Do you store all your RAW-conversions?

[otto.f]

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To save space on my hard disc I think about throwing away all my RAW conversions (TIFF and JPEG), unless I want to print them in the near future. Especially 16bit versions can grow up to 105Mb per image. Of course I keep all relevant DNG-files.

I have conversions from 2007 on. Since the start of digital M photography all conversion programs are upgraded and improved, so that would be a good reason. I wonder what your policy is in this, do you convert anew for each new print or publishing plan?

[01af]

I store a TIFF file only when a significant amount of time and effort went into making layers, masks, and selections in Photoshop. Things you do in the raw converter, however, always get stored in the raw file (or in the sidecar file accompaying the raw file when it's not DNG) where they occupy just a few bytes.

[Washington]

Keeping everything has always been a problem with photographers it seems.

Editing and removing the photo’s that are not worth keeping is hard sometimes.

and, believe me: I am very bad at this myself.

However, remote storage devices and huge hard-drives are pretty inexpensive

these days…. and you can remove the files that are taking up a lot of space on

your computer hard-drive to one of these.

[!Nomad64]

Personally speaking I shoot only in RAW (DNG) and keep the files stored and backupped as such. As printable files must be usually in jpg format I save keepers only in this format too. So my archives are all DNGs plus a handful of jpgs. I keep no TIFFs as if I'm not wrong, RAW and TIFF provide the same informations but TIFF files are 3 times larger than RAW ones, if not more. M8 compressed RAWs invariably weigh 10 Mb whereas TIFFs extracted out of them reach up to 58 Mb.

As to HD space, I give my pictures priority over anything else and regularly backup them on two external discs, physically kept in two different locations.

 

Cheers,

Bruno

[250swb]

I don't bin anything. Hard disks are so cheap, and to backup drives (and your photo's)you need external hard drives anyway, so it doesn't make any sort of sense to start deleting things. You never know what you may want in the future, and you never know if you can replicate an older image if you stop using a particular piece of software in the future.

 

You don't need to 'housekeep' and tidy up to save memory. You wouldn't cut all your best negs from the film strips and bin the rest to save space, so why do as much damage with digital? Possibly because its easier to think of those failures as worthless and easy to discard, but without the failures you don't know what's good or what could be better.

 

Steve

[Double Negative]

I keep RAW/DNG files - and the JPEGs of images I've post-processed (which go in my gallery online, mobile devices, etc.). I PP the "keeper shots" rather than all of them in batch.

[prunelle]

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... I wonder what your policy is in this, do you convert anew for each new print or publishing plan?

For the time being I keep the conversions that I feel are the best but I do think that it's not very useful. So one day, I'll probably get rid of them. If I want to print one I'll just have to redo the conversion, which will allow me to take a look at what I'd done before and maybe improve my work.

 

The jpegs of the photos I've uploaded to my Picasa album web, are stored in a special file.

[otto.f]

I found out that quite a few 108Mb Tiff's from the beginning have been done for testing/comparing results from different Raw-converters, so these I deleted. I kept Jpeg's from my good photo's, so that I can see in one glance what's worthwile reconsidering print- or other purposes and I threw away most of the tiff-versions of these; I will be re-PP-ing them when I do have a destination for them with an upgraded Raw-converter.

Of course Steve, I do not throw away DNG's, these are my negatives so to speak

[zlatkob]

I store raw files and processed jpegs. I never save anything as Tiff; I don't see any benefit in making Tiffs. If I need to save layers, then I save as PSD.

[Bill Allsopp]

A few years back I went the other way and deleted the RAW fiiles where I had a finished conversion. I now regret that as my conversion techniques are better now than they were.

 

Hard disc space is cheap, buy an external drive and some DVD's too if you want and clean older stuff you are less likely to use to a different drive.

[stunsworth]

I keep all the RAW files apart from the ones with gross problems - exposure, focus that kind of think. I keep all the converted files as PSDs, and I also keep all the Jpegs I post to the internet. Storage is so cheap these days that the cost isn't really an issue.

[gdb]

Bill wrote:

"A few years back I went the other way and deleted the RAW fiiles where I had a finished conversion. I now regret that as my conversion techniques are better now than they were."

 

I quite agree with you, Bill. When I have finished taking pictures, I systematically backup the memory card on a separate 1 To hard disc (only 120 €) all my DNG whatever the quality. Some of them are never processed, but I sometimes go back to this HD to make a better processing of some other set.

 

Once these DNG are backed up, I make a choice of a set to import in a folder for Capture One on the computer, and work on these copies. This seems to me the safer way to work (and enjoy).

 

Cheers

Gérard

[wda]

I don't bin anything. Hard disks are so cheap, ......

Steve

This is a personal decision Steve, but I still think it makes sense to review, edit and keep images selectively. Not the least reason is that finding or searching for desired pictures is quicker and more valuable because you are not drowning in 'rubbish' and dupes. Only rated pictures emerge. Unrated pictures, if kept for whatever reason, are deleted at a later stage.

[250swb]

This is a personal decision Steve, but I still think it makes sense to review, edit and keep images selectively. Not the least reason is that finding or searching for desired pictures is quicker and more valuable because you are not drowning in 'rubbish' and dupes. Only rated pictures emerge. Unrated pictures, if kept for whatever reason, are deleted at a later stage.

 

I see your point, but as post processing is so important in the art of photography its a rare thing that a decent photo could get from RAW to finished TIFF without some intervention. I think some record of that intervention, whether as variations on the theme saved as TIFF's or one file saved as a .psd makes sense.

 

For instance, if I eventally want a B&W image I will convert the RAW to TIFF, make as many tonal adjustments and dodging and burning etc as possible while in colour and save that as the base image for the B&W conversion. Of course B&W is rarely just B&W greyscale, as in a wet darkroom the tone of the paper used and tone of the emulsion is important for the image. So I like to make a couple of TIFF's to look at and consider tone. And to that end I don't see why I can't carry on considering them until the cows come home, so I keep all those as TIFF's. The point is to see how you were working and if you missed something. Its a questioning thing, never rest on your laurels etc. So its work ethic, like keeping a notebook.

 

For keeping track of my images the best thing isn't an elaborate catalogue system in the first instance, but editing. If I make 200 exposures I don't expect to end up with more than 5 or 6 to consider as interesting for some reason or other. So I don't make myself contend with vast numbers of ordinary photographs, record shots, failures. They stay as RAW files for reference, but just aren't used or looked at any closer. So in answer to your suggestion that its good to work selectively I do work very selectively, but I just try not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

 

Steve

[pgk]

To answer the question: Yes - hard drives are cheap, time is precious.

[stunsworth]

This is a personal decision Steve, but I still think it makes sense to review, edit and keep images selectively

 

The problem with that approach is that personally my opinion about certain shots can change over time, and what I though was a clunker one year can look more appealing the next.

[1JB]

I put everything on a backup external hard drive. I think the terabyte drive was around $100 US. Those that I work on, print or just seem to have some potential I also burn to a dvd so they're backed up 2x, though who knows how long the dvds will last.