P: Provide an option to replace DNG files with JPG and delete DNGs

[MarvinHeston]

Hi,

Mostly a commercial photographer these days, but also have a ton of personal work, as well as hundreds of wedding.   

I would like to open an old catalog from a job 5+ years ago and convert all the DNG files to JPG placing them back in the same catalog and keeping all their tags, keywords, and Library settings, etc - and blow away the DNGs.

So is there a way that I'm not finding to "export" the DNGs to JPG into the same catalog and then blow away the DNGs to save Terabytes of storage?

[COBill]

2 steps

Export with the keep in catalog option selected.

Search for all *. dng and Remove with the Delete From Disk option.

[MarvinHeston]

@bill_3305731 thanks, that's a great way to handle 1 or 2 catalogs... but I'm talking about 7-800 catalogs so I was hoping there would be a more automated way to handle it.  Thanks for the info.

[TheDigitalDog]

You can accomplish pretty much everything you want (within reason) but with multiple steps. 

Of course you export all the DNGs as a JPEG (size, color space) you setup. 

You can then create a Smart Collection that only locates the DNGs and not JPEGs and delete them.

When you say keep all settings; keywords, ratings, color labels, metadata will all be maintained within the new JPEGs. And or course, you can import those JPEGs. 

[merrymar]

@andrew_rodney That may not tell the whole story. Pls read this first to sort out what will be in the JPG files, and/or in the DNGs which hold all the metadata types; http://www.lightroomfanatic.com/export/what-is-not-included-in-lightroom-xmp-files/

Just FYI, I've been exporting from DNGs to a subfolder named JPGs for a decade in order to deliver content to clients. Recently, because these are not precious files to be revisited ever, I deleted the tens of thousands of DNGs, then moved the JPGs into the superior-level folder that already has the project name, and deleted the empty JPG-named folder. This is not likely to be automatable but I had only several hundred folders to do this on and now I do it soon after delivery to the client.

[TheDigitalDog]

You may notice Don, I said ”within reason”. Does the JPEG contain edit history? No, nor could it be used, it's rendered. Why would Marvin need and what could he do with an edit history outside the raw/DNG? Nothing. Same with VCs and snapshots which can and I would recommend should be saved as DNGs. Ditto again with stacks.

What is saved as data in the JPEG is what is useful in a JPEG. 

The idea of deleting a raw for a JPEG just to save space, considering the cost of drive space is akin to trashing film originals because I made a print. I'd never do so. But it's your data so by all means.

[merrymar]

@andrew_rodney And you may notice that I said cautiously "may" and "whole story". I think you're making a decision for the poster about whether the things that you note are irrelevant to JPGs or not for him.

I refer to your saying "...keep all settings; keywords, ratings, color labels, metadata..." - which is what caught my attention.

I like full information about what I'm about to do - which in his case, is a very large and irreversible operation. Sorry if that wasn't your intent but I thought we'd benefit from a short discussion. Thanks.

[TheDigitalDog]

Making no decisions for the OP: simply answering him factually.

[MarvinHeston]

Andrew and Don, you both make valid points.  Thank you both for your input.  As for saving space that is exactly where I'm headed.  I've currently got over 42 Terabytes of photo and rather than drop $5-$7K on another raid system I'd just as soon keep processed jpgs and blow away the DNGs... but then I grew up shooting chromes where post-processing was virtually non-existent.  Sure I'll keep some of my work as RAW, but most of them will go the way of my 60,000+ chromes, scanned and tosssed.  :-0.

[mrg-design]

It would be much better if Lightroom Classic could compress the source image (RAW, DNG, TIFF etc.) into the new JPEG XL format, retain the full bit depth (JPEG XL allows up to 32 bits instead of 8 bits) and keep the entire develop settings and metadata. This could save a lot of storage space and still give us the full development flexibility as with the initial RAW.