Here is a humorous photo of a coworker and friend of mine supplicating before the oracle of print . Sometimes you gotta appeal to vanity to get something done. And it generally works. Suckas.

Just another day in the development of Lightroom...

Ok, so it was just a setup - a joke if you will - playing on the funny relationship designers and their engineering counterparts go thru daily to bring you good (and sometimes not so good) software.

Moving on to the question of DNG.

I get asked that a lot by photographers wondering why they should convert their proprietary raw files to Adobe's DNG standard. The answer is fairly easy: its free, its open and its archival. I convert all pictures (well at least the ones not coming native DNG from my M8) to DNG as part of the import process in Lightroom. It takes a bit of extra time, but it ensures your pictures will be readable in the future, which is the reason many important workflow gurus suggest likewise. On the Adobe Creative Suite podcast this week, Terry White covers this "To DNG or not to DNG" question...

So, in short, convert to DNG and be happy. Its self-contained, its archival and it saves you space, and if you are smart and do it as you import images, the process is automatic.

Tags:Lightroom, Adobe