Do Non-pro togs keep edited raw files

frank

frank

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Yes
I can understand the reasons behind a professional/wedding/journo' photographer saving raw files or their cameras equivalent in case a client/customer decides at a later date they would like to re-order a pic and perhaps have some effect done to it that can only be acheived editing in raw.

Moving to the ordinary guy in the street (non-pro-tog/hobbyist) I can understand their reasons for shooting raw too, for editing etc. Once the non pro-tog has finished editing and is happy with his print do you keep a hold of the original raw file and the edited raw file as well as the finished photo and maybe plus a jpg, or do you get rid of the large raw file keeping the finished jpg to save space on your home computer?
 
Generally shoot in jpeg, but when I shoot in raw, yes keep the raw file as well as any edited ones - I do though delete duplicate shots -> so keep the best raw shot (s) out of a series taken (hope that makes sense)
 
Frank, its really down to you. A high-res JPG isn't really that far off in size from a RAW file, maybe 4-5 megs less. You have to consider how much you value your images. Having a RAW file means you'll always be able recreate as many jpgs as you want and edited in anyway you fancy. If you a RAW to black and white and save it in jpg, then your colour version would be lost forever. In film days, you'd never throw away a negative because you've gotton your 6x4 print. A good file storage/archiving setup on your pc should make life more manageable, especially since memory is so cheap these days.
 
I keep my RAW, as neil said, with the price of storage being so cheap why wouldn't you keep them for future use, an example being I went back to a load of RAW for a star trail I did months ago to do a totally different set of processing on them earlier this week :thumbs:
 
I go though and keep the best raws from a day and put them in a separate folder
I do delete the edited ones tho
It's definitely worth keeping the original raws
I have started going through and re editing some of my old shots more difficult if you've only got the jpegs :)
 
I try and keep every image I take. I try to learn from all my mistakes,and there are many many thousands to remind me what I did wrong. ;)

Storage is cheap, I bought a 3TB external HD for £100 before Christmas for example. RAW processing gets better as time goes on. The noise reduction and highlight recovery algorithms, amongst other things, have get a lot better in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom in recent years, as I would imagine they have done in other processing programs. If you only have a finished Jpeg/Tiff then you lose that ability to go back and improve an image if you want to.

It's a personal choice though as to what to delete, level of good/bad images, but I would always keep the RAW file, because if you keep it with the processing as a side car file, or as part of the DNG file, you can produce another Jpeg/Tiff any time you like and you can benefit from better technology in the future if you want to. :)

Memory is cheap though, and gets cheaper all the time. :D
 
I shoot Raw only, convert to PSD (with layers intact), then save as full res jpg, and finally sometimes punt out smaller versions to post on the web. I keep all copies.

As a rough indicator I've taken getting on for 100k images over two cameras (8 and 10mp) and have used around 1tb of space so far. Maybe half the Raw images are kept (bad ones deleted) and of them maybe 10-30% are edited, depending on the subject matter.
 
I only shoot RAW so once they are down loaded off the camera I go through them in DPP and pic out the best ones.

Then go through them again and edit the ones I want too but still keep all files that have not been disguarded as at a later date might decide a different pic was better.

spike
 
SpikeK6 said:
I only shoot RAW so once they are down loaded off the camera I go through them in DPP and pic out the best ones.

Then go through them again and edit the ones I want too but still keep all files that have not been disguarded as at a later date might decide a different pic was better.

spike
Click to expand...

try a software called photo mechanic, its not free but it will cut down your sort time down by 2/3rds
 
Worth noting that most editing/processing applications are non destructive, this means that they never actually change the original RAW file, but keep a list of changes that were applied.
This means that its important to not only keep the original RAW file but the library database that holds the list of changes made.
 
I keep my RAWs unless I really do feel I have no further need - for example if the shot is purely for a record and is saved fit-for-purpose as a jpeg.

My biggest problem is not culling the files after a camera session - I can't decide which of my mediocre/bad shots I want to keep and which I should bin (probably most :D)
 
Some interesting replies, I thought maybe keeping raw files wouldn't be as popular with non pro-togs as they would be with the guys that did photography for a living.

