Saving files as jpeg's

Status
Not open for further replies.
mrgooch

mrgooch

Active Member
Joined
Oct 20, 2009
Messages
161
Location
Toms River NJ
Lightroom Experience
Advanced
Lightroom Version
I am just a hobbyist and after making all necessary adjustments to my RAW files I convert them to JPEG's.I then save them and re-import them back into the catalog and delete all corresponding RAW files. When I do this is it true that there is no real need to backup files?
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Why do you throw away your original RAW's??!?!?!? sounds stupid, unless you have really limited diskspace. What will you do if you regret the way you processed or cropped an image in say 2 years. The original is gone!

As for backup: backup is ALWAYS needed for things that you want to be able to restore. If you delete the RAW-file, only keep the exported JPG and don't backup anything then what will happen if the JPG gets corrupt or deleted? Nothing left!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Many people shoot in jpeg only and that is their starting point. Shooting RAW and then PP and finishing with a jpeg.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I will agree with Erro ... I think you are making a terrible mistake by throwing away your Raws. Maybe you don't have a lot of disk space at the moment, but to me the solution is buying a new external hard drive to store your originals on, rather than blowing away your originals. You can never get your originals back if you delete them.

I also think you are doing unnecessary extra and destructive work by deleting the raws from your Lightroom catalog and re-importing the JPGs. This is extra work that provides no benefit; in fact you lose information by doing it this way.

Most people leave the Raws in their Lightroom catalog, and only produce JPGs when needed, not as a regular step. The only time you need JPGs is to send to some outside application, like e-mail or web, and those don't get re-imported.

Having a backup means you have at least two copies of each photo, on at least two different physical disk drives or CD/DVD/BlueRay disks. You certainly haven't met that condition.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
[quote author=mrgooch link=topic=9385.msg63233#msg63233 date=1269'21958]
Many people shoot in jpeg only and that is their starting point. Shooting RAW and then PP and finishing with a jpeg.
[/quote]

If you shoot JPG only, sure, then you don't have the RAW option. But if you shoot RAW (as apparently you are), why not keep the RAW benefit? Forever.

And no matter RAW or JPG: make sure you have backups!! Let me say that agin: backup! And just so that noone is uncertain what I mean: make backups!!

Ehh.. did I mention how important backups are?

Two question: What is your reason for throwing away the RAW's? And why do you think you don't have to have backups?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
mrgooch:

Isn't your practice the equivalent in film days having your film developed and immediately throwing away your negatives?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
[quote author=dj_paige link=topic=9385.msg63236#msg63236 date=1269'2263']
I will agree with Erro ... I think you are making a terrible mistake by throwing away your Raws...
Most people leave the Raws in their Lightroom catalog, and only produce JPGs when needed, not as a regular step. The only time you need JPGs is to send to some outside application, like e-mail or web, and those don't get re-imported. [/quote]
One of the touted features of Lightroom is it's non-destructive processing ability with originals. You have managed to circumvent that. For all the benefit of Post processing, you might be as well off using Photoshop elements. As others have pointed out, It is not really necessary to produce a permanent JPEG when you can export a temporary JPEG anytime you need a dreivative. Sometimes it is important to have a pernanent copy of a derivative. From time to time I do this. On export I create a JPEG and on the Export panel in the "Export Location section, Not only do I specify a location, I also check the box "Add to This Catalog". Once I do that, Re-importing is unnecessary.

In light of all the comments, I hope that you will reexamine your workflow and your backup plan (or lack thereof.) And please let us know what you have gleaned from this topic discussion.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Let me go middle of the road.

mrgooch, I completely get your point about this being like shooting jpeg but with extra latitude. I can see where you're coming from. I've got old film snapshots that I'm never likely to reprint, and I've thought about throwing those negatives away. Haven't done it though! :D

If I'm absolutely honest, hard drive space is cheap these days, and I wouldn't start throwing raw files away - I'd just keep the raw files plus the catalog, so I wouldn't bother with the jpegs. That said, if, for some reason, I was limited by hard drive space, I'd consider only keeping raw files of my 5 star images and just keeping finished jpegs of less-than-favourites.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I'm also going to take a slightly different middle of the road track. I shoot raw, save as jpg and when I export I check add to catalog. I understand the point about only exporting derivatives as needed, but I just like to have a "finished" image sitting on my backup drives. I still back-up my LR catalog on another drive too. So I use even more space than many others, but I don't care. But I never throw away my raws. What happens when LR 6 comes out and you can do some great new thing to the image, if only you had the original???
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
All points are well taken. I must ad that I do copy [ back up ] the photos on another drive.I keep them in the My Pictures folder. I do like the suggestion that new software may make me wish I still had the RAW files. Thank you all.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top