# RAW vs JPG, should I start shooting in raw?



## penfold1 (Jun 29, 2008)

Well, I have always shot in JPG just because I did not want to deal with the extra hassle of converting images to JPG.

Is it worth my time to start shooting in RAW and post-editing each photo?

Thanks for any information you can give me.
-Penfold


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## dEARlEADER (Jun 29, 2008)

are you happy with your jpegs?


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## nynfortoo (Jun 29, 2008)

Try it and see. It's the only way you'll truly know.


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## RyanLilly (Jun 29, 2008)

yes


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## RyanLilly (Jun 29, 2008)

no


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## nymtber (Jun 29, 2008)

I shot a few in RAW yesterday, with Photoshop CS3 and whatever RAW plugin my Sony A200 software installed, I convert my RAW files to .TIFF or .JPEG in photoshop, the sony RAW program is SLOW. That said if im just snapping pictures ill be shooting .jpeg because it makes great pictures and less work. I did save a very poorly lit (took under tree) picture of my girlfriend using photoshop, the original was a jpeg. Editing RAW leaves a few more options...

If you dont wanna do the work, shoot in JPEG, but Use raw for those very very important pictures when your going to want the best quality, portraits, macro, landscape with tripod, etc. 

Photoshop is FUN  I havnt even touched on anything yet. Just basic image editing!


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## Overread (Jun 29, 2008)

There is a good RAW vs JPEG comparison here -
http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/raw/raw.htm
3 pages, but welll worth reading

Also for editing here is a run through of RAW editing:
http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/workflow_basic/workflow_basic.htm

Personally I think if you have a 4GB memory card then shooting RAW is the best way to go. 2BG and 1BG cards tend to fill up rather quick when shooting whilst with 4BG you can get around 400 shots with RAW.


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## Moglex (Jun 29, 2008)

I can't speak for other manufacturers but the utility Canon provides makes dealing with RAW a breeze.

You simply download the RAW files then tell the program to process them all with the standard setting and go and make a cup of tea.

(It's not the niftiest of programs - a lot slower than the camera doing it - I hope that's because it's using a more sophisticated algorithm).

Now you have a set of JPG/TIFF files and if any of them look as if they may need special treatment you can go back and 'develop' them with non standard parameters.

Obviously if you know in advance that some images will need separate treatment you can accommodate that.

But apart from the short wait whilst the images are initially processed (and the extra storage required both in the camera and on the PC) there's very little downside and you know that if necessary you have the extra flexibility of individually treating any image that requires it.

Of course, if you have enough space on your memory card you can usually shoot RAW+jpg and eliminate the initial processing phase.


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## DWS (Jun 29, 2008)

if you are totally satisfied with your jpg's stick with them; however, if you sometimes or often think "it could be better", then go RAW


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## Bifurcator (Jun 29, 2008)

danjchau said:


> If you are editing them, shoot Raw
> If you are directly printing them, shoot JPG



Seconded!

And I add: _Only if you know some photoshop technique._


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## penfold1 (Jun 29, 2008)

thanks everyone. Pictures can always be improved, so raw it is for now on!


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## taracor (Jun 29, 2008)

Well, I mean you can edit Jpegs, the thing with RAW is if you know exactly how you are going to edit it, THEN you use it..(ie set white balance and exposure compensation) 

As long as you don't save over it, you can edit Jpegs without too much quality loss.  Especially if you turn it into a tiff first, and work off that, which is what I and a lot of other people do.


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## JerryPH (Jun 29, 2008)

I've shot 90% in RAW and been happy with the results. This after shooting RAW+JPG and then comparing the results. The JPGs that come from personalized PPing starting from RAW files are always superior in my case. Even PPing the JPGs, the results are closer, but still not quite equal.

The RAWs files contain nuances that are just not there if you process or edit a JPG... even if you start from a JPG.

Try both, use what you find works better for you.


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## Garbz (Jun 29, 2008)

Also don't by into the crap that RAW files are harder to use than JPEGs because RAWs need to be edited. Any competent image processing program keeps the process identical to both.

RAWs need to be converted. Printing them in a program that recognises the RAW format like Photoshop, Aperture, Lightroom, Bible Pro, AcdSee Pro2, ... does just that. Leave everything as defaults and you're only 1 single key press worse off than JPEG files.


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## nynfortoo (Jun 30, 2008)

Funnily enough, too, my iView Media Pro program loads in my RAW files _much_ quicker than JPGs, so it's actually quicker for me to browse RAW files.

Flipping through JPGs in iView, I'm left with  1-second or so delay from rotating my scroll wheel to seeing the image. It's almost instant with RAW.


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## manaheim (Jun 30, 2008)

RyanLilly said:


> yes


 


RyanLilly said:


> no


 


How to start a weekly flame war on TPF.  Step 1.  Post any one of the following questions:

Do I shoot RAW or JPG?
Do I need to buy a 47 megapixel camera to have good pictures?
Amiga or Macintosh, which should I buy?


Aaaaaaanyway... to OP: Shoot with JPEG until your JPEGs make you angry because of something that you cannot fix, then start shooting RAW.  JPEGs are a lossy compression- which means the data it doesn't feel that you "need", it hucks in the trash.  If the camera misinterprets something on your scene (most famously light color), you're going to have a much harder time correcting it than you would with a RAW image.

Now... on to the flame wars! :mrgreen:


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## Moglex (Jun 30, 2008)

manaheim said:


> How to start a weekly flame war on TPF.  Step 1.  Post any one of the following questions:
> 
> Do I shoot RAW or JPG?
> *Do I need to buy a 47 megapixel camera to have good pictures?*
> Amiga or Macintosh, which should I buy?



Naaaah.

Those low resolution jobbies are for rank amateurs.

A 2400DPI scan from the neg of a 5 x 4 at the very minimum. 

(So long as you don't want to print above 10 x 8).


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## Bifurcator (Jun 30, 2008)

manaheim said:


> How to start a weekly flame war on TPF.  Step 1.  Post any one of the following questions:
> 
> Amiga or [nothing else matters!], which should I buy?



AMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



/does the Jay Minor Rocks! dance/


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## penfold1 (Jun 30, 2008)

Overread said:


> There is a good RAW vs JPEG comparison here -
> http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/raw/raw.htm
> 3 pages, but welll worth reading
> 
> ...



Thanks for the links, they helped a lot. I shouldn't have trouble with RAW, since I just learned the right way to use all the PS tools I have been using for years.


