Retain RAW or convert to dng

[Keith_Bauer]

I don’t see any reason to convert to DNG files. It takes extra time on import and for the “advantages” listed, isn’t worth the effort. If you look at the space differences, it simply doesn’t add up to me to deal with the conversions. While DNG’s don’t need an XMP sidecar, it is also advisable to not write those in LR for performance reasons. In addition, that means you are responsible for backing up the thousands of XMP files for each file in your catalog. If that option is off, the processing info is in the catalog and of course LR has a method the backup the catalog for you each time you exit if desired. I’ve never bought the argument that you need the XMP files in case the catalog becomes corrupted. That’s exactly why you back it up regularly. If you really need to access the RAW files with multiple applications on your computer and need the XMP’s then that could be a reason to write them. If it is just to share an occasional RAW file with someone with the processing instructions, all that is needed is to do an LR Export of the Original file (choose that as the file type) and LR will extract the processing information from the catalog and write the XMP for that file.