What file type do you keep?

C. Hand

Senior Member
First let me say that I am never sure if I ma posting my question in the correct area, so if it belongs somewhere else I apologize.

OK, I love my new D7100 and I am snapping away pictures and having lots of fun! My question is I started shooting both Raw and JPG. I quickly realized that I was finding myself just deleting the JPG and putting my Raw through Post with Photoshop elements 13 and saving JPGs to my computer. Now I am reading how much compression JPG has and that I should be shooting Raw and saving TIFF files.

So, do you save your Raw files, your JPG files or your TIFF files or a combination? Space is not a an issue now, but will be if I am saving the same file in several formats for years on end. So what do you do?

PS: I have been challenged to get comfortable with my camera then shoot only JPEG format for a month to try and learn my camera and not rely on post processing. My friend says to do this every now and then to increase my learning curve.
 

Daz

Senior Member
So, do you save your Raw files, your JPG files or your TIFF files or a combination? Space is not a an issue now, but will be if I am saving the same file in several formats for years on end. So what do you do?

PS: I have been challenged to get comfortable with my camera then shoot only JPEG format for a month to try and learn my camera and not rely on post processing. My friend says to do this every now and then to increase my learning curve.

I save the RAW to my Local Hard drive and the JPEG's I export get saved locally and in the cloud

As for shooting in JPEG ever ... Nope, IMO waste of time, if you know what you are doing with the camera there is no need to go to JPEG for a month it just limits what you can do with those shots ..
 
I shoot only in raw and save them all. I process them and then export out of Lightroom as a full size tiff is case I ever want to print. I then export all the processed shots to a folder in the computer as a resized JPEG for social media and websites


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

WayneF

Senior Member
I shoot raw, and archive the raw files. Seems the only reasonable way. :) Then after processing, I output temporary JPG for viewing/printing purposes, which are expendable, discarded without concern. Because another JPG is always available from the raw. So if a subsequent additional edit is ever needed, discard the temp JPG, edit the raw again, and output a new JPG for the new purpose. A JPG with a reasonably high quality level. Why would we ever want a low quality JPG? :)

Viewing and printing does not need TIF files. Tiff would be good if you planned to additionally edit them, JPG is poor for that. But if we do the editing in the raw editor on the raw files, and then output temp JPG copies for viewing/printing, there would be no need for TIF concerns IMO. If in some unlikely event, you discover a need to edit a JPG, that is the time you would wish for the TIF file.

Sounds like you have already done your JPG trails, and judged them less satisfactory. That's my experience too.
 
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Fred Kingston

Senior Member
I save the NEFs to a separate hard drive, in a catalogue... The only time I worry about file formats is if I'm sending the output somewhere, and then each image is saved based of where/what the image is going to be used for...

I never save images to anything other than NEF just because...

If you're going to print an image, then the device/service it's going to will have a preferred resolution and color space that is too varied to make any broad generalizations...
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
First let me say that I am never sure if I ma posting my question in the correct area, so if it belongs somewhere else I apologize.

OK, I love my new D7100 and I am snapping away pictures and having lots of fun! My question is I started shooting both Raw and JPG. I quickly realized that I was finding myself just deleting the JPG and putting my Raw through Post with Photoshop elements 13 and saving JPGs to my computer. Now I am reading how much compression JPG has and that I should be shooting Raw and saving TIFF files.

So, do you save your Raw files, your JPG files or your TIFF files or a combination? Space is not a an issue now, but will be if I am saving the same file in several formats for years on end. So what do you do?

PS: I have been challenged to get comfortable with my camera then shoot only JPEG format for a month to try and learn my camera and not rely on post processing. My friend says to do this every now and then to increase my learning curve.
I shoot in RAW and save RAW files; JPG's are for posting and for clients. I'll keep JPG's a lot of the time but my main concern is the RAW file since there's no replacing it.

As far as storage goes, it's cheap these days. I just installed a 5TB internal hard drive that I got from Amazon for $150.

Lastly, like @Daz, I don't see the point of shooting in JPG for a month and don't understand how it is supposed to "increase your learning curve"... But if if you suits you, go for it.
 

dennybeall

Senior Member
I shoot in raw like many others and save the raw and if PS work I'll usually save that in tiff. Photos for the internet get saved and downsized to jpg and the ones I like go in jpg and into the PICTURES folder on my and my wife's laptop so they will come up in the screensaver.
 

aroy

Senior Member
I shoot RAW. I post process the files in Capture NX-D. After PP I export to jpeg at 1000 pixels on the long side and save these jpegs to a different location. There is no need to save to TIFF (or TIFF 16) unless you want to PP the files in a software that does not read NEF files. I archive the RAW files; along with the sidecar files generated during PP; date wise.
 

paul04

Senior Member
I shoot raw, saved on the PC as a raw file, if edited in lightroom save as JPEG to post say on this website or other social media.
 

Stoshowicz

Senior Member
I shoot in Raw but convert to jpeg at 'high quality' and cropped a bit big , which I dont think I can distinguish from TIFF or DNG , and only keep the DNG on a few of my favorites , it just takes too long timewise to process and handle the larger files , I dont want to redo all the work , and odds are Ill never go back to any of them again since Im still generating new ones.( better than the old ,hopefully)
 

RocketCowboy

Senior Member
I've been shooting raw + jpg until just recently, but even then I only kept the raw files. I can always recreate the jpg, but I can't recreate the raw.
 
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