Maya loved photographing abandoned places. Her mirrorless camera shot beautiful RAW files, but each visit required different edits: one set needed heavy dust removal, another needed vivid color. To keep edits consistent she used XMP sidecar files created by her editing software — they stored her develop settings but weren’t embedded in the RAW files she shared with collaborators.
This copies all XMP metadata directly into the DNG. xmp to dng converter free
Fully free/open-source route (RawTherapee/Darktable + ExifTool): Short helpful story — "XMP to DNG Converter
Conclusion
If you already have Lightroom (Classic or Desktop), follow these steps to create a DNG preset: Import any image (preferably a RAW file) into Lightroom. Apply your .xmp preset to that image in the Develop module. Export the image and select DNG as the file format. This copies all XMP metadata directly into the DNG
The download was instant. No installer. Just a single .exe named Alchemist.exe. He ran it in a sandboxed virtual machine. The interface was brutally simple: a drop zone, a single button that said CONVERT, and a small progress bar that pulsed like a heartbeat.
No tool converts XMP to DNG, but these free utilities embed XMP data into DNG: