me some added piece of mind.

The conversion of CR2 to DNG is not perfect. Particularly manufacturer 
metadata is not well supported. So you are losing information by doing 
the conversion unless you are embedding the original CR2 in the DNG in 
which case you are just doubling the storage needs. The support for CR2 
by open source may improve in the future in which case using the 
original CR2 will benefit from that. If you have already converted to 
DNG, then you will not benefit from future improvements.

Conversion of CR2 to DNG provides no benefit and has known down sides. 
Why would that give you peace of mind?

Andrew