Another workflow question...

[kevinma]

I've just come back from a trip with about 800 RAW images. I have a question about the ultimate disposition of the files.

All the RAW images in their original numerical folders in their DCIM folders (Canon) have been saved to a back up disk. Copies on my hard disk. I've gone through these and have converted many of them to TIFFs. Whenever I made a TIFF file from, say folder 109CANON, I saved it in a folder called 109CANONe (for edited). So now I have hundreds of 40MB files, spread across these other e folders.

Now, I'm trying to decide what to do with these TIFF files... and how to organize them. In a way, it makes sense to keep them in their "e" folders because then I'll always be able to easily locate the original backed up RAW file. On the other hand, it would be handy to save them in more descriptively labelled folders.

I'm not sure that I've described my dilemma adequately; any help... appreciated.

Kevin.

[maderito]

Do you need a way to organize your image files and folders? If yes, consider a image cataloguing/database application.

See http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=40864 (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=40864&)

[tim]

Why'd you convert them to TIFF? What do you want to do with them? You haven't really explained your problem or question.

Personally what I do is set up the raw's so they're exposed properly then batch convert them to jpg for my website. If any need editing I do them on an individual basis, and I usually keep the file as PSD unless it was a trivial edit.

[robertwgross]

Personally, I shoot only RAW files, and then I transfer all files to a hard disk directory called Canon Receiving. At that stage, all relevance of directories from the camera are lost intentionally. So, I have a bunch of RAW files now. I convert those to TIF, and in that conversion, file renaming happens. Generally in the Canon IMG or whatever, I stick in four or five letters which is my key to the event, place, or theme. IMGDV05 means that I shot it in Death Valley in year 2005. Then the file name has some sequence numbers. Then I append some more brief text to the file name, like the name of the subject in that shot. Now I have a bunch of TIF files. Once all editing is finished, in some cases I will convert to JPEG for Internet or web use. However, I keep all of the damned files, and I keep them separate. The RAW files are archived out to CDR. The TIF files are archived off to another hard disk and also to DVD. The JPEG files are archived separately, and their base file name is the same as the TIF file that they came from.

---Bob Gross---

[tim]

I wouldn't mind keeping all my images as TIFF in case the CRW/CR2 format becomes obselete, but they're just too damn big. I have 15 gig of images from the past 6 months, that'd be 80GB or so as TIFF.

I think I need one of those really high capacity tape drives.

[rfreschner]

I wouldn't mind keeping all my images as TIFF in case the CRW/CR2 format becomes obselete

How about converting the CRW/CR2 files to DNG?

[kevinma]

Your answers have helped me think more about the issue. I realize that I don't need to convert them to tiff unless I want to print them. So what I think I'll do is edit the good ones and instead of converting to tiff, I'll convert them to jpegs. Then I'll import them into iPhoto which is what I use for displaying them, making slide shows and emailing. That way, the file sizes will be much smaller and manageable, and if necessary I can make small prints from the jpegs. How does this sound?
Kevin.

[Jesper]

Your answers have helped me think more about the issue. I realize that I don't need to convert them to tiff unless I want to print them. So what I think I'll do is edit the good ones and instead of converting to tiff, I'll convert them to jpegs. Then I'll import them into iPhoto which is what I use for displaying them, making slide shows and emailing. That way, the file sizes will be much smaller and manageable, and if necessary I can make small prints from the jpegs. How does this sound?
Kevin.Choose the right format, that sounds like a good idea. For displaying images on screen (via a website or directly from your harddisk) or to make small prints, JPEG is the best format because it gives you small, manageable files that can be displayed quickly. For larger prints at maximum quality, use TIFF.

I've just returned from a holiday in India with almost 1,000 RAW images (in total 5.65 GB of data). I'm going to select the ones that I want to put on my photo website, and I'll convert those to a smaller size (I often use something like 720 x 480 or 840 x 560 pixels) and save them as JPEG. With the settings I use, the JPEG files will usually be between 100 and 200 KB each, so that it doesn't take too long to view them on the website.

I'm also going to make prints of some images, and for that I'll go back to the original RAW files and convert them to TIFF at the original size (3072 x 2048 pixels).

[tim]

How about converting the CRW/CR2 files to DNG?

Good idea - does anyone know if that's a lossless conversion? Since it's an adobe "standard" hopefully it'll be around for a while. Alternately i'll just make sure I hang onto PS CS.


I've just returned from a holiday in India with almost 1,000 RAW images (in total 5.65 GB of data). I'm going to select the ones that I want to put on my photo website, and I'll convert those to a smaller size (I often use something like 720 x 480 or 840 x 560 pixels) and save them as JPEG. With the settings I use, the JPEG files will usually be between 100 and 200 KB each, so that it doesn't take too long to view them on the website.

You might like to check out http://www.jalbum.net , it's what does all the image management for my website.

[rfreschner]

Good idea - does anyone know if that's a lossless conversion? Since it's an adobe "standard" hopefully it'll be around for a while. Alternately i'll just make sure I hang onto PS CS.

It's supposed to be lossless (good article on it in the February? edition of Digital Photo Pro). I've dowloaded the free converter, but haven't had time to play with it yet...... too many other good things to play with at the moment!! :D

[tim]

There's an article about DNG here (PDF) (http://www.adobe.com/products/dng/pdfs/dng_primer.pdf), but it's not as complete as i'd like. I'll look in the library later on, and i'll have a play some time.