DNG vs PEF

Whilst I agree with your workflow I generally leave point 3 out. You only shrink the file by about 3Mb. Time taken to compress several file vs the low price of disk space these days is it really worth bothering?
Also what does windows actually do to the file to gain that extra 3Mb, does it give any data loss when doing it?

I only use DNG now as RAW has slight compression applied to it. Look at some old raw file sizes from ist type DSLRs and they vary from 9.6 to 10.4Mb.

Rodger,
The *ist-D series did not apply any compression The variance is the size of the embedded JPG thumbnail. To clarify some matters:

* The *ist-D used 2-bytes per pixel resulting in huge PEF files. The top 4 bits are zero - wasted space!
* The *ist-DS and later use 1.5-bytes (12-bits) per pixel for the PEF
* The K10D PEF uses lossless compression to squeeze the size down
* Adobe DNG has the option of using lossless Huffman encoding/compression or not - the K10D at the moment produces uncompressed DNGs, and the Adobe DNG Converter has the option of compressing. This is totally lossless

All the in-camera formats will include an attached JPG which is used for fast preview. The size of that JPG will vary according to the scene contents, but the RAW convertors don't use it - so don't worry!

Hope that helps!
Matt

Hey hey
Thanks Matt
Now I understand how they make the prieview come up so quickly.

if you use the DCRAW command line RAW processor (originally for Linux but I think it's been ported to windows now) there is an option which pulls out the JPEG contained within the RAW file. Useful if you just want to quickly create some thumbnails without having to fully process each file.

I just tried using Adobe Lightroom Beta today on a RAW PEF as an alternative to the Pentax supplied RAW processing software and was very pleased with the results. I'm not sure yet which software I prefer. Also need to try it on DNGs as well.