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## Mav (Jul 1, 2008)

nynfortoo said:


> Funnily enough, too, my iView Media Pro program loads in my RAW files _much_ quicker than JPGs, so it's actually quicker for me to browse RAW files.
> 
> Flipping through JPGs in iView, I'm left with  1-second or so delay from rotating my scroll wheel to seeing the image. It's almost instant with RAW.


Now that's odd.  Mine is exactly the opposite.  JPEGs are instant but RAWs give a second or two lag.  It's bad and annoying enough that I'll move all the RAWs to a different folder.  I have whatever the latest version was before they switched it to the M$ crap, for Mac OS X.


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## Mav (Jul 1, 2008)

Here's my whole new take on the JPEG vs RAW debate...


Do you personally _ENJOY_ the whole process of working with RAW files?  If so, _AND_ you can get better results that way, by all means shoot more RAW.  If you don't, _AND_ you can already get results that please you with JPEG, then there's no reason for you to be shooting RAW.  Just shoot JPEG.  Forget about anybody's comparisons on the various technical attributes of the two file types and who also might claim that you can do some things with with one but "can't" with the other because most of it is pure BS from what I've seen.

I shoot pretty much all JPEG.  A big advantage of the Nikon system at least in my book is that their in-camera processing is great which makes it easy to get great JPEGs.  The factory "Capture NX" RAW software on the other hand stinks and is a big pile of crap, and even a lot of Nikon shooters will back that up.  And the other converters and programs out there all have their own way of doing things which isn't necessarily as good as what you could get from Nikon's own JPEGs.  I personally don't enjoy the whole RAW process and workflow and enjoy far more the process of trying to get great photos that look their best straight off the camera, _in JPEG_.  Apparently Canon makes it far easier to shoot RAW if their software is better, and it's included with the camera already?  You have to pay for Nikon's Capture NX software which is slow, buggy, and clunky, but does do some neat things.  At least if Canon's in-camera JPEG processing isn't as good, they at least make it easier to shoot RAW.


And the last thing I'll say is that anybody who claims someone is an idiot or stupid for doing things in a certain way (and not just limited to the whole RAW vs JPEG discussion) with regards to photography is automatically stupid and an idiot themselves in my book.  Don't listen to these people.


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## Alan Ellis (Jul 1, 2008)

Can I use my CS3 to process and edit RAW images into JPEGs or do I still have to use the Sony software to convert?   Thx...

AE


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## RockDawg (Jul 1, 2008)

Garbz said:


> Also don't by into the crap that RAW files are harder to use than JPEGs because RAWs need to be edited. Any competent image processing program keeps the process identical to both.


 
I recently started playing around with RAW and, from my admittedly limited knowledge and experience with this, that doesn't seem to be true.  For example, I took some photos of a gorgeous orange sky the other night and was amazed to find that the displayed image was a lot different between  Capture/View NX and the Adobes (LR and PS).  The colors were very muted and dark in the Adobe software.  

Researching this I found that it's aparently due to the Nikon software applying in-camera settings to the RAW file much like the camera would do to a jpg.  Lightroom and Photoshop aparently don't do this, or don't do it nearly as well.  The result isa that the images look completely different depending on which software I view them in.  

What was amazing to me is that I would've expected the plain RAW (no in-camera settings applied) to be more indicative of the actual view that night, but instead the "processed" RAWs were more accurately reflected what I actually saw when I would've expected them to be a little more "exagerated".

What this means is that instead of easily using LR for most everything I now have to jump through hoops to do what I want.  I'm not very good at procesing and altering  my images to begin with and this just makes more complited.  I'm very bummed to learn this reality of RAW.


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## Moglex (Jul 1, 2008)

RockDawg said:


> What was amazing to me is that I would've expected the plain RAW (no in-camera settings applied) to be more indicative of the actual view that night, but instead the "processed" RAWs were more accurately reflected what I actually saw when I would've expected them to be a little more "exaggerated".
> 
> What this means is that instead of easily using LR for most everything I now have to jump through hoops to do what I want.  I'm not very good at processing and altering  my images to begin with and this just makes more completed.  I'm very bummed to learn this reality of RAW.



Hmmm.

You should expect the 'processed' image to be closer to what you 'thought' you saw.

That means it's doing it's job!

Your brain compensates for quite a range of colour casts so that you see roughly the same thing under a wide range of lighting conditions.

The unprocessed image just has what your eye saw.

If the software is competent the processed image will be closer to what you visualised post a great deal of processing by your own brain.


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## Mystwalker (Jul 1, 2008)

If your camera allows - go RAW+JPEG

RAW gives best options if you know what you are doing, AND if you have the time.

I neither know what to do with RAW nor have time so I shoot RAW+JPEG.  Just in case there is that one shot that I absolutely must have perfect.


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## penfold1 (Jul 1, 2008)

Well, I took some test photos in RAW yesterday, plugged m camera in and my mac refused to recognize the camera.  I figured it was because I needed the Canon software, so I found the CD and installed that.

Then when I plugged the camera in it started to open the canon software, then froze, then said the camera was not connected....

I just added this mac to my arsenal last sept and it has caused me so much grief...


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## Mav (Jul 1, 2008)

RockDawg said:


> Researching this I found that it's aparently due to the Nikon software applying in-camera settings to the RAW file much like the camera would do to a jpg.  Lightroom and Photoshop aparently don't do this, or don't do it nearly as well.  The result isa that the images look completely different depending on which software I view them in.


Right.  The algorithms that Nikon uses to go from RAW to JPEG are HIGHLY proprietary.  All the other third-party software makers merely do their best guess or reverse engineering or their own interpretation of what things should look like with a given setting, and hence each RAW converter will give you a different look.  




RockDawg said:


> What this means is that instead of easily using LR for most everything I now have to jump through hoops to do what I want.  I'm not very good at procesing and altering  my images to begin with and this just makes more complited.  I'm very bummed to learn this reality of RAW.


If you don't enjoy it and don't like the results you get or all the hoops you have to jump through, then I'd seriously consider just shooting JPEG.


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## Helen B (Jul 1, 2008)

Mav said:


> Right.  The algorithms that Nikon uses to go from RAW to JPEG are HIGHLY proprietary.  All the other third-party software makers merely do their best guess or reverse engineering or their own interpretation of what things should look like with a given setting, and hence each RAW converter will give you a different look.



Exactly. It's not so much 'unprocessed' and 'processed', but just differently processed. If you are looking at a recognisable image you aren't looking at  an unprocessed Raw file.

Best,
Helen


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## CloseToGermany (Jul 2, 2008)

I fell in love with Raw, it's really like they said about the printing or editing circumstance. 

