Saving RAW Files in Adobe’s Digital Negative (DNG) Format

At this point in time, there’s a concern with the RAW file format because there’s not a single, universal format for RAW images—every digital camera manufacturer has its own. That may not seem like a problem, but what happens if one of these camera companies stops supporting a format or switches to something else? Seriously, what if a few years from now there was no easy way to open your saved RAW photos? Adobe recognized this problem and created the Digital Negative (DNG) format for long-term archival storage of RAW images.

Step One:

As of the writing of this book, only a few major camera manufacturers have built in the ability to save RAW files in Adobe’s DNG format (although we believe it’s only a matter of time before they all do); so if your camera doesn’t support DNG files yet—no sweat—you can save your RAW files to Adobe DNG format from right within the Camera Raw window. Just open your image in Camera Raw and hit the Save Image button at the bottom left of the window. This brings up the Save Options dialog, which saves your RAW file to DNG by default.