Hi all
I've finally sorted through all my pics and trying to get to grips with Lightroom, Photoshop and processing.
I shoot manual mode and in both formats Raw and jpeg..But a quick question as I don't want to go ahead with my way of thinking ONLY to discover that I should of kept the Raw format as well
so Do you keep all the images you like in both Raw and jpeg.?
Do you process them and get rid of the Raw format?
Do you only keep the images you think you will want to go back to in Raw?
I shoot both Raw and jpeg as I do not want to always have to edit every shot which I believe you nearly always have to do some editing with a Raw image.
Thank you for taking the time to read and looking forward to reading your responses and hopefully I will make the right choice. Much appreciated.
I have a plethora of hard drives with my photos saved - so that tells you I save both - I also take too many photos and am not good at culling hahahaha
Storage is cheap, cobwebs can be an inspiration as well as nuisance. My own file management system could use a course of instruction. One place for the Raw image, one place or more for edited image.
I have a RAW, jpeg and publish filing system. All the edited shots I want to keep are in publish. I then back up only the publish folder on a monthly basis.
If I keep the jpeg in one folder, I'll keep the corresponding RAW file in a subfolder named "RAW". Someday I may want to go back and re-process it for printing or whatever, and like @365projectltaylor said, storage is cheap.
A recent example:
/Pictures/2016+/2016.02/_MG_3569.jpg
/Pictures/2016+/2016.02/RAW/_MG_3569.CR2
That way I don't have to scroll through all the RAW files when looking for specific images.
Every RAW contains a Jpg. It's the Jpg preview image.With a simple batch file one can extract the Jpg so there is no need to shoot RAW+Jpg if one can handle running a batch file.
dcraw and exiftool are 2 popular tools. dcraw is simpler, exiftool is more powerful (or maybe I just know exiftool better). You could start here.
The advantage of RAW vs RAW+Jpg is the latter takes more SD card space and eats more battery.
I shoot RAW, load into Lightroom, then use star ratings to note those to be developed in raw and those converted to Jpg. I delete the rest.
After Jpg conversion I usually do some cropping but little more because Olympus Jpgs suit me just fine for photos I keep as a record or a reminder. Then I usually delete their RAWs. However, if I think either my skills or software capability could improve to where I'd want access to the RAW, I keep it.
I have always heard that there is more information in the raw image and that the compressed jpg degrades each time you process and _save_ the image (due to compression. So I have kept my keepers as raw image (nef), and prior to PSE14, both NEF and DNG. I'm in transition and don't know if I should still keep the out of camera and the cataloged in two separate areas, still working on that.
@fotoblah Wow! dcraw -e is *fast*. I'd always been using dcraw to generate jpegs processing them a little and copying out the exif, but I can extract them faster than I could copy camera generated jpegs from a memory card! Thanks for that.
Storage is cheap so I go for the hording principle!!!
Raw is like having the negative, I'd hold onto that for sure, the jpegs I keep as they are quick and easy for when I just want to buzz unprocessed stuff to friends, but I tend to shoot lower res jpgs now just to keep space down, as I start with the raw file if I think it is a promising image, then I keep the photoshop files and any jpg files I produce out of those. I do have a filing system and a copy for back up.
Keep promising myself that one day I will do a cull. But honestly its just not going to happen, still I stop shooting and I hope that won't be for a very long time!
Going to check out dcraw as suggested by @fotoblah, if I can extract quick enough will be great to save space on the card when shooting
Keep the raw image. Who knows when you might wish to process it differently, especially as you develop editing skills. Or graduate to other editors and plugins. Like others have said, storage is cheap. A basic 6 Terabyte USB drive from Western Digital is US$200 Even with basic non-redundant drives, I keep current files on my internal drive and simply copy them over every two weeks or so. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1057894-REG/wd_wdbfjk0060hbk_nesn_6tb_my_book_desktop.html
All USB plug-and-play on Windows. These can be configured for OS-X systems, or you can buy already pre-configured for Apple machines for somewhat more. But not that much.
Those will keep you in storage for a long time, and if you run out of space in three years, well, another similar one will probably be half that if you believe Moore's Law applied to storage.
Thank you all so much for taking the time to reply, Now I know whats best And I will defiantly keep the raw files. And also thank you for sharing how you store and file your images. Very much appreciated.
