Do you keep .raw files once youve edited?

robhullfury

robhullfury

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Hi all, just had a little baby boy so camera is never out of my hand at the moment. Im editing the files but do people keep the .raw files once edited as they do start to take up a LOT of room on the harddrive or just delete once finished with.....

now more then ever I dont want to loose photographs so ill be investing in a new harddrive to back them up on which ill probably just save the jpgs too.


Thanks
Rob
 
i get rid of them, but make sure that i'm happy with the processing before i do, Raw files take up far too much space
 
I keep them, duplicated over several backups. Hard Drive storage is dirt cheap so no reason not to.
 
I keep every one of them. They can be edited in all sorts of ways and as my PP technique improves I can revisit them.
 
2 terabyte drives available for £50 plus a couple for delivery
 
Doog said:
I keep every one of them. They can be edited in all sorts of ways and as my PP technique improves I can revisit them.
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Agree with that..... and as a beginner I also find older snaps a good way of seeing what worked/didn't work as you go along.

And as is said, hard drive space is dirt cheap........ but remember to back-up!
 
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I keep them.

You can buy a 1 TB ext HDD for pennies these days...why waste it?

Would you throw away a negative after you'd made a print from it?
 
I keep all mine on an external Hard drive. Like has been said, they're cheap as chip these days.
As you learn more PP skills etc, you can always go back and try your new ideas on the original RAW file. You won't really be able to do this with the edited JPEG file.

Gareth
 
Keep them here, unless they are obviously rubbish.
Ive shot RAW since 2006 and kept pretty much every single one. I dont have that much HD space, maybe 2tb in toal with RAW files. Most of them are on my mac with a 500GB HD and backed up onto an external. The rest are on my PC hard drives, a couple of 500GB's backed up to a NAS and external drive.
 
Keep them all, as said harddrive space or even blank DVD's etc are so cheap their is no real reason not too.
 
Once I get the desired pics and output, I delete them, as there is no point storing them. But if your are still confused about after the final processing, do keep the files, in case you want more of it, raw files would be helpful.
 
I keep all mine as Lightroom doesn't touch the raws but applies the edits as Metadata. The really crap, out of focus ones are instantly deleted.
 
I keep some really good ones if I think I might want to tweak them again. The rest I delete.

Barely have enough time to process them in the first place, little point in holding on to the rest for years. I do the same with negatives.
 
always. always. always. They are your digital 'negative'. See post #5 and #10 etc.
 
I thought pretty much the same as you replied just wondered if I was been overcautious.

thanks for the replies off to buy myself a nice new hdd.

Rob.
 
Doog said:
I keep every one of them. They can be edited in all sorts of ways and as my PP technique improves I can revisit them.
Click to expand...


Not only that but raw processors keep advancing as well, I have been able to go back to old raw files and get more detail out of them with LR3 than I ever was able to with what I was using six years ago. :)

Plus my raw files are my processed files (unless I have to go outside of LR3) and I just export when needed.:)
 
I keep all mine, for the reasons above... HDD's are silly cheap and my PP skills improve

I convert them all to .dng first though
 
Yeah it has a slightly smaller file size, with no loss of any discernable of info and it keeps all the edits info in the one file as opposed to having that annoying 'side car' file that editing an out of camera RAW produces.

Also according to adobe it should make them more future proof, as the specific raw format used by older cameras might not be supported in subsequent versions of software... Adobe are commited to supporting .dng
 
How do you batch convert them to .dng? Do you do it through LR3 using export?
 
Ffoeg thanks for those links, I have always hated the limitations of the CR2 format codecs and I use CS3 and so my 50D CR2s are okay but cannot view or edit my CR2s from my 500d (No codec support) which is so annoying. I now officially proclaim myself an idiot for not thinking about .dng :bang:. I have, up to now used Canon DPP for initial processing of my 500D Raws then moved them over to CS3 for final editing. I will definitely give this a whirl and get rid of xmps at the same time. :thumbs:
 
nay probs fella :)

It'll be interesting to see how you get on with Canon files... it certainly works perfectly fine for me with Nikon's NEF files.
 
I tend to keep the raw and jpg, extra hard drives are so cheap anyway. Just need to find a better way to organise my collection, bits scattered all over the place lol
 
You should always keep them, the good ones at least.
I've been a professional for 24 years and using photoshop since 1990.
I'm still learning and every year I go back to old raw files to redo them better than i did originally. You would never throw away negatives or slides once you have made a print so why do the same with raw files.
 
CaptainPenguin said:
Raw files are the digital negative why the heck would you want to gt rid of them
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Got to agree with that - now I have LR3 I have started going back and relooking at my RAWs in a completely different light. Glad I didn't delete.
 
CaptainPenguin said:
Raw files are the digital negative why the heck would you want to gt rid of them
Click to expand...

Spot on. Never ever get rid of your negatives :bonk:

I use Apple Aperture so you don't end up with JPG copies or anything, any edit is done by just adding a tiny text file (well XML but try to be non technical about it).
 
iv only started recently and iv been chucking them, ut i do chuck alot of my work (even the ones i felt it was worth moving to JPEG

but when i get my hard drive ill keep alot more, still only use my internal hard drive for the best stuff but keep everything, if you've got the space there no reason not to.

Jack
 
I keep them, you never know when you might want to re-process them.
 
Did you throw out your film negatives?! I would assume not so don't delete your Raw files!
 
haggis said:
Did you throw out your film negatives?! I would assume not so don't delete your Raw files!
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Yes I throw the majority out on digital and a lot on film. I keep the gooduns (and rest on the strip) and bin the rest for both negatives and RAW files. Why would I want folders full of bad shots, OOF images, under/over-exposed beyond repair, ones that didn't work for whatever reason. It's quite easy to make a decision that an image is never going to be any good so then why keep it? Unless it's on the verge of being recoverable then it just clutters up your life with stuff that will never be needed.

Maybe I just take far more rubbish pictures, am more picky about keepers or maybe you lot need a life laundry :lol:
 
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