I am continually shooting in low light situations, and the editing option helps make up for my inadequacies.


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## dEARlEADER (Jul 2, 2008)

Mav said:


> Right.  The algorithms that Nikon uses to go from RAW to JPEG are HIGHLY proprietary.  All the other third-party software makers merely do their best guess or reverse engineering or their own interpretation of what things should look like with a given setting, and hence each RAW converter will give you a different look.



This is true... even Nikon can't get it right some times.... for instance on my D60 noise due to high ISO is way better dealt with in camera jpg as opposed to shooting NEF(RAW) and using Nikons ViewNX to convert to jpg.

The RAW files converted by Nikons viewNX are way noisy compared to just shooting jpeg.

How Nikon can't replicate their incamera processing on computer software is beyond me.  They have some lousy ass software. 

I used to shoot RAW exclusive... now I shoot jpeg... I focus more on getting shots right in camera (especially white balance)... this saves my PP time.... I never save a jpeg 20 times.... I never save a jpeg 3 times... I copy an unedited jpeg to a back up disc...

I find it more time consuming to shoot RAW and have to recreate the look of my jpeg.  However, I'm just a hobbyist and not a pro.  If I was a pro I would shoot RAW because I'm getting paid for my editing time.


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## Fox Paw (Jul 2, 2008)

"I can't speak for other manufacturers but the utility Canon provides makes dealing with RAW a breeze.  You simply download the RAW files then tell the program to process them all with the standard setting and go and make a cup of tea."

I'm sure you're right but this puzzles me.  I've only been shooting RAW for about six weeks.  When I start the Canon utility software, I get recognizable images immediately, and I don't recall seeing anything about a standard-setting option.  I'll have to explore more.


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## Canon John (Jul 2, 2008)

I shoot everything in RAW. I have for years. when I shoot JPEGs I always feel something lacking from the get go. Also JPEGs throw off my workflow and filing system.

Should everyone shoot RAW? No. Shoot what suites you. I shot JPEGS until I felt the need to shoot RAW. Some never feel that need, and that is okay.


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## Moglex (Jul 2, 2008)

Fox Paw said:


> "I can't speak for other manufacturers but the utility Canon provides makes dealing with RAW a breeze.  You simply download the RAW files then tell the program to process them all with the standard setting and go and make a cup of tea."
> 
> I'm sure you're right but this puzzles me.  I've only been shooting RAW for about six weeks.  When I start the Canon utility software, I get recognizable images immediately, and I don't recall seeing anything about a standard-setting option.  I'll have to explore more.



You just click on "download images" and it downloads them all.

Then select the ones you want and right click for a menu.

Select "Process RAW image" and the screen changes to show the shots you've selected together with a dilogue box with some settings.

Ignore this and just press save and you get another dialogue box. Click OK on this and your images will be saved in the format you require (e.g. JPG, TIFF, etc) (you just need to select this the first time you go through the process).

If at any stage futher intervention is required you need to investigate a little further to process some images with non standard settings.

All in all, though, it's pretty straightforward.


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## Fox Paw (Jul 2, 2008)

Thanks for the help, Moglex.  I'll try that.


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## Bifurcator (Jul 2, 2008)

Alan Ellis said:


> Can I use my CS3 to process and edit RAW images into JPEGs or do I still have to use the Sony software to convert?   Thx...
> 
> AE



You get to use Adobe CameraRAW and with CS3 it will open JPEG 2000, JPEG, and just about every raw format I know of including .DNG (digital negative) files which have several advantages and I personally like the most. 

I use my camera soft to batch convert everything over to DNG and then bring those into PS CS3 through CameraRAW. Here's the controls offered in Adobe CameraRAW if you downloaded the newest version or allowed PS to connect to the web and update you (*EDIT*: _Actually these screen shots were created awhile ago and I notice some differences between the newest version and this - oops_):









Notice the multi-image editing capabilities.








These are all the menus. Notice the histogram clipping indicators.​



Give it a shot.


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## RockDawg (Jul 2, 2008)

Bifurcator - What are the advantages of DNG?  Do you still keep your RAW files too?  Ideally, I would like to use Lightroom for most things, but as I mentioned in my post above, the only thing that seems to show NEF's correctly is Nikon software.  Also, I'd like to limit how many different formats I'm keeping.  I'm really perplexed on what the best workflow for me might be.  I knwo it's different for everybody, but as a newb I'm not even sure where to start.


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## Bifurcator (Jul 2, 2008)

Primary .dng benefits for me are:


Good Lossless compression. (About 6MB for an 8MP 12bit file.)  (My files are bigger because I embed.)
Conversion to Linear Image data option. (this is a demosaiced interpolated format)
Option to keep original RAW file as embedded file chunk.
Option to keep camera balanced jpeg as embedded and/or scaled (none, small, medium, full size).
Supported by all the software packages I want to use for photo editing including but *NOT* limited to: 
http://www.adobe.com/products/dng/supporters.html
Faster previews from many software packages. (faster than other RAW formats)
Very forward compatible file structure. (promotes archival confidence)
Public SDK Available.
Public Specs Available.
Single Solution for multiple camera types. (Unification)
_Should work in LightRoom perfectly for you._ ***
High speed conversion tools are available for IRIX, LINUX, Mac, Windoze, AmigaOS, and perhaps others.
High speed conversion tools usually accompany your camera's software CD.
Etc.

And no, I don't keep the NEFs or MRW's or ORF's or DRF's or CRW's or RAF's, or MEF's or PTX's or PEF's or DCS's or DCR's any longer. I delete them.  But you can see from this list maybe a little why I want unification and a single common format.


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## RockDawg (Jul 2, 2008)

Can I convert my RAWs to DNG before any PP and they keep the in-camera settings that seem to be causing me problems? Can I PP DNG files with the same benefits as RAW (beter white balance adjustment, recover some detail in blown highlights, etc)?

It would be great if I could convert all NEFs to DNG from my SD card with in-camera settings maintained and then import them into LR for any PP I may wish to perform. Then the most I might need to do is export as jpgs for general use. Minimal software, minimal formats, all the same benefits?


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## Bifurcator (Jul 2, 2008)

RockDawg said:


> Can I convert my RAWs to DNG before any PP and they keep the in-camera settings that seem to be causing me problems? Can I PP DNG files with the same benefits as RAW (beter white balance adjustment, recover some detail in blown highlights, etc)?
> 
> It would be great if I could convert all NEFs to DNG from my SD card with in-camera settings maintained and then import them into LR for any PP I may wish to perform. Then the most I might need to do is export as jpgs for general use. Minimal software, minimal formats, all the same benefits?



