Running out of storage space

[max101]

I know that .jpg images are lossy (ie don't contain all the information that the 'original' photo had), but they are so much smaller than the equivalent .tiff (by a factor of 20) or raw image (by a factor of 5). After a few years of shooting photos I have a full hard drive (120GB) and a huge stack of CDs. I was thinking of just backing up the .jpgs and deleting the 'original' Raw and .tiff files.

Do you really loose so much information by .jpg conversion (and of course in the future I may carry out more image manipulation on these .jpgs and so loose more information).
I know this is a type of 'how much is too much?' question, but are there any thoughts on this?

[Jesper]

I always shoot RAW and I'd never throw away my original RAW files.

It's not only the lossy compression in JPEG that throws away some of the information. RAW files have 12 bits of information per pixel, and JPEG files have only 8 bits per pixel (for each colour channel). This article explains the differences between RAW and JPEG: Understanding RAW Files (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/u-raw-files.shtml).

Do you keep every single photo you shoot with your camera? Maybe it's a better idea to throw away some of the bad photos. At least don't throw away the RAW files of your best photos!

[pdrow]

Several people have suggested using an external harddrive to back up photos. When it is full, you unplug and store. I bought a DVD burner with my new computer. My stack of DVDs vs CDs is so much smaller. I am planning to purchase an external drive when I can afford it as I lost hundreds of nice photos when my cds bubbled and peeled. I called the manufacturer and they said it was probably due to heat and humidity. I suggested they put that on the package in LARGE letters when they sell them in Texas. Very frustrating.

I was saving all my shots, now I cull out the out the ones that I don't think I want to invest the time in to 'fix'

[max101]

Thanks for your thoughts. Jesper, your reference was very interesting. The problem is that if I do some post processing, the .tiff files (and the converted .jpeg files) contain the changes while the RAW don't, and so if I don't save the .tiff I lose the changes. Given that the .tiff files are over 70Mb I can only store 10 on a CD! Perhaps as Pdrow suggests I should only backup the .tiff of the best photos, and .jpegs for the others (or invest in a DVD burner).

[tim]

I don't entirely trust CDs or DVDs. My solution is:
- I keep all my images on my hard drive. If I run out of hard drive space, I delete the crap photos and keep the best ones. If that doesn't cut it down enough, I buy a bigger hard drive.
- I keep backups on a portable hard drive.
- I copy the portable drive onto my work PC sometimes.
- I keep a backup offsite, in a different city - in case a meteor hits ;)

My suggestion for you is:
a) Delete the really bad photos, RAW, TIFF, and JPG, and the ones you can live without. If you want to keep the not so good ones around, make them jpg.
b) Go thru and do step A again.
c) Zip up your TIFFs, store them on DVD, or store them as compressed TIFFs. Remember you can recreate the TIFFs with a little work in photoshop, so unless they took a lot of time, delete them.
d) Keep the RAWs on a hard drive or two - they're your negatives, you don't want to lose them.

Good luck!

[Jesper]

I backup my RAW files on an 160 GB external harddrive and also on DVDs. When I burn the DVDs, I turn on the "verify data" option of my DVD burning software, because although I have a really good DVD burner, I want to be sure that the data is written on the DVDs correctly - a few weeks ago I got a verify error after writing a DVD, so it can happen that it doesn't copy the data correctly. I store the DVDs in a dark place. I have some CD-ROMs that I burned a few years ago, which start to change colour after they've been lying in the sun too long. They are still readable, but too much light can't be good...

I don't backup most of my TIFF files, just the ones that I've spent a lot of time on. If a harddisk disaster happens, I have at least my original RAW files in a safe place...

[steven]

Nothing is "safe". I have had harddrives die after 2 months of use and had CD-Rs (not gold or siver) last more than 6 years (so far). There is just no telling.
The only safe method is to keep multi copies of your files you are worried about and count on the unlikly event that multi copies in multi location will all go bad at the same time.
So doesn't matter what you copy on to just make sure you have 2 and more copies.

[Hellashot]

I only save RAW files. With PSE 3.0 when you click "OK" and convert the raw data into an editable image, it saves the raw settings you changed so that if you went back in to the raw file your settings are saved for you to re-create the editable image. And since I don't believe in doing a bunch of fancy stuff to doctor up my images besides sharpening I don't lose anything by not saving a JPG.

Get a DVD burner!

[Steven M. Anthony]

Thanks for your thoughts. Jesper, your reference was very interesting. The problem is that if I do some post processing, the .tiff files (and the converted .jpeg files) contain the changes while the RAW don't, and so if I don't save the .tiff I lose the changes. Given that the .tiff files are over 70Mb I can only store 10 on a CD! Perhaps as Pdrow suggests I should only backup the .tiff of the best photos, and .jpegs for the others (or invest in a DVD burner).

You could always flatten the layers on the file before saving as a tif--that would reduce the file size from 70MB down you your original (RAW) file size.

[rothers]

Save the .tiffs with .lzw compression, it's lossless, almost any image app can do it. Apps such as ACDSee can batch convert a whole directory at once overwriting the originals.