Today’s Question: Speaking of converting to the Adobe DNG format, if I’ve not been using this option during import into Lightroom Classic, is it possible to convert images to DNG after the fact? Do I then need to delete the original raw captures?
Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can most certainly convert proprietary raw captures to the Adobe DNG file format any time after they have been imported into your Lightroom Classic catalog using the “Convert Photos to DNG” command.
More Detail: If you decided after importing proprietary raw captures into Lightroom Classic that you actually want to convert those images to the Adobe DNG (Digital Negative) format, you can most certainly do so with ease using the “Convert Photos to DNG” command.
To get started, navigate to the folder that contains the images you want to convert, switch to the grid view, and select all images you want to convert. In most cases I would suggest converting all raw captures in a given folder to the Adobe DNG format, but you can select a subset of the images in a particular folder if you prefer, for example.
With the applicable raw captures selected go to the menu and choose Library > Convert Photos to DNG. This will bring up the Convert Photos to DNG dialog, where the title bar will include an indication of the number of photos that are selected for conversion.
In the Source Files section, I recommend keeping the “Only convert Raw files” checkbox turned on, so that other file formats such as JPEG images will not be converted. I also recommend turning on the “Delete originals after successful conversion” checkbox so the original raw captures will be deleted once they are converted successfully to DNG. If you leave this checkbox turned off, the raw captures will not be deleted from the hard drive, but they will be removed from the Lightroom Classic catalog. If you take this approach and don’t want the raw captures taking up space on your hard drive, you will need to manually delete the raw files and their applicable XMP files (but not the DNG files of course) through the operating system.
In the DNG Creation section you can configure you preferred options for the Adobe DNG files that will be created as part of this process. Then click the OK button and the selected raw files will be converted to the Adobe DNG file format. If you chose not to delete the proprietary raw captures as part of the conversion, just keep in mind that the raw files will still be taking up space on your hard drive, but will not be reflected in the Lightroom Classic catalog.
