Digital photo management and storage question

From: (B.)

- What are the backup options? I'm guessing CDRs are tedious. Does
anyone have a mirror disk setup?

We've switched to external hard drives. Prices have dropped to where we
recently found a new 160 GB drive for $80 after rebates, though typical prices
are closer to $1 per GB. We use two of them, keeping one off-site and swapping
every week or so, or after we've shot important images.

- Is it really better to save images in RAW rather than the finest jpg
format. What is the real-life difference really?

We only archive the RAW files ourselves. If you're OK with jpegs go with jpegs
....

- Is interpolation after the fact close to having a RAW image

No, not even close.

From: (B.)

- What are the backup options? I'm guessing CDRs are tedious. Does
anyone have a mirror disk setup?

We've switched to external hard drives. Prices have dropped to where we
recently found a new 160 GB drive for $80 after rebates, though typical prices
are closer to $1 per GB. We use two of them, keeping one off-site and swapping
every week or so, or after we've shot important images.

- Is it really better to save images in RAW rather than the finest jpg
format. What is the real-life difference really?

We only archive the RAW files ourselves. If you're OK with jpegs go with jpegs
....

- Is interpolation after the fact close to having a RAW image

No, not even close.

dy (Bill Hilton) writes:

- Is it really better to save images in RAW rather than the finest jpg
format. What is the real-life difference really?

We only archive the RAW files ourselves. If you're OK with jpegs go
with jpegs

The RAW formats are, however, proprietary. You should be sure to make
good archive copies of the software that understands them, too. It's
*likely* that they are now important enough that lots of future
software will understand them, but...

- Is interpolation after the fact close to having a RAW image

No, not even close.

Yep. Or Nope. Or something. Not even close, as you say.

However, a TIFF file of your best conversion from the RAW is probably
as good as the actual RAW *for archival purposes* -- unless you're new
enough that you're doing a poor job on the conversion still :-). (Of
course the TIFF is probably *larger* than the RAW).
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://noguns-nomoney.com/ http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/

dy (Bill Hilton) writes:

- Is it really better to save images in RAW rather than the finest jpg
format. What is the real-life difference really?

We only archive the RAW files ourselves. If you're OK with jpegs go
with jpegs

The RAW formats are, however, proprietary. You should be sure to make
good archive copies of the software that understands them, too. It's
*likely* that they are now important enough that lots of future
software will understand them, but...

- Is interpolation after the fact close to having a RAW image

No, not even close.

Yep. Or Nope. Or something. Not even close, as you say.

However, a TIFF file of your best conversion from the RAW is probably
as good as the actual RAW *for archival purposes* -- unless you're new
enough that you're doing a poor job on the conversion still :-). (Of
course the TIFF is probably *larger* than the RAW).
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://noguns-nomoney.com/ http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/

"Matt Clara" writes:

"Bill Hilton" wrote in message
...
From: (B.)

- What are the backup options? I'm guessing CDRs are tedious. Does
anyone have a mirror disk setup?

We've switched to external hard drives. Prices have dropped to where we
recently found a new 160 GB drive for $80 after rebates, though typical
prices
are closer to $1 per GB. We use two of them, keeping one off-site and
swapping
every week or so, or after we've shot important images.

- Is it really better to save images in RAW rather than the finest jpg
format. What is the real-life difference really?

We only archive the RAW files ourselves. If you're OK with jpegs go with
jpegs
...

- Is interpolation after the fact close to having a RAW image

No, not even close.

Do you use some sort of database system to keep track of them, though? You
know, something with keywords, etc.

The backups, or the originals? I use Thumbs Plus from Cerious
Software to index what's on the hard disk, but I don't index the
backup copies (which are mostly in a backup program archive format,
not directly readable).
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://noguns-nomoney.com/ http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/

We only archive the RAW files ourselves.

