General practices question

Bikerbrent

Senior Member
I always save my original raw images. To me, they are the original negatives (but I learned to keep my negatives in the film days). Also, if your learn a new post processing skill or method, you will want the original to work from.
 

Needa

Senior Member
Challenge Team
The raw editor I use is nondestructive it opens the image in read only mode. The edits which are stored in a sidecar file are not applied to the image until they are exported, the original is not touched. As for a new technique or version I just create a duplicate which is actually just a list of the new edits. No need to keep a separate copy of raw unless you want to do so for backup purposes. YMMV.
 

Chucktin

Senior Member
I have an archive of all my stuff and at New Years I do a Blue Ray of last year. So if a crash (fingers crossed) happens I've still got something. But, to the original question, my first review and edits are on the out of camera raw files until I've archived them.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk
 

WayneF

Senior Member
Yes, I always keep my original raw files. And for any change that any print needs, I always start from the original raw, not from the last printed file.
 

desmobob

Senior Member
I do. Like Brent, I consider them my "negatives."

And there have been times when I've gone back and done a better job editing a shot, or decided to change the look, etc. I would never discard a RAW file.
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
As Needa mentioned, the edits to a NEF are done to a side card file, not to the original RAW file. If you don't save the RAW file, the side card file is useless. If you convert your NEF's to DNG files, then the edits are applied directly to the DNG and not to a side card file. In that case, you could opt to not save the original NEF. BUT if you ever enter an image into a photo contest, sometimes they require the original file.
 

Eduard

Super Mod
Staff member
Super Mod
Couple things to add:


  • Handling your RAW files as your digital negatives is the most common approach that I see, except for some that chose to capture JPEGs (i.e., sports shooters on strict deadlines).

  • The "sidecar" file approach is dependent on the editor that you use. I believe most of the answers here are reflective of Lightroom which is non-destructive and uses a sidecar (.XMP) file.
  • If you use plugins in Lightroom, Photoshop or other products that create intermediate files as part of processing (i.e., TIFF files created when editing in PS from LR), those files shoud also be considered digital negatives.
  • As products evolve and improve, I sometimes will reprocess an image. For example, I was asked to print an image that I originally captured with a D300. I made a virtual copy in LR, updated to the current Camera RAW version, and reprocessed where I was able to slightly improve the shadow recovery.
 
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