raw files are HUGE

On Mar 11, 8:04 am, "Sameer" wrote:
On Mar 10, 8:49 pm, C J Campbell
wrote:

On 2007-03-03 18:16:40 -0800, "Sameer" said:

I tried winzip and winrar but they cant compress them much. Is there
anything else which works?

They can't be compressed much. Nikon offers a 'compressed' RAW format
in-camera. I can't tell the difference from the non-compressed one.
They are the same size. Besides, you really don't want to do anything
that might modify an original RAW file.

That is why I decided not to use DNG files just to save space.

I was talking to a friend about this and he said that most cameras use
very weak compression due to speed and better algorithms can do
better, upto even 40%.

I hope some company releases a tool which can do this.

"Sameer" schreef in bericht
ups.com...

On Mar 11, 8:04 am, "Sameer" wrote:
On Mar 10, 8:49 pm, C J Campbell
wrote:

On 2007-03-03 18:16:40 -0800, "Sameer" said:

I tried winzip and winrar but they cant compress them much. Is there
anything else which works?

They can't be compressed much. Nikon offers a 'compressed' RAW format
in-camera. I can't tell the difference from the non-compressed one.
They are the same size. Besides, you really don't want to do anything
that might modify an original RAW file.

That is why I decided not to use DNG files just to save space.

I was talking to a friend about this and he said that most cameras use
very weak compression due to speed and better algorithms can do
better, upto even 40%.

There are probably better algorithms, but using the in camera processor
and given that you want the battery to last and have a fast camera, there
are limitations with the algorithm.
It's fantastic what they can do in a camera, but it's not unlikely that a
PC processor, which is not 'limited' in power consumption and size can
do better, specially when given the time for the compression.

Compression can be better, but not within the given constraints of the
camera. But as I am surprised what the in camera processor can deliver
now. I'll probably will be surprised again in a few years time.

ben




I hope some company releases a tool which can do this.

In article . com,
"Sameer" wrote:


On Mar 10, 8:49 pm, C J Campbell
wrote:

On 2007-03-03 18:16:40 -0800, "Sameer" said:

I tried winzip and winrar but they cant compress them much. Is there
anything else which works?

They can't be compressed much. Nikon offers a 'compressed' RAW format
in-camera. I can't tell the difference from the non-compressed one.
They are the same size. Besides, you really don't want to do anything
that might modify an original RAW file.

That is why I decided not to use DNG files just to save space.

The most common solution is to get an external firewire drive to store your
photos. Avoid USB due to the slower transfer rate. Once you compress the
picture you can not get the pixels back. Once you work on a RAW picture you
can not recover any data unless you "start over" Store your RAW files on
your ext drive and put them on a DVD or CD too. You can never (well almost
never) have to many backups. If you want another layer of backup, give a
copy to a friend to hold for you. This is called "off-site storage". You
might think about a reciprocal agreement to hold his-her backups.
--
Grow old disgracefully and enjoy yourself

Bob
Central CA

In article ,
ow says...

The most common solution is to get an external firewire drive to store your
photos. Avoid USB due to the slower transfer rate.

How much faster is a Firewire drive compared to a USB2 drive?

Once you compress the
picture you can not get the pixels back.

What do you mean by this? We are talking about lossless compression.

Once you work on a RAW picture you
can not recover any data unless you "start over"

If you keep the RAW in a separate file, you can always open a RAW file
and at least get automatically to the same point after RAW conversion.
What you lose are all operations which you do after RAW conversion,
because these are not stored in the settings file.

Store your RAW files on
your ext drive and put them on a DVD or CD too. You can never (well almost
never) have to many backups. If you want another layer of backup, give a
copy to a friend to hold for you. This is called "off-site storage". You
might think about a reciprocal agreement to hold his-her backups.

Yes. Personally I keep three or four copies of the same file on
different media.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus 50X0, 7070, 8080, E300, E330, E400 and E500 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

On Sun, 08 Apr 2007 20:53:50 +0000, The Bobert wrote:

In article . com,
"Sameer" wrote:


On Mar 10, 8:49 pm, C J Campbell
wrote:

On 2007-03-03 18:16:40 -0800, "Sameer" said:

I tried winzip and winrar but they cant compress them much. Is there
anything else which works?

They can't be compressed much. Nikon offers a 'compressed' RAW format
in-camera. I can't tell the difference from the non-compressed one.
They are the same size. Besides, you really don't want to do anything
that might modify an original RAW file.

That is why I decided not to use DNG files just to save space.

The most common solution is to get an external firewire drive to store your
photos. Avoid USB due to the slower transfer rate. Once you compress the
picture you can not get the pixels back.

That is not quite true. There is 'lossless' compression and there is
'lossy' compression. If a file is compress using a lossless algorithm then
decompression will return you the EXACT same file you started with - not a
bit will have changed. You may have difficulty with the concept - let me
use a simple example fro run lenght encoding - if you have a string of 500
bytes which are identical you don't loose anything by storing two or three
bytes of information which essentially say "we've go 500 bytes of
0x01100110".

Once you work on a RAW picture
you can not recover any data unless you "start over"

I'm not aware of any, but there is no reason in the world that image
processing could not implement a 'journal' of changes which would allow
the orignal image to be retrieved - but, in practice, I guess you're right.