I want to say yes to all your questions. I can answer yes in my case and for all the cameras I've owned. I had the nikon d2x (not to mention a buttload of different coolpix's) for awhile and I was doing DNGs then.

Try it and find out. Is your camera in this list: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html ??  If so go here and download the converter and give it a shot: 
For Windoze: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3894
For Mac: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3893


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## RockDawg (Jul 2, 2008)

Bifurcator said:


> Option to keep original RAW file as embedded file chunk.
> Option to keep camera balanced jpeg as embedded and/or scaled (none, small, medium, full size).


 
Sorry to be such a newb, but can you tell me what those two things mean and what benefit they serve?

Also, My camera is a D80 which shows as supported on the link you provided.  So I can only convert to DNG through Adobe's software?  Does it retain the in-camera settings?  I was under the impression that was a propietary Nikon thing.  All the other Adobe products that I've tried have shown problems in this regard.


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## Bifurcator (Jul 2, 2008)

RockDawg said:


> Sorry to be such a newb, but can you tell me what those two things mean and what benefit they serve?
> 
> Also, My camera is a D80 which shows as supported on the link you provided.  So I can only convert to DNG through Adobe's software?  Does it retain the in-camera settings?  I was under the impression that was a propietary Nikon thing.  All the other Adobe products that I've tried have shown problems in this regard.



If there are those problems and you want to use dng format then just embed.

here's the info you asked for (at the link I already posted): http://www.adobe.com/special/photoshop/camera_raw/DNG_4.4.1_Converter_ReadMe.pdf


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## Garbz (Jul 3, 2008)

RockDawg said:


> Ideally, I would like to use Lightroom for most things, but as I mentioned in my post above, the only thing that seems to show NEF's correctly is Nikon software.



Originally I was talking about the process of using RAWs compared to the process of using JPEGs. In a program which properly manages the workflow this will be identical. My comment had nothing to do with the image itself which will appear different on every RAW processor.

The problem is that each processor has it's own ideal method of interpreting the data, and each programmer their own interpretation of what constitutes an ideal output. In the case of Lightroom this is a mixture of the default settings, and the CameraRAW profile for the camera. Now Lightroom can be made to look the same as Nikon. You would need to subtly change the tone curves, and a few of the colour hues and saturations, and then apply those settings as the default for all imported RAWs. (Capture NX takes the defaults from how the camera was set). I did this at first and then after 2 weeks reset everything to default because I felt to my eyes the D200 JPEG / CaptureNX style result for this camera gave a way too saturated and red image. 

Mind you the fact that there's no right interpretation exists even on the camera level. I'm not sure if other cameras have this too but the D200 has three colour modes in two different colour spaces, with five levels of saturation, and five default tone curves that can be applied in JPEG mode. That's 150 (minus 25 because colour mode II is not available in sRGB mode), different possible combinations that the camera and spit out from it's own menu.

Find a process that is right for you. Whether that is a modified default Lightroom profile, sticking with CaptureNX (*shudders*), or using one of the many other processors that no one talks about like Bible Pro, or Phase One's RAW processor.


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## StillImage (Jul 3, 2008)

I cannot believe that anyone who has a camera that is capable of shooting in RAW doesn't. It should not even be an issue, to shoot in JPEG when you can shoot in RAW makes no sense at all. With the inexpensiveness of storage it should just be what you shoot. It is like shooting and sending your photos to get printed then not getting you negatives back. Your RAW file is your negative. There is not a single benefit to shooting in JPEG besides storage issues, and if you want to be a photographer you need to pay for the storage space as part of your cost of being a photographer. I have seen all the arguments for RAW vs. JPEG and to shot in JPEG just does not make sense. Shoot in JPEG if you wish, just not a single benefit to it. I am sure there are points people will make either way but if you want to be a serious amateur or professional learn to shoot in RAW.


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## Mav (Jul 3, 2008)

StillImage said:


> I cannot believe that anyone who has a camera that is capable of shooting in RAW doesn't. It should not even be an issue, to shoot in JPEG when you can shoot in RAW makes no sense at all. With the inexpensiveness of storage it should just be what you shoot. It is like shooting and sending your photos to get printed then not getting you negatives back. Your RAW file is your negative. There is not a single benefit to shooting in JPEG besides storage issues, and if you want to be a photographer you need to pay for the storage space as part of your cost of being a photographer. I have seen all the arguments for RAW vs. JPEG and to shot in JPEG just does not make sense. Shoot in JPEG if you wish, just not a single benefit to it. I am sure there are points people will make either way but if you want to be a serious amateur or professional learn to shoot in RAW.


Rubbish.  I'll say the same thing I've said in other threads.  People who try to claim _definitively_ that ONE way is the "correct" way and that another way has no benefits or virtues such that there's no reason at all to shoot like that automatically has no clue what they're talking about in my book, and simply doesn't get it.

I could just as easily argue that if you want to learn to be a serious amateur or professional that you'd learn to get it right in the camera the first time and not even have to bother with RAW, or heck even photoshop.  There are professional photojournalists out there who don't even bother with photoshop, and their JPEGs go straight to gallery sized prints.


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## Mystwalker (Jul 3, 2008)

StillImage said:


> I cannot believe that anyone who has a camera that is capable of shooting in RAW doesn't. It should not even be an issue, to shoot in JPEG when you can shoot in RAW makes no sense at all. With the inexpensiveness of storage it should just be what you shoot. It is like shooting and sending your photos to get printed then not getting you negatives back. Your RAW file is your negative. There is not a single benefit to shooting in JPEG besides storage issues, and if you want to be a photographer you need to pay for the storage space as part of your cost of being a photographer. I have seen all the arguments for RAW vs. JPEG and to shot in JPEG just does not make sense. Shoot in JPEG if you wish, just not a single benefit to it. I am sure there are points people will make either way but if you want to be a serious amateur or professional learn to shoot in RAW.


 
Not everyone (me) has the knowledge or the time to convert to JPEG to print.  Most people (me) are perfectly happy with their JPEG image.  I do shoot RAW+JPEG though, just in case I get hit by lightning of knowledge, some day.

This is like me saying "if you want to be a serious amateur or professional, you MUST have a 1DsMkIII."  Not everyone have the funds, nor feel the need for such a camera.

Do what is most convenient/useful for you because it's your time and your money.


