Converting from Lightroom to Aftershot

[Scootie]

Decisions, decisions. So many variables in what's coming down the line to be sure we stay compatible. In the several years of digital imaging I've had to stop and regroup a few times and my current workflow hopefully will keep me viable for the future.
I really like ASP2 but it's shortcomings are keeping me looking for something better. Lightroom's tools to me makes for a better finished file but I'm concerned that when ver. 6 comes out we may have to go the cloud based routine, which I don't "think" I'll like but then maybe it will be the best in the long run.
No matter which program I use now or have used in the past once my raw file is edited and a high res TIFF or JPG is created I delete the original CR2,,,, unless it is a shot that I feel there would ever be a need to rework at some point in the future and then I file it away and don't concern myself with the sidecar file or what proprietary format it is, the raw CR2 is the only thing I would want anyway if at some point a new program comes out that does raw editing better than what I have now.
Finding the raw file years from now won't be too hard as I save my output images with the camera's file name at the end, plus what the image is, so if I shoot an eagle and the camera file is JC6A0329 my output file might be, bald-eagle-flying-county-lake-JC6A0329.tif by keeping the original raw file name with the camera file name I can find it easy with a search.
So maybe by developing an approach similar to this you can relieve some of the worry about future programs and how they handle the raw sidecar.

[Arnfinn]

Like with many other things in my life I have always wanted to have more options and at the same time hated any limitations like the plague. When buying my first digital camera Minolta 7D I photographed almost exclusively in RAW, because that left me with more options in post processing than the camera interpreted JPEG's. At first I processed the images I liked in Photoshop, using Bridge as the browser, but then I also invested in DxO as my raw processor besides Bridge/Photoshop, and not long after that also Lightroom and Bibble 4. I have never seen the point of converting any files to DNG as this had never been an option.

The real magic of the RAW file format is that it contains all the information the sensor receives. The RGB pixel data isn't placed in a straight forward manner. To get any visible data from the raw file, it has to be converted with demosaicing algorithms, and a slightly diffenece in the algorithm can give very different result in both noise, detail and color data. Each developer or software company has it's own set of demosaiching algorithms. This is the reason why the results may be so different between each of the raw converters. Every raw converter has it's strengths and weaknesses, and therefore may work better with one type of images and give poorer results on other. Converting to a format like DNG that's proprietary to only one company is in my opinion the most limiting thing you can do in photography. For really difficult images I may even use different raw converters to render the final image by combining them in Photoshop (in layers). Any such option goes completely out of the window when the original raw file is lost, and many times I have experienced that a new version of a program may also give the image a different and improved rendering. Adobe DNG keeps you married to that company for eternity, whatever happens in the future...

A TIFF file, while containing a lot of data, isn't a good option opposed to keeping the original RAW file, because it's limited to the demosaicing of the software it was rendered by. Another render even with the same software may give (based on settings) very different result in both noise, detail and color, wich may be hard to compensate for in the rendered TIFF if your options or precerences should differ a point in time from now. To me there's only one option (if you may want an improved rendering in the future), keep the original RAW...

[ferdinand-paris]

I think the OP realises all this. Without rereading the thread, I think he is going to change his workflow. But he can't change the past, and his question is how does he deal with that.