Claudio-
Claudio V wrote:
DNG is suposed to be an "Universal, Camera Independant Format" and as such it should not have any variations in relation to camera manufacturers, catalogin or editing software compatibility issues.
Adobe ACR is just another evolving RAW converter. There will always be large variation among camera vendors' RAW output because they use their own proprietary technologies. And they evolve those technologies as fast and as secretly as possible to stay ahead of the competition.
Adobe heavily promotes its pipe dream of the entire world using Adobe for RAW image conversion and DNG as the converted format but it is not what Adobe claims.
Claudio V wrote:
...I have always pondered in my mind how to preserve image data in a way that will gurantee its preservation and thought that DNG was the answer.
Certainly DNG is not an answer. All it does is preserve the state of Adobe's ACR conversions at a point in time.
Best answer, and easy, is simply to save the original RAW files in multiple locations asap after capture and prior to interaction with any app (like Aperture, ACR, etc.) that has the capability to modify the original RAW data capture from the camera.
For any major camera vendor (Nikon, Canon) etc. there will always be apps to RAW-convert in the future, including probably from Adobe. And the odds are that third-party 2020 RAW converters will be better or equal conversions, not worse than third-party 2010 RAW converters.
Each individual camera's RAW is different but my experience has been that in general the camera vendor's RAW conversions suit my eyes/brain a bit better than most third-party RAW converters like Aperture or Adobe ACR. That makes sense actually because Apple and Adobe do not have access to the proprietary original capture algorithms. Personally for my D2x I prefer Nikon over Aperture and Aperture over Adobe, but the variation among converters is small enough that for workflow reasons I use Aperture for 99%+ of conversions. For a really special image however I take the time to RAW-convert using Nikon NX2.
My 02. YMMV, and each camera is a different scenario.
HTH
-Allen