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How do you convert your Mavic's .DNG photos to JPEG format?

Palmary

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G'day everyone,

Can anybody recommend a program to convert .DNG photos from Mavic 2 Pro to .JPG for upload to Shutterstock?

I've googled it, but it comes up with many converting online options, which I wouldn't really like to use as I'll be sending my images away with no control of what happens with them later, and a number of codecs to download. The downloadable codec looks like a good option, but I'm not sure which ones are the genuine pieces of software not loaded with trojans, spyware, etc.

P.S. I do not have any expensive photo/video editors like Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, etc. so using one of those programs is not an option.

Cheers
 
Can anybody recommend a program to convert .DNG photos from Mavic 2 Pro to .JPG for upload to Shutterstock?
... P.S. I do not have any expensive photo/video editors like Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, etc. so using one of those programs is not an option.
If you aren't doing any editing of your images, why don't you just go into your camera settings and change them so the camera shoots in jpg format and just leave it at that?
 
G'day everyone,

Can anybody recommend a program to convert .DNG photos from Mavic 2 Pro to .JPG for upload to Shutterstock?

I've googled it, but it comes up with many converting online options, which I wouldn't really like to use as I'll be sending my images away with no control of what happens with them later, and a number of codecs to download. The downloadable codec looks like a good option, but I'm not sure which ones are the genuine pieces of software not loaded with trojans, spyware, etc.

P.S. I do not have any expensive photo/video editors like Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, etc. so using one of those programs is not an option.

Cheers

Edit: Disregard my advice.

Adobe DNG Converter. Free. Link below:

 
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Adobe DNG Converter
Adobe DNG Converter does not convert from DNG to JPG. It's for converting camera raw files to DNG
 
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I think it's important to understand what a dng file actually is because it's not just another image format similar to jpeg you can easily convert from. When a camera produces a jpeg file it's obviously quick and convenient but it has to throw away some of the original image data in the process and if you want to edit the file afterwards you're much more limited in what you can do.

A dng file or raw is a digital negative (hence the dng name) which saves as much of the sensor data as possible but because it's just raw data it's not as convenient as a jpeg file and you have to process it by putting it through an editing program and choosing the options you want to then produce a jpeg file. It's more time consuming but it's possible to produce much better images especially with the Mavic 2 Pro's larger sensor.

I've not use it myself but I see recommendations for Rawtherapee for free raw image development.
 
If you aren't doing any editing of your images, why don't you just go into your camera settings and change them so the camera shoots in jpg format and just leave it at that?
I'm not doing any processing now, but I would like to have an option to do it later down the track.
 
I'm not doing any processing now, but I would like to have an option to do it later down the track.

Mavic can generate both JPGs + DNGs. Just a setting in the app. This makes it possible to edit the DNG files on a later moment. I do shoot everything in JPG + DNG. So I'm able to optimize the best shots. But most shots are fine in JPG.
 
I've not use it myself but I see recommendations for Rawtherapee for free raw image development.

From the first glance, Rawtherapee looks like exactly what I need at this stage. I'll read more about them and hope it'll get me sorted.
Thanks for your advice!
 
Mavic can generate both JPGs + DNGs. Just a setting in the app. This makes it possible to edit the DNG files on a later moment. I do shoot everything in JPG + DNG. So I'm able to optimize the best shots. But most shots are fine in JPG.

That's a very good point. Silly me... I should have picked the JPG + DNG option in the settings to start with... but better later then never, they say :)
 
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I use raw and jpg as well so I've the benefits of both, it uses a bit more storage but these days it's not that limited or expensive.

I used to shoot jpeg only and never had any success with processing raw files which I found frustrating as my processed files were worse than the jpegs the camera produced. However I bought a newer camera which had a fantastic sensor and a poor jpeg engine since the manufacturer assumed owners would only use raw, I bought a book and sat down working my way through raw files and I'm glad I did. Many photos can be easily improved with just a slight white balance tweak and with the Mavic 2 Pro there's a lot of highlight and shadow detail you can recover which I find useful since landscape shots will often have bright skies and dark foregrounds.
 
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Agreed, at first I found the DNG images very disappointing: not sharp, bad contrast etc. But after some practice I do prefer them. Tried Gimp and RAWTherapee, but found both difficult to use. I'm a fan of Luminar 4 now. Easy to create and export very good JPG's.
 
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I use Affinity Photo on my iPad. It is very intuitive to use once you get used to it, and I see now that it's $9.99 on the App Store. That's half what I paid. Highly recommended.

Affinity Photo allows you to open and edit your RAW images as you would like, and then they can be 'Developed' into whatever image format you would like, including JPEG.

Affinity – Professional Creative Software
 
I still use the old standalone version of Lightroom which I had a quick hunt for and seems you can't buy it any more only the subscription version. I initially chose Lightroom because it's extremely well supported with easy to find books and guides.

I've posted this shot quite a few times here but I think it's an easy example to show what's possible with raw, the top shot is the automatic processed shot and the lower one is with the shadow detail recovered:

MavicPro2_Compared-X3.png


This isn't from the drone but shows how much a difference WB makes, the first shot is the automatic WB and the second is it adjusted:

WB_Compared-X3.png


You can set the white balance in camera to get the same result but crucially you have to remember to change it each time and it can be difficult to get the white balance correct at times, in this case I simply chose a white spot on the image and it correctly adjusted it for me.
 
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