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## Mav (Jul 3, 2008)

I don't have the time either, which is situational.  And when I do have time for my photography I'd much rather be out shooting more rather than sitting behind a computer editing RAW files, which is a personal preference.  I love shooting and hate editing, which is all the more encouragement to get it right straight off the camera and shoot in JPEG.  Why would I want to spend more time doing something I don't enjoy, and less time spending what I do enjoy?  That makes zero sense, which is why I say that some people simply don't get it when they make statements like this.  I'm not even going to bother arguing about the technical aspects of RAW vs JPEG anymore because whether you actually enjoy working with RAW or not trumps all of that.  If you enjoy working with RAW, by all means shoot RAW.


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## dEARlEADER (Jul 3, 2008)

StillImage said:


> I cannot believe that anyone who has a camera that is capable of shooting in RAW doesn't. It should not even be an issue, to shoot in JPEG when you can shoot in RAW makes no sense at all. With the inexpensiveness of storage it should just be what you shoot. It is like shooting and sending your photos to get printed then not getting you negatives back. Your RAW file is your negative. There is not a single benefit to shooting in JPEG besides storage issues, and if you want to be a photographer you need to pay for the storage space as part of your cost of being a photographer. I have seen all the arguments for RAW vs. JPEG and to shot in JPEG just does not make sense. Shoot in JPEG if you wish, just not a single benefit to it. I am sure there are points people will make either way but if you want to be a serious amateur or professional learn to shoot in RAW.



Well I see two benefits to shooting JPEG -

1. TIME - I have an infant son and still manage to shoot 800 - 1200 photo's a month as a hobbyist.  I don't have time to edit 1200 RAW files...  I've tried it... plus as i've mentioned before my D60 does a better job processing noise at high ISO in camera jpg then Nikons own conversion software (viewnx)

2. LEARNING TO USE YOUR CAMERA - I see a lot of raw advocates claiming they have saved images blown out 4 stops and I'm thinking... do you people even bother adjusting your camera settings?? or do you just tape the shutter button down and blast away? If you know your camera and lenses, and have proper equipment like ND, and polarizing filters etc.  you should only be requiring nominal editing.  Personally, I find post processing mind numbingly boring... I'd rather spend extra time getting it right in the field.  

I certainly understand pro's shooting RAW because they get paid for their time.  I understand  a hobbyist shooting RAW if they got extra time on their hands.  However, an DSLR shooter who shoots JPEG is no less a hobbyist or an artist.


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## Overread (Jul 3, 2008)

hmm dEAR I think one thing that is biasing you against RAW a little is the software you are using - Seeing as you take a lot of shots you could try Photoshop Lightroom (trail version is out I think) which is made for batch work with RAW shots and if you have it right in camera then its not too much to edit round and the noise removal software will be better than both in camera and nikon's own brand software. I really would recomend this for you to try out.

After that I think its not the case that people don't try to learn or know how to shoot with their camera, I think it is the case that a shot that would normally be dumped can be saved from the bin by using RAW - yes it could be saved if it were a JPEG, but that would take a lot longer to get the desired effect than with RAW.


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## Bifurcator (Jul 3, 2008)

I don't really know if I agree with that or not. (See Next Message - Originally added).


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## Bifurcator (Jul 5, 2008)

The "Salvation by RAW" theme I mean -  dunno if I buy it 100% (10% maybe  ). If the exposure is that bad in the first place no one is going to waste their time investigating the possibility of saving it. They're just going to trash it except in some obscure exceptions. If it's not that bad then JPEG is almost as editable as RAW. 

There would be no questions about these things if most RAW images were 16, 24 or 32 bits per pixel but almost all are 12 bit and that's only VERY slightly better than 8 bit which is what camera JPEGs are. Sure every little bit helps *IF* you're editing it much.  The assist with RAW is mostly gradients - you get a little smoother spreads and edits don't as quickly cause banding. Although banding can almost always be eliminated in two short steps so again no biggy. RAW _might_ give you a stop or so extra when you digitally adjust exposure levels. But that's _about_ it. There's really not all that much difference. Some. A desirable some, but for many of the benefits of a 12 bit RAW you can "expand" your JPEGs to 16 or 32 bit color space for almost the same advantages.

I just edited a JPEG here http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=128413 and didn't need nor wish for RAW at all. If edits like that are all you're doing then it makes almost no difference weather it's RAW or JPEG - as long as it's a high quality JPEG that is. 

Here's another good example: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1285884&postcount=11

See the original and then look at my JPEG edit.  And I did that from a copy of the screen.


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## dEARlEADER (Jul 5, 2008)

Anyone gonna take on Bifurcator? ....he has valid points... let's string this into next week...


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## Overread (Jul 5, 2008)

I think (if we are going to keep going ) that a challenge is needed!
First we need a shot taken in RAW and JPEG - this way its the same shot and the same exposure problems
Secondly we need people on either side to edit said shot - and to time (roughly) the time it takes them plus a full write out of the proces that they used to get the result. That would go towards at least showing the true difference between timeing and complexity with a RAW vs JPEG shot.


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## Bifurcator (Jul 5, 2008)

That might be fun!  But keep in mind at least part of my point was that if the exposure was too bad in the 1st place no one would likely try to salvage it anyway. Especially since I guess most people take more than one shot of something. 


So, who's going to supply the RAW and Jpeg challenge images? You want me to?


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## Bifurcator (Jul 5, 2008)

BTW, here's another example. http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1277763&postcount=8

The edits were made on the scaled down, originally posted JPEG.   Time to edit was about 14 seconds.


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## Overread (Jul 5, 2008)

yah but you cheated with that one - you had done it before  and had an action code


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## Bifurcator (Jul 5, 2008)

Actions aren't cheating. They're legitimate tools.  You bring up a good point tho. It's not going to be a perfect test in regards to time consumption if two different people do the edits because the time needed will be more of a reflection of the difference in proficiency between the two people with the same tool. Or even how much beer the participants consumed respectively.


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## Overread (Jul 5, 2008)

ahh but if both people edit both the RAW and JPEG and time themselves then we can see which method is the quicker or the slower. Of course it does rely on them using basic editing tools (no action codes and such)

*wishes elements had programable batch actions*


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## Bifurcator (Jul 5, 2008)

Yeah (for them). But isn't RAW always slower? It always is for me. 100% of the time. I make the same edits to each type once in PS but RAW also needs an adjustment on import. Sometimes it's just one of my 70 or 80 presets (a minute or two to select the preset, + load-time) and sometimes it's a whole 10 or 15 minutes of slider manipulation extra.


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## Overread (Jul 5, 2008)

ahh but we are more dealing with the trouble case shots here - not those that are already good from camera and don't need much editing - the question being is it easier, quicker and simpler to convert a RAW and edit it than to edit a JPEG.


