For anyone who shoots in RAW (or NEF), do you kep your RAW files after processing our image and saving as a .jpg?
I have mine all saved...but I am starting to think that I am wasting a lot of space with them. However- I feel like I should save them in case I want to process them again in the future (when I know more andhave a better computer).
I have all of my files on an external drive, of course. You are not keeping RAWs on your hard drive right?
Once I have edited an image and I'm sure I'm happy with it, yes, I delete the RAW. There's no point in keeping it after that. In some cases, I have kept RAWs because I need to think about whether I'm really happy with the way I edited. Ironically, this is more for my "personal" work and not for my client work. For clients I have a very streamlined process whereby I definitely come to an end with the editing and delete those RAWs - because after I show a client their gallery, it's a done deal, I'm not going back to re-edit. But for my own personal pictures sometimes I go to order a print and change my mind about how I edited the image of my kids, so I will go back and change it.
Even with external drives, those RAWs do take up alot of space. I would suggest if you do keep them on externals, every so often go back and delete the old ones. And NEVER keep them on your hard drive, they are way too big for that, and soon your computer will be really slow and start crashing. Externals are cheap - I prefer portable hard drives so I have two of them, and each cost me about $120 at Best Buy.
My reasoning, though, is that I may need the file in the future and, perhaps, there's something about the photo that I may want to change (exposure, WB, whatever) and I can do that without adversely affecting with the RAW. That and the fact that storage is very, very cheap.
@bobtimmons
I have a bit of OCD as well....whcih is why I panic at the tought of erasing my RAW files. I also hope to get better at editing and would like to go back and re-edit some of the pictures I have taken someday....maybe?
What stoarge devices do you all use? What size?
So far I have only saved my files to DVDs...otherwise they are all on my computer! I know....bad!
If you're shooting raw format, then those files are like the negatives you'd get after developing film. So ask yourself this: if you shot film, would you throw away your negatives once you got a print made?
Once you convert to JPG, data is lost. There's no way around that. Even if you save it at the highest quality setting, you're throwing away a lot of data and every edit from there on out will strip even more data. Sure, there will be plenty of shots that you may never go on to print or may never resize for anything other than web use, but there will likely be many images that you want to go back to years from now and having the raw data will allow you to manipulate the image as if you just downloaded it from the camera yesterday.
IMO, a good combination of culling photos that aren't very good and saving your raw files is best practice. Obviously, you don't need a bunch of OOF or otherwise flawed images clogging up your hard drive with unnecessary raw storage, but at the same time I think any image you feel is worth keeping is worth keeping in raw.
Besides, storage is soooo cheap these days. You can buy a 1 TB hard drive for around $100. Even if your raw files are 18 MB each, that's almost 60,000 raw images.
I keep my raw but before I even start editing any of my photos I cull them to the ones that I can either use or want to keep. I then process them and due to recent events I now back up every two days on to dvd disc and external h/drive
I would never delete my RAW files. I have a 1 terabyte external drive and that's almost half full. I plan on getting another one just for backup of the first one.
@cohare To answer your question, I use a mix of online (external drive) offline (DVD's) and cloud (currently using Carbonite, but considering Crashplan)
i keep all RAW images... they are digital negatives. You wouldn't burn or throw out your film negatives, right?
I do, however, delete the completely awful/out of focus/what was that a picture of anyway RAW files since i'd never use or print them.
I don't keep any image filed on my Computer, they're all on external hard drives and most on CD/DVDs as well.
@cohare Sigh. As my photos were downloading just now, I received that dreaded message that I was running low on disk space. Alas, I have just about filled a 220GB hard drive. (Music & photos are probably the culprits!) How much did your 1TB drive cost?
I need to go through mine and do a cull but yes I keep all mine as well. I don't always get time to process all the photos I take and like being able to go through them.
@cohare No worries. I could have googled in the time it took to post the question! And I've just realized: I give my students a hard time when they ask before doing a quick check of the syllabus, for example...
1.5Tb drive attached. :) Thanks for starting this discussion; I've definitely piggy-backed on it! Now to develop a storage strategy I will maintain. And now maybe I'll switch to RAW...
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I have all of my files on an external drive, of course. You are not keeping RAWs on your hard drive right?
Once I have edited an image and I'm sure I'm happy with it, yes, I delete the RAW. There's no point in keeping it after that. In some cases, I have kept RAWs because I need to think about whether I'm really happy with the way I edited. Ironically, this is more for my "personal" work and not for my client work. For clients I have a very streamlined process whereby I definitely come to an end with the editing and delete those RAWs - because after I show a client their gallery, it's a done deal, I'm not going back to re-edit. But for my own personal pictures sometimes I go to order a print and change my mind about how I edited the image of my kids, so I will go back and change it.
Even with external drives, those RAWs do take up alot of space. I would suggest if you do keep them on externals, every so often go back and delete the old ones. And NEVER keep them on your hard drive, they are way too big for that, and soon your computer will be really slow and start crashing. Externals are cheap - I prefer portable hard drives so I have two of them, and each cost me about $120 at Best Buy.
My reasoning, though, is that I may need the file in the future and, perhaps, there's something about the photo that I may want to change (exposure, WB, whatever) and I can do that without adversely affecting with the RAW. That and the fact that storage is very, very cheap.
I have a bit of OCD as well....whcih is why I panic at the tought of erasing my RAW files. I also hope to get better at editing and would like to go back and re-edit some of the pictures I have taken someday....maybe?
What stoarge devices do you all use? What size?
So far I have only saved my files to DVDs...otherwise they are all on my computer! I know....bad!
Once you convert to JPG, data is lost. There's no way around that. Even if you save it at the highest quality setting, you're throwing away a lot of data and every edit from there on out will strip even more data. Sure, there will be plenty of shots that you may never go on to print or may never resize for anything other than web use, but there will likely be many images that you want to go back to years from now and having the raw data will allow you to manipulate the image as if you just downloaded it from the camera yesterday.
IMO, a good combination of culling photos that aren't very good and saving your raw files is best practice. Obviously, you don't need a bunch of OOF or otherwise flawed images clogging up your hard drive with unnecessary raw storage, but at the same time I think any image you feel is worth keeping is worth keeping in raw.
Besides, storage is soooo cheap these days. You can buy a 1 TB hard drive for around $100. Even if your raw files are 18 MB each, that's almost 60,000 raw images.
I do, however, delete the completely awful/out of focus/what was that a picture of anyway RAW files since i'd never use or print them.
I don't keep any image filed on my Computer, they're all on external hard drives and most on CD/DVDs as well.