Adobe DNG Converter (Let’s call it DNGC) has the feel of an orphan program, although Adobe does update it quickly when new cameras come out. I was forced to use it for batch conversions of Fuji GFX files since dcraw does not yet support the GFX (at least, no version that I can find supports it). I would feed DNGC a few hundred files. It would convert a hundred or so, then crap out:
It’s complaining that it doesn’t have enough memory, but if you look on the right, you’ll see that there are scads of memory available. Word on the ‘net is that it’s a 32-bit program and doesn’t deallocate memory from the last file every time it loads a news one. Bad show, Adobe, if that’s true.
However, I’ve discovered a workaround. Not only that, the workaround has a big benefit.
Turns out, you can open more than one instance of DNGC:
So what you do is take your raw files and batch them into individual directories foe each 100 files. Then you start as many copies of DNGC as there are directories and run all the conversions in parallel. You can point the output of all the DNGC instances at the same directory.
The benefit? The conversions go a lot faster with all these tasks working in parallel.
I think Adobe is a repeat offender regarding not releasing memory when it can/should. When I stitch a big pano in PhotoShop CS6 I often see the memory usage creep up above 18 GB. When I close out all the files, Windows Task Manager shows that the memory usage just hangs up there forever. But when I close CS6, after 5 seconds the memory is released.