LR v. 5.7 wont convert .cr2 files to .dng

[waimeagirl]

I have recently utilized SanDisk RescuePro to recover some files from a card pushed to its capacity limits.

The images were recovered and uploaded to my mac and transfered into lightroom running v.5.7.

They all imported as .cr2 files.  I have done the v.5.7 protocol for changing the files and it is not working.

(library>convert to dng)

I get a 'error file can not be converted' message.

Any help would be appriciated.

One misc web result mentioned upgrading to a newer version may solve conversion bugs?

Thank you in advance for any help or suggestions.

[John Waller]

Which Canon camera did the files come from? Despite having the same CR2 file format name, CR2 files are unique to every camera model.

Different versions of Lightroom support different cameras. You need the minimum version shown in this table to read the CR2 files from your camera.

Cameras supported by Camera Raw

[waimeagirl]

Thank you for the promt reply John.

Captures came from a 6D

With gratitude and Aloha,

Elin

[John Waller]

That's an older model supported since Lightroom 4.3. Should be no issues with Lightroom 5.7.

My next suspect would be SanDisk RescuePro.

Can you try uploading one of the rescued CR2 files to Dropbox or similar and post a link so someone here can take a look?

[GoldingD]

1 of 4

When you look in the link John Waller provided you will see that for a Canon 6D the following is required:

ACR: 7.3 (PS would use this, not your Lightroom)

Lightroom: 1.0 (that is the Cloud Based program latest being v 2.3)

Lightroom Classic: 4.4 (The Desktop program, in this case the subscription model,mind you it did not first come out with that old of a version number, latest is v 8.3.1)

Lightroom Perpetual: 4.3 (The original desktop program, what you have, now discontinued, last version was 6.14. And you stated you have 5.7, Note, I think v5.7.1 was the final v 5 Update, and you cannot upgrade past v5.7.1 to say v6.14 as that is no longer sold)

So, your copy should work

[GoldingD]

2 of 4

Please accomplish the following as to verify your version (note, it is possible, but not likely to have multiple versions)

In Lightroom, click on Help, click System Information, clcik on Copy. Paste that into a reply

[GoldingD]

3 of 4

When you attempt to import, can yous succeed if you do not Copy as DNG?  If instead you do a straight up Copy?

[GoldingD]

4 of 4

And if that did not work, Can you, outside of Lightroom, copy the images to your hard drive, And then import them into Lightroom via ADD?

[JP Hess]

My only thought is why even worry about converting to DNG if you don't need to? Just work with the original CR2 files.

[GoldingD]

JimHess  wrote

My only thought is why even worry about converting to DNG if you don't need to? Just work with the original CR2 files.

Hence my inquiry, And if the OP can import the CR2 files, then perhaps export to DNG if the OP just has to work with DNG

But is the import Copy as DNG the full problem???

[waimeagirl]

Many thanks for your replies Jim and David,

I am in no way an experienced LR user.

I have been a hobbist photographer for many years only very shallowly scratching the surface of the depths of Lightroom.

Research years ago led me to convert the cr2 files to dng as a way to save space.

Typically when I upload from my data cards they are done so with my presets.

Something did not trigger LR to import them as it usually does and imported them from the recovered SanDisk program as a jumble of Cr2 and Jpeg.

Being that my entire catalog is now dng I would like to keep the files consistent which is my only real need to do it.

That LR v5.7 is giving me a error message only on the recovered files prompted the inquiry.

It is very possible it is 100% user error and that in my blurry eyed distress of the possibility of

loosing a brilliant collection of shots from a amazing music festival weekend I failed to get it right.

Chalk it all up to learning as I go.

Thank you so much for making the time to dish out knowledge here on the forum.

[GoldingD]

waimeagirl  wrote

Many thanks for your replies Jim and David,

I am in no way an experienced LR user. 

I have been a hobbist photographer for many years only very shallowly scratching the surface of the depths of Lightroom.

Research years ago led me to convert the cr2 files to dng as a way to save space. 

