3FR vs DNG

[braver]

I've just started importing 3FR files into LR, and my workflow has always been converting to DNG.  I took the original DAM course at the Santa Fe Institute with Peter Krogh, the author of The DAM Book and one of the advisors on the DNG standard and Adobe Lightroom from pre-beta -- we used 1.0 beta in the course in 2007.  I am a huge fan of DNG as the archival format with XML envelope preserving edits as metadata in a non-destructive way.  I've immediately noted how a 110MB 3FR file would become 80MB lossless DNG, so a 16GB card would shrink to 10GB.  Following Peter's workflow I always keep the originals as Virgin Backups, so if I do have humans in a photo and I want to try HNCS or Phocus I can always do so.  But I would advocate for the majority of the shots to use DNG with its tremendous advantages of carrying all edits and metadata together if needed.  The DNG files can also be validated against the internal checksum that is preserved even across edits, where standard OS tools like diff fail.  You can then validate your whole library against corruption and replace disks if you notice any (you should do backups of course).  Overall, DNG offers much better strategy to keep your library OK fo decades and hand it off to your children.

[catostreet]

Can you clarify please? If I want to use LR, is there any advantage in:
1) importing 3FR files into Phocus, with a simple adjustment (eg Nature) so they then become 3F files (correct?)
2) then exporting those files (as DNG) so they can be imported into LR
... or is that no better than importing them straight into LR (converted to DNG)?

Thanks

[braver]

I've not tried Phocus except for kicking the tires and generally do very basic edits in LR so far.  It's hard for me to judge the claims of proprietary color handling.  So my solution is very simple -- I import as DNG and upload to Lr Mobile to see everything on iPhone/iPad/laptops and anywhere in the world I can use Lightroom CC.  If I really really like an image and would want to try it into Phocus, my original ingestion preserves the 3FR.  I'd need to study more but from the Lightroom standpoint it doesn't matter whether it's 3FR or DNG since its own rendering will be the same.  So for Lightroom there should be no difference, and the advantage of having 3FR would be easier editing in Phocus.

Essentially Lightroom lets you sync to LrCC for viewing/rating/DAMming everywhere.  You can keep 3FR unconverted on the desktop for editing in Phocus if you like, it's still lossy DNG in the cloud (Smart Preview).