Converting CRW to DNG - how to copy over metadata

[timag]

So I noticed that some of the software I use doesn't reliably support the CRW files from my old Canon 300D. I found that converting them to DNG with Adobe's converter works really well in fixing this. So going forward I want to only use the DNG versions of the files, backup the CRW's and remove the CRW's from my computer to save disk space.

All of the CRW files are in my iMatch database with categories and geo-data attached to them. They are spread over a large number of folders named by shot date. I already did the conversion and the DNG files are in the same directory as the originals. I am thinking about the best strategy for handling this in iMatch. I imagine the next steps in iMatch to be:

• Copy the categories and geo-data across
• Remove the CRW files from the database

I am not sure what the best way to do step 1 is. Re-doing the categories or even copying the categories file by file is way too much work. I've been thinking about using versions or buddy settings for this, but I'm not sure what happens once I remove the originals from the database.

Does anyone have experience with this and/or can point me in the right direction?

[Mario]

Sigh. Another one of those great proprietary RAW files "benefit". Some of the software I use does not support CRW files from my old camera.
This will be more and more the case in the future, when software vendors abandon support for older RAW formats.
RAW is not something you use for long-term archival.

Adobe copies all metadata that can be safely copied from the CRW to the DNG, correct? Did you verify that?

What do you mean by "geo-data attached to them."?
If you have added GPS coordinates in IMatch and written back, the coordinates will be in the XMP file.
Does Adobe Converter see the coordinates and copy them into the DNG?

I would make a file relation with CRW as the master and DNG as the version.
Make it Propagate rating, label XMP and Categories.
Refresh relations and verify that the DNG files show as versions.
Select a CRW and propagate via F4,P.
Check that GPS coordinates and categories have been propagated.

[thrinn]

I think Versioning is the way to go for this task:

• Set up a File Relation rule which detects the DNG as a version of the corresponding CRW file. IMPORTANT: Make sure that you create a Versioning rule, not a buddy rule!
• Configure the rule in the Versioning tab to propagate the categories you want. Maybe check if there is something else you have to propagate. I would assume that things like EXIF, Keywords, and other XMP metadata are preserved by the DNG conversion, but better to check it twice.
• Select the master CRWs and trigger the propagation (F4,P).

It is important that you use a Versioning rule. After everything has been propagated to the DNG files, you can safely remove the original CRWs from your database.
Using a Buddy file relation instead would NOT be a good a idea in your case because buddy files would be removed together with their master.

Categories (with the exception of @Keywords) are only contained in the database. But geo-data is part of the file metadata. The File Relation Versioning tabs includes a special option for "XMP Location data", but this does not include the GPS coordinates (only Country, City, Location etc.). Please make sure to check if the GPS coordinates are already available in the DNG files from the conversion process. If not, you have to propagate more XMP data than "XMP Location data".

And as always, especially when removing files from the database: Make a backup of the database before, and check with some test files.

EDIT: Ok, Mario was faster to answer (again...)

[timag]

I wrote the post after I did some testing with some files. The GPS data was there, and I assumed it was because of the metadata propagation from the versioning I tested. However looking at other DNG files (which I didn't use for testing) it was because the DNG converter properly copied over all GPS data before I even did anything in iMatch. So you are right Mario, the GPS and all the other original metadata is already in the DNG files.

So now I just need to look at the categories and other things I added in iMatch. I did some testing with versioning and propagation, that seems to work so far! I'll do some more checking and testing with this over the coming days. I will definitely test removing the CRW files from the database to see what happens to the categories and other properties I copied over.

Thanks a lot for responding so swiftly Mario and Thrinn!

If this works I will probably also start converting all of the cr2 data from my 30D and original 7D.

[Mario]

Removing the master after you have propagated the categories will do nothing. The categories remain assigned to the versions.

[timag]

Thanks for confirming that!