From: David Dyer-Bennet

The RAW formats are, however, proprietary. You should be sure to make
good archive copies of the software that understands them, too. It's
*likely* that they are now important enough that lots of future
software will understand them, but...

"Proprietary" in the sense of writing them, but anyone can make a reader for
them ... right now I have the Canon software that shipped with the cameras,
Photoshop CS Raw converter (which keeps adding more cameras with every rev) and
Capture One SE, which is what I actually use, so there's no shortage of
converters out there, at least for the cameras I use.

If you have some odd-ball format or poorly supported camera I can see this as a
more serious problem, but not with the mainstream models ...

(Of course the TIFF is probably *larger* than the RAW).

"Probably"? Have you ever actually done a conversion and looked at the sizes?
Canon 1Ds RAW is about 8-10 MB depending on compression, the 8 bit tiff is
32,485 KB and the 12 bit tiff is 64,998 KB.

Bill

We only archive the RAW files ourselves.

From: David Dyer-Bennet

The RAW formats are, however, proprietary. You should be sure to make
good archive copies of the software that understands them, too. It's
*likely* that they are now important enough that lots of future
software will understand them, but...

"Proprietary" in the sense of writing them, but anyone can make a reader for
them ... right now I have the Canon software that shipped with the cameras,
Photoshop CS Raw converter (which keeps adding more cameras with every rev) and
Capture One SE, which is what I actually use, so there's no shortage of
converters out there, at least for the cameras I use.

If you have some odd-ball format or poorly supported camera I can see this as a
more serious problem, but not with the mainstream models ...

(Of course the TIFF is probably *larger* than the RAW).

"Probably"? Have you ever actually done a conversion and looked at the sizes?
Canon 1Ds RAW is about 8-10 MB depending on compression, the 8 bit tiff is
32,485 KB and the 12 bit tiff is 64,998 KB.

Bill

The backups, or the originals? I use Thumbs Plus from Cerious
Software to index what's on the hard disk, but I don't index the
backup copies (which are mostly in a backup program archive format,
not directly readable).

Picasa is quite nice (usability) for JPGs.

The backups, or the originals? I use Thumbs Plus from Cerious
Software to index what's on the hard disk, but I don't index the
backup copies (which are mostly in a backup program archive format,
not directly readable).

Picasa is quite nice (usability) for JPGs.

dy (Bill Hilton) writes:

We only archive the RAW files ourselves.

From: David Dyer-Bennet

The RAW formats are, however, proprietary. You should be sure to make
good archive copies of the software that understands them, too. It's
*likely* that they are now important enough that lots of future
software will understand them, but...

"Proprietary" in the sense of writing them, but anyone can make a
reader for them ... right now I have the Canon software that shipped
with the cameras, Photoshop CS Raw converter (which keeps adding
more cameras with every rev) and Capture One SE, which is what I
actually use, so there's no shortage of converters out there, at
least for the cameras I use.

They're not directly supported in the majority of imaging programs, is
the point.

If you have some odd-ball format or poorly supported camera I can
see this as a more serious problem, but not with the mainstream
models ...

That's what I was referring to by saying they *likely* will be
suported in the future.

(Of course the TIFF is probably *larger* than the RAW).

"Probably"? Have you ever actually done a conversion and looked at
the sizes? Canon 1Ds RAW is about 8-10 MB depending on compression,
the 8 bit tiff is 32,485 KB and the 12 bit tiff is 64,998 KB.

In my case it also depends on the conversion options. I can select
resulting size, and also whether it's 16-bit or 8-bit. My original
RAW files are about 23MB, the TIFF can range up to nearly 72MB (that's
if I opt for the full interpolated 12 mega-pixel conversion, so I
generally don't). (My camera is a Fuji S2).

If I select 8-bit and one of the smaller sizes, I believe it can
actually be smaller.

But to be *really* honest, I said "probably" more to cover all the
cameras I *don't* know anything about than to describe any specific
camea.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://noguns-nomoney.com/ http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/