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## Bifurcator (Jul 5, 2008)

Easier, quicker and simpler? Didn't you answer your own question when you said "to convert a RAW and edit it than to _edit a JPEG_"? IMHO it can really almost never be "easier, quicker and simpler". I guess however (from my experience) that most of the time it'll be only nominally slower or more complicated. And there will be a few times that you can't do something you want to do if all you have is the JPEG. Between 1% and 5% of the cases I guess.

I was more focusing on the later part of that though. For me there's little doubt that RAW is slower (though not all that much in most cases) but editing potential and how critical that is in most situations is what I was thinking about.

My bottom line (for me) is that RAW is "better", not that much slower, and offers more potential for when/if you need it - but JPEG is just as good in 95% of the situations and recommendations should probably be based on what the person shooting knows how to do in post and what they want - with mostly storage and time investments as the main considerations.


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## Overread (Jul 5, 2008)

well with storage space I think 10 years ago (was RAW around then?) this would have been a very topical point, but storage space is cheap at the moment - so its not too much of a problem for storing and DVD writers are now a standard in even the cheapest computers - add that to cheap DVDs and back-up is sorted as well.

Time is a big factor - but I think lightroom has gone a long way to helping the amature who has not the funds to invest in CS3 for batch processing.


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## Bifurcator (Jul 5, 2008)

Storage for me is a pretty huge factor.  DVD's die allot so you need multiple backups. Three if the images are important to you - at least. Or maybe duplicated twice on the same DVD and then just 2 DVDs. One DVD holds one 4gig card. I (can) fill up a 4 gig card with RAW in about 1 hour of shooting or less. Or 4 to 6 hrs if it's set to JPEG only. RAW here are 12MB and after importing them into PS and saving them they're 50MB ea.  and that's only if you didn't add any layers or anything. I have many images on DVD that are over 100MB. It all adds up. And then there's the issue of actually spending the time to do the backups. OMG!





Here's my last BU session. That's about 200 DVDs (slightly over) and represents only about three months of camera use along with whatever else was in the BU que. Probably somewhere around 1/2 are images I guess. Each DVD takes 5 minutes to burn by the time you load and unload them so that's 1000 minutes or about 16.7 hours *IF* you go non-stop with no breaks. More like 30 hours doing it like normal people - listening to music, reading the forums and etc. while you BU.

JPEGs average about 3MB a piece at the highest quality. That's 1/4 the size of the RAW files and there probably won't be many or any of those 50MB 16 bit PSD files either so my stack there would be about 1/3 to 1/2 that size, save me 10 or 15 hours of work, and at $1.00ea. I'd save $75.00 to $100.00. So this is 3 months worth just multiply everything times 4 for anual totals of time and money spent.  Storage is still very topical today. About the same as it was 10 years ago. And it'll be the same in another 10 years I guess.


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## Overread (Jul 5, 2008)

ever thought about an external hard drive for backing up?
a terrabyt is now semi affordable and makes backing up quick


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## Bifurcator (Jul 5, 2008)

They're OK for short term backup. Hard Drive's are engineered to fail after about 1 year of use. Some can last 3 or 4 years, some break in 6 months. Also, drop one and there's about a 75% chance it'll be unusable - as in busted. I want to keep many of my images until my grandchildren are old.


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## Joves (Jul 5, 2008)

Shooting RAW+Jpeg is easy. I could go out and screw up some shots specifically for editing. Maybe one overexposed a little and, the other under exposed. I too would like to see the manufacturers go with one unified format. But I dont believe it will happen they have to, have their little software cash cows.


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## Garbz (Jul 6, 2008)

Bifurcator said:


> They're OK for short term backup. Hard Drive's are engineered to fail after about 1 year of use. Some can last 3 or 4 years, some break in 6 months. Also, drop one and there's about a 75% chance it'll be unusable - as in busted. I want to keep many of my images until my grandchildren are old.



Were you perhaps the owner of an IBM Deskstar 60GXP series of drives? They are the only drives I've seen fail in under a year. My neighbour owned only 4, but returned 12 times within 2 years for replacement. Every drive I have seen would seem the mean time to failure is around 5 years or so, and with our 40 degree summers and 100% humidity it's not the nicest of environments. The drive I used to take to a friends place on a weekly / biweekly basis survived 4 years until I dropped it when getting out of the car 

Google released a paper on this and they are perhaps in the best position to do so: http://research.google.com/archive/disk_failures.pdf Key notes were that typically drives depended on vintage but overall failure rate remained low, only a few percent of the population failed in their first year. One thing that was noted is infant mortality as they called it. A drive which is thrashed in the first few months of operation (such as sitting in a google server) had an insanely high failure rate, but if it survived the first 3 months the failure rate dropped sharply. Good read for the statistically minded.


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## Bifurcator (Jul 6, 2008)

That's good information. But do you want to trust your "family photos" to a unit that has any failure rate at all? Or say the one you dropped. What if that had all the pics of your children on it?  This is why I say they're good for short-term storage. I'll take that google read later - sounds good. Right now I'm suffering from low blood sugar and am waiting on dinner to solve it.  

But yeah, I've always until just recently, had a minimum of 30 HDs going 24/7 in my home (for the past 10 or 12 years) plus the labs where I taught were 3 rooms of 40+ work stations over about 10 years that I taught there. I've had every make of HD fail on me over those times. Micropolis were the worst. After them though I guess all about the same with a few model specific or batch specific exceptions like the DeskStar you mentioned - there were a few Maxtor models that were duds too. Server Grade parts seem to fair a little better. Usual death is slow degradation like you're talking about but on 3 different occasions I've had drives give up the ghost with a sudden and very loud BANG. I dunno if was thermal recalibration gone insane, a sudden spindle freeze, or what. Nothing was shaking around inside after - that I could tell. The sound is similar to a novel sized book landing perfectly flat from a 6 foot drop. Anyway, HD's die and it's not predictable in many cases. If you happened to be storing images that are precious to you on one that goes it sucks big-time. Services (or doing the same things yourself) can sometimes recover most or all of the data but that's also not guaranteed. 

It sure is less work than DVDs tho!!!


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## manaheim (Jul 6, 2008)

Bifurcator said:


> They're OK for short term backup. Hard Drive's are engineered to fail after about 1 year of use. Some can last 3 or 4 years, some break in 6 months. Also, drop one and there's about a 75% chance it'll be unusable - as in busted. I want to keep many of my images until my grandchildren are old.


