Can LR ever "damage" the original RAW files?

[Sgt_Strider]

I know that LR is a non-destructive editing and organizational program, but is there a way in which LR will ever save any changes to the RAW file itself? I just want to know it so that I don't accidentally save anything over the RAW and forever lose the original.

What other effects "ctrl+s" command will do besides saving a XMP file? I just did that earlier and I notice that an XMP file is created, but I'm not sure what else was saved. Thanks!

 

[Victoria Bampton]

I asked the same question recently.

Technically it's possible for a file to become corrupted while being rewritten, such as when saving to a file type with embedded xmp (jpeg, tiff, psd, dng) or when writing updated capture time to a proprietary raw (you can turn that off in prefs), although the image data *should* still be quite safe and rescueable.

If that happens, it's not actually Lightroom messing up, that's as a result of a hardware problem. Adobe have investigated loads of 'Lightroom corrupted my files' cases and they've all turn out to be hardware issues.

Files can become corrupted at any time in transfer or moving - even if the transfer or move appears to have gone smoothly, so DVD backups are always the first thing I do.

This will be one of the biggest benefits of DNG - there's now a validation string which will very quickly allow you to confirm whether there is even 1 byte of corruption introduced into any of your files after they've been converted to DNG. ImageVerifier is the only program really taking advantage of it at the moment, but hopefully it will be added to Lightroom in the future (so anyone who likes the idea, put in Official Feature Request Forms!!!!)

 

[Sgt_Strider]

Victoria,

So I'm guessing you've converted all your RAW files into DNG?

 

[Victoria Bampton]

I have now! I sat on the fence for a long time. My initial DVD backups are still proprietary raw files, but all working files are now DNG. Best of both worlds.

 

[Kiwigeoff]

I have now! I sat on the fence for a long time. My initial DVD backups are still proprietary raw files, but all working files are now DNG. Best of both worlds.

Took a while, is this anew leaf for a new year????????:cheesy::cheesy::cheesy:

 

[Sgt_Strider]

I know the whole original RAW and DNG topic have been debated to death, but do you guys feel DNG is ready for prime time action? Over at the Dpreview forum, I've heard about subtle differences in colour between DNG and the original RAW files. Do you guys feel the difference is enough not to convert to DNG?

 

[Victoria Bampton]

I just finished writing an article for a magazine on DNG - and therefore had to finish researching it properly, which convinced me. I've still got one finger on the fence - my first DVD backups will remain proprietary for the foreseeable future, just in case something comes out of the woodwork, but I can't foresee major issues and the pros for working files outweigh any cons.

Re: dpreview - there shouldn't be any differences in colour whatsoever - if you're not converting to linear, then it's just the same mosaic data in a tidy new wrapper.