RAW files: to convert them or to not convert them?

I shoot RAW all the time. The vast majority of my images are not printed or emailed to others, but just gazed at on the screen. To this point I've been converting every image I take (except for the junk) and then keeping both the RAW file and the jpeg or the rare tiff. Now that there are programs that allow easy viewing of RAW files (e.g. Lightroom, Bridge) it occurred to me that I'm wasting time doing all this conversion unless I want to send someone an image or print one. I wonder if others are in a similar position and what the counter arguments might be?

If you're just going to view them on your monitor, by all means, make the adjustments and don't bother to covert them. When you do decide you want to print them or share them, you'll be navigating uncharted waters when it comes to your workflow, so it may take more time.

I certainly don't convert everything. I'll pick the best from a batch, convert those, make a selection and create a web gallery possibly, and print one or two of the really good ones. I have my screensaver set to display images from my local galleries, which I do enjoy. I leave my PC always on, so there screensaver has often picked in when I got back to the PC and it nice tol sit there for a few minutes looking at pictures that I took.

Almost certainly I should delete more garbage. I'm sure that's a flaw that many amateurs have: they can't bear to delete a picture even if it's sh**.

Regards,

I convert all mine - just so I can print if I need to and I upload alll mine to smugmug as a backup and they only take JPEGs

I convert all my raw files to DNG files with embedded raw contained before I do any editing. I then save these DNG files on an external hard drive until I have enough to justify burning to DVD. Next, I convert the original raw files to .psd, do all my editing, and save as .psd. Finally I delete the original raw files. Should I ever need them, I can extract them from my archived DNG files.

This involves a little bit of the culling workflow.. for the long answer.

But likewise I do not convert all images,. not by a long shot.

First is the cull,. toss out the obvious carp.

then start looking for the obvious keepers and flag them.

Of those I convert only those that I have an immediate desire to Proces,. either for uploading and sharing,. or for printing.

There's allways a large percentage of "middle gorund" images,. not garbage,. but not the cream of the crop either. These usually never get converted,. and sit on the harddrive as unprocessed RAW for at least a year before I may cull them again (allready archived to DVD though) Sometime I find a hidden Gem amongst this pile of otherwsie averedge stuff.

ANY images I process,. gets the full monty as if for printing,. and then from that Tiff I will create a small reduced jpeg to upload. As many mey notice,. this process does not allways produce the best web image,. but I'm not too concerned,. it's the prints that make the money

So in short perhaps 10-25% of the RAW files I shoot at a given time ever get converted,. and they only get that treatment when and if I actually intend to display/use them for something.