 
Errr... where are you getting this info? I've been doing IT for eons now, and certainly you get an occasional bad batch. There was a Hitachi run that was famous for this back in the early 90's... I'm not necessarily trying to say you're wrong, man... I'm genuinely curious. If you know something I don't about these devices, I'd love to hear it.

Other than that, my personal experience is that nowadays drives tend to either fail VERY early on, or essentially live for a very _very_ long time. Most modern hard drives under typical use will last for several years. I run IDE  and SATA hard drives in servers that last typically for three to five years (running 24/7).

SCSI hard drives have a SIGNIFICANTLY better MTBF (mean time between failure), but most people cannot justify the expense over IDE or (preferably) SATA.

Stick to any decent HD manufacturer and you should be relatively safe... Seagate is my personal safest best-bet. I also highly recommend getting motherboards that support IDE RAID (redundant disk setups) so if you lose one drive you'll still be ok. Obviously backup your data often.

Aside from all I've said... NO hard drive should ever be trusted to live. Ever.


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## Bifurcator (Jul 6, 2008)

manaheim said:


> Errr... where are you getting this info? I've been doing IT for eons now, and certainly you get an occasional bad batch. There was a Hitachi run that was famous for this back in the early 90's... I'm not necessarily trying to say you're wrong, man... I'm genuinely curious. If you know something I don't about these devices, I'd love to hear it.



PO (planned obsolescence) and EFF (Engineered For Failure) profiles are just a part of the design and manufacture process. I've read your favored manufacturer (Seagate) openly admit it in writing at a CES conference. This is nothing new and shouldn't be shocking or upsetting to anyone.

I did misspeak when I said 1 year though as it's usually 3 years but I was trying to make a point so fudged a little.   Hey, I said "about..." so I'm safe.


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## manaheim (Jul 6, 2008)

Bifurcator said:


> PO (planned obsolescence) and EFF (Engineered For Failure) profiles are just a part of the design and manufacture process. I've read your favored manufacturer (Seagate) openly admit it in writing at a CES conference. This is nothing new and shouldn't be shocking or upsetting to anyone.
> 
> I did misspeak when I said 1 year though as it's usually 3 years but I was trying to make a point so fudged a little.  Hey, I said "about..." so I'm safe.


 
Ah, OK.  3 years I would believe.   1 year was scary and _deeply_ upsetting.


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## Bifurcator (Jul 6, 2008)

Sorry about that man.


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## manaheim (Jul 6, 2008)

Bifurcator said:


> Sorry about that man.


 
It's ok... <shudder>  I'll just go back to wimpering under my bed while sucking my thumb.  I'm sure the emotional scars will fade after a few years.

:lmao:


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## Bifurcator (Jul 6, 2008)

Nope, sorry, you'll never get over it. Once bifurcated you can never be whole again. :hug::


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## Garbz (Jul 7, 2008)

3 years sounds plausible too as does engineering for failure   One thing is certain that in our climate our HDDs have outlasted all my CDs and DVDs except for commercial pressings. So pick whichever works best I say. RAID1 is my tool of choice. If one fails I get an email and that's about it, replace the drive and rebuild the array.

I'm just waiting for holographic storage units to cost less than $15000 and be smaller than my desk, and I'm set


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## Bifurcator (Jul 7, 2008)

But with RAID 1 if the faults produce file errors then it copies those over to the other drive(s).

PS: I hear ya on the holographic storage! When working prototypes were reviewed in 1982 I was sure it would have gone consumer by '87 or so.  20 years later I'm still waiting. Hmm..  Maybe never I guess. (??)  

It's a conspiracy I tell ya!


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## Dweller (Jul 7, 2008)

Bifurcator said:


> I want to keep many of my images until my grandchildren are old.



I have spent a good bit of time thinking about this and finally settled on a tape backup system. Currently I have everything on 2 separate machines and a 3rd copy on tape. The weak link now is that everything is here in the same location. If I had a fire or a meteor destroyed my house, I would lose it all.

I need to look at off-site backup of some kind but don't like the idea of another monthly bill.

Maybe we could start backup group within TPF. We each offer to hold backups of others files. I have a TB of drive space going unused right now and can add more pretty easily. I will have to chew on this idea for a while to see if I can come up with an idea that would be safe, easy to use and secure.


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## manaheim (Jul 7, 2008)

Dweller said:


> I have spent a good bit of time thinking about this and finally settled on a tape backup system. Currently I have everything on 2 separate machines and a 3rd copy on tape. The weak link now is that everything is here in the same location. If I had a fire or a meteor destroyed my house, I would lose it all.
> 
> I need to look at off-site backup of some kind but don't like the idea of another monthly bill.
> 
> Maybe we could start backup group within TPF. We each offer to hold backups of others files. I have a TB of drive space going unused right now and can add more pretty easily. I will have to chew on this idea for a while to see if I can come up with an idea that would be safe, easy to use and secure.


 
Ooof... tape.  That will get expensive quickly.  I had a DLT running for a bit, but my storage just got too big to practically use it.  Granted, I'm backing up 15meg raw files.  Not as bad as Bifurcator, but still not fun.

The cross-net backup thing is a neat idea.  I was chatting with a buddy of mine about it.  Not entirely sure how to best implement it, but it would be pretty slick.


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## Bifurcator (Jul 7, 2008)

DATs are cheap. I use them for storing jobs. Very fast BU and Restore! The thing with tape is that they're very susceptible to natural radiation and EM of all sorts so they need to be stored in proper storage containers. Also they're not great for searches and random access.  That works for me tho because the unwritten rule for Jobs is that you have to keep the data from 3 years only and I almost never want to deal with the data or search for anything after I'm done with the job. The work is intense and you get pretty sick of it pretty fast. Think of editing the same set of images for a month or two everyday for 8 to 12 hours and you can get a feel for what I mean.


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## manaheim (Jul 7, 2008)

Bifurcator said:


> DATs are cheap. I use them for storing jobs. Very fast BU and Restore! The thing with tape is that they're very susceptible to natural radiation and EM of all sorts so they need to be stored in proper storage containers. Also they're not great for searches and random access.  That works for me tho because the unwritten rule for Jobs is that you have to keep the data from 3 years only and I almost never want to deal with the data or search for anything after I'm done with the job. The work is intense and you get pretty sick of it pretty fast. Think of editing the same set of images for a month or two everyday for 8 to 12 hours and you can get a feel for what I mean.


 
Have you considered creating a small secondary searchable archive?  I'm personally still working out the details on this, but I have an idea of some combination of a gallery with very small thumbnails that supports searching based upon EXIF data and filenames.

