Archive Storage - RAW vs JPEG

Hi All,

For many years now I've kept most photographs I've taken. I have a house 'media centre' that also acts as a central repository for all documents/music/photographs. This then backs up the important data (esp photographs) overnight to an online backup provider (SpiderOak)

Recently I moved to a DSLR and inevitably I now shoot mostly in RAW.

My question is:-

Do most of you shoot in RAW, perform post processing, render to JPEG and delete the RAW versions? Are you perhaps selective, storing some RAW and some JPEG? Do you keep all your RAW files?

I've always enjoyed keeping everything I've shot - as I don't know when in the future I may value even a poorly taken photo (for example, shots of family).

I can see storage (and more importantly backups) soon becoming a major issue if I keep all my RAW files, but - as I'm still learning I don't entirely trust my post-processing ability so I'm hesitant to delete. Yes, storage is cheap but offsite backup not so cheap

Just curious what others do ...


Steve

I keep all my RAW files unless the photo is truly duff - out of focus vastly over exposed or whatever. They are the same as negatives so you need to keep them.
I only ever convert to jpg photos I really like or want to use in some way. That doesn't mean I'll never go back to the other RAW photos and won't at some stage do something with them though.

Yes storage becomes a big issue with RAW files, and I can imagine having enough storage in a cloud would soon get very expensive. Maybe you could arrange to keep a hard copy off site - at work or at a family members house, that you then update weekly?

Lightroom catalogue everything for me and those are all RAW files, and from there i either create an JPG or another type of file that's needed or asked for.
You can turn RAW into anything but a JPG is a final image, you can not so well make it into another file type.

off site backup you can do with an external harddisk and those are also cheap.

Whatever is shot in the camera is kept untouched, filed under its date and place. Any modified files go into a new folder, suitably named for the purpose that is intended.

I keep all of my photo's on my PC, organised by Lightroom.

After a shoot I use FreeFileSync to do a mirror backup of my PC photo repository to my Netgear ReadyNAS system to add new images and delete any discarded ones. The ReadyNAS back's up to USB attached 1Tb drives each night.

At any one time I have three copies of everything, once all backups are finished.

Vary occasionally, I backup my photo's to tape also. These tapes go into a fire safe, so even if my house burns down, I'm covered . . . I hope.

Thanks for all the comments. I may have to be more selective over what I back up online, perhaps using external storage to supplement this for the non perfect shots. I originally moved to online backup as it was simple and removed the reliance on myself to manually duplicate/copy/store but it's becoming clear I need to balance convenience and cost.

It's good to hear what others do - at least I know I'm not crazy to keep all this RAW data


Steve

At one time I backed up onto floppy disk.
Then I backed up anto Zip disk.
Then I backed up onto CD.
Now it should be DVD or an external Hard Drive.

Just remember that to storage media is totally reliable so you need to renew the backup (and do it onto more modern media).

My PhD Thesis was written using WordPerfect and saved onto a 1.2/5.25 floppy. Then onto a 1.4/3.5 floppy, then onto CD. I still have computers that will read the older media, but inevitably they will die and I might have to convert from WP. Saving in RAW (whatever flavour) does offer a chance that at some time in the future you can still read the files.

Geoff

I bet you're glad you didn't have to carve it onto a stone tablet.

... just sorting out 2.5TB of in-house storage, another 3TB will go offsite soon. Just need to get the setup right. Everything is at the moment mainly on two disks, I have filled a 2TB way too quickly this year.

Bret

What Gwyn says above!

I go through a shoot in lightroom and post proverssthe good ones. but I then export every shot to a new folder as a 1400x1000 ( max size ) jpg with a bit of compression.

When my drive starts to get full up I move the RAWs to TWO back up 2TB hard drives and store them safely.

One of the Senior Lecturers at that time had written his Thesis on a rubber-keyed Spectrum. I think that must be nearly as bad.

For what purpose do you use those photos?

I'm just wandering though, i only convert them to JPG when i need to and after the JPGS are used (uploaded, send) i delete them again since i won't use them anymore and you can simply create new ones if you've to.

Since I work on a copy of my original RAW, leaving the original untouched, I save all those I convert to Jpg too. Simply because I thought they were worth the effort in the first place and why go through it all again?
With some of them I doubt I could achieve the same results since it is so long since I worked on them I can't remember everything I did. Very occasionally I will save a PSD of a very complicated bit of PP, but not normally.

I understand that when you don't work with lightroom or other such software.

If you did everything in lightroom it only takes on click a button to make a JPG so the way i see it, it takes more effort to manage those JPGS then to create them when you need them.

Deleting your RAW files is like destroying the negatives, with the RAW (negative) you can always create another image (develop a print differently). If all you've got is the jpg (print) you lose access to all the creative possibilities.