Keep the Raws like Frank said. You may want to re-edit down the road. When I first got into this 6 years ago, I shot both RAW and JPEG. After reviewing files I typically would toss the RAW images as I thought I had all I needed, Boy was I wrong. I learned quickly that RAW files should be saved because as you learn more about photography, typically your editing skills will expand. Keep the RAWs!
In addition backup your LR catalog periodically as this contains all of the edit information performed on your RAW files + the location of files on your PC. Recently my LR catalog crashed and was not repairable. The last catalog backup I had was about one month old. Having lost the edits done in that one month alone was a royal pain to deal with. Back up this file to some other drive than your main one.
Here's my backup strategy in case you are interested. I work in IT so I do go overboard. 1) Initially write to a 4TB drive 2) Auto sync the 4tb drive (changes made only) to a mirrored 4TB network drive. All final exported jpegs be it for personal or business use are synced in the Google Cloud. The only missing ingredient here is off-storage. If my home burns down I'm out over 200K photos but I'll have jpegs @ Google.. I probably should do something about that.
I'd keep the RAW too. I've been enjoying reprocessing some photos from many years ago since the software can do so much more now. It is frustrating to find that for many, I only have a substandard JPEG.
I only shoot Raw and save the raw images. I have looked at photos I took in the past and my editing skills and style has improved and I hope that would be the case in the future as well.
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But don't throw away the raw files - these are your originals and one shot can offer so many images!
A recent example:
/Pictures/2016+/2016.02/_MG_3569.jpg
/Pictures/2016+/2016.02/RAW/_MG_3569.CR2
That way I don't have to scroll through all the RAW files when looking for specific images.
dcraw and exiftool are 2 popular tools. dcraw is simpler, exiftool is more powerful (or maybe I just know exiftool better). You could start here.
The advantage of RAW vs RAW+Jpg is the latter takes more SD card space and eats more battery.
I shoot RAW, load into Lightroom, then use star ratings to note those to be developed in raw and those converted to Jpg. I delete the rest.
After Jpg conversion I usually do some cropping but little more because Olympus Jpgs suit me just fine for photos I keep as a record or a reminder. Then I usually delete their RAWs. However, if I think either my skills or software capability could improve to where I'd want access to the RAW, I keep it.
Raw is like having the negative, I'd hold onto that for sure, the jpegs I keep as they are quick and easy for when I just want to buzz unprocessed stuff to friends, but I tend to shoot lower res jpgs now just to keep space down, as I start with the raw file if I think it is a promising image, then I keep the photoshop files and any jpg files I produce out of those. I do have a filing system and a copy for back up.
Keep promising myself that one day I will do a cull. But honestly its just not going to happen, still I stop shooting and I hope that won't be for a very long time!
Going to check out dcraw as suggested by @fotoblah, if I can extract quick enough will be great to save space on the card when shooting
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1057894-REG/wd_wdbfjk0060hbk_nesn_6tb_my_book_desktop.html
For a little more than twice that, you can get a 6x2 terabyte RAID system if you are worried about redundancy options.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1053138-REG/wd_wdblwe0120jch_nesn_12tb_my_book_duo.html
All USB plug-and-play on Windows. These can be configured for OS-X systems, or you can buy already pre-configured for Apple machines for somewhat more. But not that much.
Those will keep you in storage for a long time, and if you run out of space in three years, well, another similar one will probably be half that if you believe Moore's Law applied to storage.
Thank you all so much for taking the time to reply, Now I know whats best And I will defiantly keep the raw files. And also thank you for sharing how you store and file your images. Very much appreciated.
In addition backup your LR catalog periodically as this contains all of the edit information performed on your RAW files + the location of files on your PC. Recently my LR catalog crashed and was not repairable. The last catalog backup I had was about one month old. Having lost the edits done in that one month alone was a royal pain to deal with. Back up this file to some other drive than your main one.
Here's my backup strategy in case you are interested. I work in IT so I do go overboard. 1) Initially write to a 4TB drive 2) Auto sync the 4tb drive (changes made only) to a mirrored 4TB network drive. All final exported jpegs be it for personal or business use are synced in the Google Cloud. The only missing ingredient here is off-storage. If my home burns down I'm out over 200K photos but I'll have jpegs @ Google.. I probably should do something about that.