Just goes to show. I agree about the storage solution 2TB HD on amazon 70quid, not to be sniffed at. I remember when a 8mb hd was around 500+ quid

Part of the reason I was interested is I sold my camera and interchangeable lens are on Ebay, I'm really lightening the load as I don't do as much photography as I used to, moved from DSLR+ L lens down to M43, now I'm going down to P&S. I have decided to purchase quite soon a Sony RX100 which I believe if a fairly high end P&S, RX1 is just too dear :-) mainly for pocketability and quality. As it shoots 20mp raws I daresay the edited raw file might be quite a bit higher than my poor old drives have been used to.
As well as having to upgrade to LR4 it looks like another ext HD to be added to the list.
Better get the savings book out quietly from the missus's bottom drawer :-)
 
neil_g said:
Storage is cheap.


What happens if one day, for example if you learn a new technique, you want to go back and re edit the original etc.
Click to expand...

Exactly that for me. I often edit a pic, then sit on it for a few months, if i still like it I'll upload. If not, i'll re-edit or delete it.

Having said that, I don't keep all my files - just the 'good' shots, or 'important' ones might be a better word. Not really sure how to explain it, but some that I'm not fussed about go straight to the bin after I've exported them.
 
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I keep everything, even stuff that's obviously a mistake. Maybe I should be better at curating my stuff, but, as others have said, storage is dirt cheap.
 
I use iPhoto on a Mac and all the changes are done to the raw file 'in situ" so it is always kept as one image and can be reverted back to the original at click of button. I only convert to jpeg where exporting to upload somewhere.
 
I've got tons of crap raws kept, out of focus - flash didn't fire. One day I will delete them....
 
neil_g said:
Storage is cheap.

What happens if one day, for example if you learn a new technique, you want to go back and re edit the original etc.
Click to expand...

Good point! The problem is with raw, tiff, jpeg, organising them in proper way could be a issue.
 
I keep:

RAW file.
Edited jpeg.
Watermarked jpeg.
Resized for web jpeg

:lol:

Only just started... will probably go along and delete the watermarked and small JPEG as they're uploaded but will definitely be keeping RAW files. I've stumbled across a few of my images from a while back that I wayyyy overcooked or just made look ridiculous. I'd love to have a 2nd go at them.
 
i keep mine and live in the hope that one day someone will discover a successful technique for polishing turds
 
I keep mine. I've been shooting raw since 2006 and over the years my own processing skills have improved, as has the software I use. Sometimes I will revisit old flles and see whether I can do a better job on the conversions, or maybe just try new compositions or artistic twists.

Furthermore, most of my files end up for personal use only and for display on my 40" 1080p TV. Therefore I output them from Lightroom sized to fit my 1920x1080 display to avoid further resizing later on. If/when a new standard (4k?) becomes the norm I'm going to have a lot of photos which will fall short of that standard and will need reconverting to meet the new resolution requirements.

I really can't think of a good reason to delete original raw files for any of my "keepers". But the non-keepers get dumped from the off as I'm sifting through shots from a shoot.
 
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I keep everything, including web sized ones for my website in case I ever trasnfer it to another hoster.

Just this weekend I revisited some raw files from 2007 and re-processed them in the latest version of Lightroom, something I didn't have 6 years ago. With my improved skills and better software, I discovered some shots I'd ignored at the time and they turned out to be rather good. It's definitely worth keeping raws!
 
I've never deleted a RAW file in over 10 years.
 
I use lightroom, so an edited RAW file isn't created (only the settings are saved and assigned to that file). I keep the JPEGs, as I have a rolling screensaver of all my images.
 
I also use Lightroom, I very rarely delete anything, I try to take the time to delete blank/oof shots but I still have thousands that aren't worth the time to go back and delete, I flag up all the 'keepers' when I import them from the camera.
I scroll through my older images now and again and almost always find a nice shot that I missed first time around. The DNG files are all kept, and any shots I export for web are kept unorganised just in case I need to reupload them.

When I scan film, especially old slides for restoration I often have dozens of copies of the PSD so I can return to any stage in the editing process at a later date and improve it. Including an untouched original scan file.
 
On the occasions I've shot in raw I've gone through them and kept the good ones and binned the bad ones. Once they've been processed I just back up the original raw shots to an external hard drive. I'll eventually go through them and delete them if I have no need to keep them in the future.
 
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