UPDIG describes itself as “A working group of digital imaging professionals and allied trade groups and manufacturers, dedicated to promoting worldwide standards in the commercial application of digital imaging.” The group has released its set of 15 guidelines on shooting and working digitally. If that describes your trade, the site is well worth a look.
The guidelines emphasize the need for conversion settings and metadata that can easily be transferred between individual computers and between computing platforms. Adobe Camera Raw never touches your original data, of course, so it writes its information into lightweight XML (XMP) sidecar files next to images. The DNG format was designed to store this data internally, and it’s great to see UPDIG suggesting the use of DNG in their Best Practices documentation.