Skip to main content
lumosWei
Participant
February 17, 2023
Open for Voting

P: Add Option to Export DNG Files with "Only Final Color Adjustments"

  • February 17, 2023
  • 4 replies
  • 507 views

I hope that an optional feature to export DNG files with "only final color adjustments" can be added, as I sometimes need to share the final color-adjusted images without including Lightroom's adjustment configurations, which can be achieved with TIF files. I hope to have your support on this matter!

4 replies

JohanElzenga
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 18, 2023

So if I understand you correctly, then you want to export as a DNG that does have the final color adjustments, but 'baked in' (like in a JPEG) so all the sliders are at zero when you import this DNG? That is not possible. You cannot 'bake in' adjustments in an exported DNG, because that DNG contains raw data and raw data are never altered by Lightroom. You will have to export a JPEG or TIFF to do this. You could later convert the TIFF to DNG, but that does not make a lot of sense.

 

-- Johan W. Elzenga
Community Expert
February 18, 2023

You want to exclude the adjustment history from the dng file? The history is already not there if you use Lightroom Desktop as that doesn't store any history contrary to Lightroom Classic which records every step. Or are you perhaps wishing to bake in the edjustment settings so that the image comes in looking like it did in Lightroom but with all sliders set to zero? That is only possible if you render out to a tiff as you would have to modify the data in the file to do this, not just the adjustment parameters which are stored seperately. Saving as dng by default does NOT touch the raw data but simply copies the raw data over (and recompresses in the dng compression scheme) and saves the adjustment parameters along this in the metadata for the dng file.

It is possible to use camera raw and photoshop to generate a new camera profile that encompasses the settings you did and will change the new zero'ed starting point to those settings but it is a very circumtuitous approach and does not involve dng files.

lumosWei
lumosWeiAuthor
Participant
February 18, 2023

Sorry, I may not have expressed myself clearly. I hope that this additional switch can export DNG images that have been adjusted without including LR adjustment configuration options.

 

For example, if the switch is turned on and the image is exported as adjusted DNG, and then this DNG image is imported into LR, its adjustment style should be fixed to the state at the time of export, without any options for restoration. So, in LR, it should be treated as a completely new photo without any adjustment history parameters.

 

 

In other words, it is like exporting a high-quality JPG and converting it to a DNG.

 

 

JohanElzenga
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 17, 2023

Please explain what you mean. If you export an image as DNG, you will always get the final color adjustments, but included in the metadata, not applied to the image pixels. I'm not sure what you mean with "without including Lightroom's adjustment configurations, which can be achieved with TIF files" however.

 

-- Johan W. Elzenga