Typically when I upload from my data cards they are done so with my presets.

Something did not trigger LR to import them as it usually does and imported them from the recovered SanDisk program as a jumble of Cr2 and Jpeg.

Being that my entire catalog is now dng I would like to keep the files consistent which is my only real need to do it.

That LR v5.7 is giving me a error message only on the recovered files prompted the inquiry.

It is very possible it is 100% user error and that in my blurry eyed distress of the possibility of

loosing a brilliant collection of shots from a amazing music festival weekend I failed to get it right.

Chalk it all up to learning as I go.

Thank you so much for making the time to dish out knowledge here on the forum.

Most of us here are hobbyist.

If you want DNG fine, mind you DNG can take more space, but not so much to be an issue

Anyhow, how about the inquiry's on what happens when you do not first convert to DNG, and when you copy outside of LR then import via ADD. If you can get the CR2 files working in LR, then they can later be converted to DNG.

This may or may not be a Copy as DNG issue, it might be a image recovery issue.

Also the inquiry to verify and post your working LR version.

[JP Hess]

I hope you can work out any problems you may have caused inadvertently. However, if you find that you eventually have to work with the original raw files you will discover that you will not have "lost" anything. There shouldn't be any concern about file format consistency. The DNG file is a raw file as well. And Lightroom treats them exactly the same. I think you will find that there won't be any discernible difference between the two.

Of course, this won't matter or apply since you are using Lightroom 5.7. But in the new updated version of Lightroom there is a feature called Enhance Details That can be applied to original raw files but CANNOT be applied to DNG files. Running that feature creates a DNG file, but the future cannot be applied to a DNG file. The only time I choose to create DNG files is out of necessity, and that is not very often.

[Rob_Cullen]

CANNOT be applied to DNG files.

JimHess Can you explain more, thanks Jim.

I use DNG files always. The 'Enhance' feature does run and create a second DNG file version. Very slight changes are obvious if I use Photoshop and the 'Difference' blend mode to compare the two DNG file layers. So it seems to work for me- with DNG files!

davidg36166309   And David-

DNG can take more space

Is that more than JPG?  I have never known DNG to use more space than proprietary raws.

To the OP waimeagirl411

I have known of problems where the photos were originally imported into Lightroom as DNG, but the recovered files are now in the camera CR2 format so Lr does not recognize them. The basic answer to this would be to use the (external) Adobe DNG Converter program to convert the recovered CR2s to DNG. (Changed Filenames would be a "Spanner in the works"!)

In the final analysis-

I get a 'error file can not be converted' message.

This would possibly mean that recovery has not been successful to fully re-build the data in the files.

[Per Berntsen]

WobertC  wrote

davidg36166309    And David-

DNG can take more space

Is that more than JPG?  I have never known DNG to use more space than proprietary raws.

I use Nikon and Fujifilm and cameras, shooting raw files with lossless compression, which I routinely convert to DNG using the DNG converter before importing in Lightroom.

The DNG files converted from Nikon NEF files are 15 - 25% smaller than the original raw files.

The DNG files converted from Fuji RAF files are 4 - 5% larger than the original raw files.

My guess is that the RAF format uses more effective compression than the NEF format, and that the DNG compression is much better than NEF, but not quite as good as RAF.

There is an option in the DNG converter to use lossy compression, which creates very small files.

Choosing that option also activates an option to reduce the pixel dimensions of the converted file.

There is also an option to embed the original raw file in the DNG, which will roughly double the file size.

Unless lossy compression is used, there is no quality loss involved when converting to DNG.

The image part of the file is not changed at all, so an original raw file and a DNG converted from the raw file will always display identically.

[JP Hess]

Now that's interesting because I tried a while back to use that feature on DNG files and Lightroom wouldn't do it, so I assumed that it wouldn't work on DNG files. After I read your response this morning I tried it again and it DOES work now on my computer. So I have formed a wrong opinion/understanding about that feature. I apologize for my misinformation. Thank you for setting me straight.