What do I do with these files?

[davideglasgow]

After buying a Rebel XS and shooting in RAW, I have an immense number of 10MB RAW files sitting around. Obviously, they need to be converted to .jpg to do anything useful with them, but even then it's about 9 MB when using DPP. Besides making gigantic prints, this is far too large, and even looks like crap when viewed with Microsoft Photo Editor if I send them to others that large.


So my question is, what are others' suggestions for the "workflow" of files generated when shooting with raw. What size do most of you convert the .jpgs to, and do you get rid of the RAW files? I'm craving organization. []

[alex]

I, too, have a bunch of huge RAW files sitting around that I haven't gotten around to editing yet.


When I upload the RAW files to the computer, I immediately use the QuickView tool in DPP, and any image that is glaringly out of focus gets immediately deleted. For some shots, when I have more than one exposure for the same subject, I delete the ones where the exposure is obviously off.


I find that when I upload shots, I end up deleting about 50% of them right off the bat. I am not bothered by this, cause I'm still learning. Sometimes it is a little frustrating though.


Any RAW files that I tweak in DPP, I convert to exif-TIFF if I want to do more editing in Photoshop. If I like the shot the way it is after editing with DPP, I save it as exif-TIFF and exif-JPEG.


I don't delete the RAW file for either of the above two scenarios. Maybe I should?


Every shot I save on the computer is immediately automatically backed up to a 500GB external hardrive.


Do other people delete the RAW files after editing and converting to TIFF or JPEG?

[Daniel Browning]

The raw files from my 5D2 are about 25 MB each. I can fit about 40,000 of them on a single 1 TB hard drive. At $100 per drive, it costs one cent for every 4 images.


If the economy keeps getting worse, I might start worry about that fourth of a cent. Until then, I'm keeping all my raw files.


My workflow is (roughly):

• Rough white balance on all images to correct UniWB.
• Cull the worst images.
• Post-process the ten best images and send for prints.
• As time permits, go through the rest of the images and thin the herd.
  
• Tag with keywords
• Send the remaining images to print.
• Go on to the next project.

One good reason to keep raw files is if, someday, you wish to make a new print from an old image. Your taste, skills, and software will have changed greatly by then, and you may want to do this much differently than you did in creating your first JPEG.

[powers_brent]

I shoot all my photos in RAW. Transfer them to my computer. Weed out all the bad or double/triple/etc exposures. Pick all the keepers basically. Process them in DPP. Convert all that survive to exif-JPEG at 350. Save all RAW and JPEG into a subfolder.

[Stephen Probert]

Obviously, they need to be converted to .jpg to do anything useful with them, but even then it's about 9 MB when using DPP.

If you are converting a 10 Mb RAW file to jpeg, it shouldn't be 9 Mb. If it is, then you are not compressing enough. I am not super-familiar with DPP, but in PS, you should be fine saving jpegs at 10-11 quality. The 12 (max), will probably be 9 Mb, but 10 should be maybe 4, I think.


I have been contemplating developing a streamlined workflow. This is what I want to do:

• delete obvious poor shots
• adjust exposure, contrast and WB if necessary
• anything special, like HDRI or remove unwanted objects/artifacts
  
• rotate/crop
• Run script/action to save a quality 10 jpeg as well as one or two web versions (1280 and 800 px constrained)
• Folder structure would have all the jpegs in the top folder with a subfolder for each RAW, Web1 and Web2
• My pictures get automatically archived regularly

Now I just need to set up the scripts to do the resizing.

[Jon Ruyle]

If the economy keeps getting worse, I might start worry about that fourth of a cent. Until then, I'm keeping all my raw files.

I've kept all my 5D2 raws as well, but only partly because I have plenty of space for them. It's also because I can't think of a good way to delete them. DPP hangs when I try to delete (anyone else experience this, or is it just me?), and I know of no other program that can 5D2 raws. So the only way I can think of is to view in dpp, then delete with another program. That seems so tedious I haven't even tried. Is there a better way?

[Daniel Browning]

Jon,


Zoom Browser can view the JPEG preview embedded in the 5D2 raw. Fastone viewer probably, too. I use Lightroom ("x" to mark rejected, then delete all rejects in a fell swoop.)

[RonG]

My suggestion is batch convert and save but use 72 dpi which should result in a jpg that is around 3-4mb in size. 72dpi will make a nice 8x10 easily. I'm assuming that you are saving your original files to cd or dvd.

[Stephen Probert]

72dpi will make a nice 8x10 easily

this statement is confusing. 72 dpi will look fine as an 8x10 image on a computer screen, but printed 72 dpi would look horrible. Prints should be made at at least 300 dpi. I would much rather throw in compression than throw out pixels. The issue is that with a quality of 10 in DPP (max) you get a 9 Mb file. A jpeg quality of 8 will produce almost the exact image as 10 without losing pixels.

[RonG]

all I can say is from my personal printing of images exactly as I've described there is very little difference between 72dpi and 300dpi on an 8x10 image.