Store your RAW
files on your ext drive and put them on a DVD or CD too. You can never
(well almost never) have to many backups. If you want another layer of
backup, give a copy to a friend to hold for you. This is called
"off-site storage". You might think about a reciprocal agreement to
hold his-her backups.

"Sameer" wrote in message
ups.com...

On Mar 11, 8:04 am, "Sameer" wrote:
On Mar 10, 8:49 pm, C J Campbell
wrote:

On 2007-03-03 18:16:40 -0800, "Sameer" said:

I tried winzip and winrar but they cant compress them much. Is there
anything else which works?

They can't be compressed much. Nikon offers a 'compressed' RAW format
in-camera. I can't tell the difference from the non-compressed one.
They are the same size. Besides, you really don't want to do anything
that might modify an original RAW file.

That is why I decided not to use DNG files just to save space.

I was talking to a friend about this and he said that most cameras use
very weak compression due to speed and better algorithms can do
better, upto even 40%.

I hope some company releases a tool which can do this.



With my Pentax K10D it doesn't compress the DNG files. If I run them through
Adobe's DNG converter I can cut the file size in half. I can get a 25%
increase by converting the PEF Raw files to DNG with compression. I would
imagine with the exception of JPG which should be quite fast as it is lossy
that lossless compression can be very resource hungry and slow as well.
Though RAW files are worth every K.

=(8)

Alfred Molon wrote:
In article ,
ow says...

The most common solution is to get an external firewire drive to store your
photos. Avoid USB due to the slower transfer rate.

How much faster is a Firewire drive compared to a USB2 drive?


I would avoid firewire because it's not as widely supported and the most
common firewire spec is only something like 15-20% faster IIRC.

On Apr 8, 12:55 pm, "ben brugman" wrote:
"Sameer" schreef in oglegroups.com...

On Mar 11, 8:04 am, "Sameer" wrote:
On Mar 10, 8:49 pm, C J Campbell
wrote:

On 2007-03-03 18:16:40 -0800, "Sameer" said:

I tried winzip and winrar but they cant compress them much. Is there
anything else which works?

They can't be compressed much. Nikon offers a 'compressed' RAW format
in-camera. I can't tell the difference from the non-compressed one.
They are the same size. Besides, you really don't want to do anything
that might modify an original RAW file.

That is why I decided not to use DNG files just to save space.

I was talking to a friend about this and he said that most cameras use
very weak compression due to speed and better algorithms can do
better, upto even 40%.

There are probably better algorithms, but using the in camera processor
and given that you want the battery to last and have a fast camera, there
are limitations with the algorithm.
It's fantastic what they can do in a camera, but it's not unlikely that a
PC processor, which is not 'limited' in power consumption and size can
do better, specially when given the time for the compression.

Compression can be better, but not within the given constraints of the
camera. But as I am surprised what the in camera processor can deliver
now. I'll probably will be surprised again in a few years time.

In camera limitations are understandable, but if a desktop tool can do
better I will happily shell out 20-30 bucks for another 30-40%
compression.

I hope I am not the only one willing to pay for this.

On Apr 8, 8:11 pm, "=\(8\)" wrote:
"Sameer" wrote in message

ups.com...

On Mar 11, 8:04 am, "Sameer" wrote:
On Mar 10, 8:49 pm, C J Campbell
wrote:

On 2007-03-03 18:16:40 -0800, "Sameer" said:

I tried winzip and winrar but they cant compress them much. Is there
anything else which works?

They can't be compressed much. Nikon offers a 'compressed' RAW format
in-camera. I can't tell the difference from the non-compressed one.
They are the same size. Besides, you really don't want to do anything
that might modify an original RAW file.

That is why I decided not to use DNG files just to save space.

I was talking to a friend about this and he said that most cameras use
very weak compression due to speed and better algorithms can do
better, upto even 40%.

I hope some company releases a tool which can do this.

With my Pentax K10D it doesn't compress the DNG files. If I run them through
Adobe's DNG converter I can cut the file size in half.

I tried DNG, it saves around 10% for me but I can't convert back to
original file. I was worried about lost data.

I can get a 25%
increase by converting the PEF Raw files to DNG with compression.

You mean they become bigger?

On Apr 8, 11:07 pm, ray wrote:
On Sun, 08 Apr 2007 20:53:50 +0000, The Bobert wrote:
[snip]
Once you work on a RAW picture
you can not recover any data unless you "start over"

I'm not aware of any, but there is no reason in the world that image
processing could not implement a 'journal' of changes which would allow
the orignal image to be retrieved - but, in practice, I guess you're right.
[snip]

What is the problem here? Non-destructive editing of raw files is
normal - it is normally easy enough to go back to the raw converter
and make just a few changes to the raw converter editing already done.

With care, the new conversion can then replace the previous one in
(say) Photoshop processing to avoid redoing everything. Either the raw
file can be a smart object, or you can just copy the new version
across as an image layer and existing adjustment layers will work. Or
if you use smart filters, having copied the new image layer across,
you can transfer the previous filter settings to the new image layer.

--
Barry Pearson
http://www.barrypearson.co.uk/photography/