Right now I'm using Coppermine, but it's a little flaky so I'm looking for something else.

Granted you said you don't care after three years has passed,  but even with a three year span thats a LOT of data for folks such as you and I who shoot a LOT.


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## captblue1 (Jul 8, 2008)

what is your plan 2 - 5 years from now?
http://www.pcworld.com/article/124312-1/do_burned_cds_have_a_short_life_span.html

I have personally seen many cds and dvds that have become unreadable.  One was so bad that the layers were pealing away.  of course that was a dvd i left in the back of my car for about a year.  but i have seen cds and dvds that were in cases or on the desk become coasters after a couple years.


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## manaheim (Jul 8, 2008)

If you're asking me, my intention is to cycle my media every 2-3 years onto larger capacity media and hope for the best.  I'm going to lose an occasional disc.  Nothing I can do about that.  I'm not personally willng to have multiple terrabytes of storage spinning all the time, and that's what it would take for me to keep my images alive and kicking with "zero loss".

I do buy better than average media and stick with the companies that produce high-quality DVDs intended for long-term archival.  All I can do is hope that will minimize loss a bit.

Anyone that stores their stuff on plain-jane media is asking for trouble.


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## Bifurcator (Jul 8, 2008)

@manaheim
I use iPhoto for the thumbnails. If follows along with the cataloging software automatically which also has it's own icons. iPhoto is pretty sweet for free!

The reason I don't care about the "jobs" after 3 years is that's a professional courtesy standard in Japan and I think other Asian countries too. If it were up to be I would trash them about a week or two after they were received. It's thousands and thousands of sequential animation frames, 3D object data, motion data, texture data, a few other things. The texture data is useful to keep and some object data is too. I've kept about 40 gigs over the past 15 or 20 years of useful or reusable stuff.


@captblue1
So far I've been keeping all important (to me) images on multiple DVDs plus they're always on my current machine. I also cycle the DVDs on occasion. Additionally, since I keep two or three machines from every batch of render farm nodes (usually 24 or 48 machines in size) I additionally store all my photos on one or more of them before I remove the power cord and use it as a night stand or door-stop. So I guess in a way I'm storing them on hard drives too but not actively. I'm waiting for some technology to come along that's cheap, fast, and boasts of a 100+ year lifespan.


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## dEARlEADER (Jul 9, 2008)

look how many view this RAW vs JPG thread has....... amazing.... this gets discussed every two weeks and still generates more views than any other thread.... clearly this is an issue that people are having trouble with...


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## Mav (Jul 9, 2008)

dEARlEADER said:


> look how many view this RAW vs JPG thread has....... amazing.... this gets discussed every two weeks and still generates more views than any other thread.... clearly this is an issue that people are having trouble with...


Because there's no right or wrong answer and so much conflicting information, which is why people keep on asking.  The confusion and "failure of the system" is multi-layered.

I haven't followed this thread, but I like how *Mike* put it over here.  RAW/TIFF or higher bit file formats are "sturdier" and will hold up to heavier image manipulation better, but for the most part 8-bit JPEGs hold up just fine.


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## AmberBella (Jul 9, 2008)

I don't see why, if you have the space, you wouldn't just shoot in both JPEG + RAW.  The thing about a JPEG is that it IS edited...it's just that the camera chooses what it thinks is best.  Sometimes my camera is dead wrong!  I know better by using my eye than the camera does by using whatever algorithms it has.  It takes me..a newbie...about 60 seconds to process a raw photo.  If I'm processing a bunch from the same session, that can be 60 seconds for 100 photos.  Because I also shoot in jpeg I can leave the snapshots alone and not waste the 60 seconds on them.


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## manaheim (Jul 9, 2008)

AmberBella said:


> I don't see why, if you have the space, you wouldn't just shoot in both JPEG + RAW. The thing about a JPEG is that it IS edited...it's just that the camera chooses what it thinks is best. Sometimes my camera is dead wrong! I know better by using my eye than the camera does by using whatever algorithms it has. It takes me..a newbie...about 60 seconds to process a raw photo. If I'm processing a bunch from the same session, that can be 60 seconds for 100 photos. Because I also shoot in jpeg I can leave the snapshots alone and not waste the 60 seconds on them.


 
I'm going to try arguing the other side for fun. 

What I think some people on here would say is "If you shoot it properly and set the camera correctly, you will have very little need for RAW because the image will need no post-processing."

I think they would also say "Anything you need beyond the proper camera setup is going to be minor enough that you can do it in JPEG."

They're probably right if you're good enough to get the perfect shot every time and you are either fast enough to setup correctly or have enough time to do it.  I'm not, and I often don't, so I shoot RAW so I have some fudge factor. <shrug>


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## dEARlEADER (Jul 9, 2008)

manaheim said:


> I'm going to try arguing the other side for fun.
> 
> What I think some people on here would say is "If you shoot it properly and set the camera correctly, you will have very little need for RAW because the image will need no post-processing."
> 
> ...



:hail: Bravo!


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## dEARlEADER (Jul 9, 2008)

Mav said:


> I haven't followed this thread, but I like how *Mike* put it over here.




lol Mav... you have a handful of posts on this thread...


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## Mav (Jul 9, 2008)

dEARlEADER said:


> lol Mav... you have a handful of posts on this thread...


I should have said I _stopped_ following it.


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## Mav (Jul 9, 2008)

AmberBella said:


> I don't see why, if you have the space, you wouldn't just shoot in both JPEG + RAW.  The thing about a JPEG is that it IS edited...it's just that the camera chooses what it thinks is best.  Sometimes my camera is dead wrong!  I know better by using my eye than the camera does by using whatever algorithms it has.  It takes me..a newbie...about 60 seconds to process a raw photo.  If I'm processing a bunch from the same session, that can be 60 seconds for 100 photos.  Because I also shoot in jpeg I can leave the snapshots alone and not waste the 60 seconds on them.


Poor poor Canon shooters.   Nikon makes this much easier and has much better JPEG processing IMHO.  I've said elsewhere that if I shot Canon I'd be far more likely to shoot RAW.


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## manaheim (Jul 9, 2008)

Mav said:


> Poor poor Canon shooters.  Nikon makes this much easier and has much better JPEG processing IMHO. I've said elsewhere that if I shot Canon I'd be far more likely to shoot RAW.


 
orly?

That's interesting.  In truth, my Nikon has only screwed me a couple of times... it was enough for me to say "That's it, I'm going RAW", but out of the 3000 or so shots I took before it did a "bad thing", I had no complaints.


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