Saving Original Pics

Tom Potter

The answer to my question may be an obvious to many, but I'm not 100% clear on something.

I shoot nature / landscape in the RAW format. I upload those files from my memory card to Light Room. I reuse the memory card, so the "original" goes away.

When the RAW file is processed in Light Room, or whatever program, is that file still a RAW file. If not, what is it?

About a week ago, I posed a question in this forum, but possibly in a different area. I stated I wanted to have a few back-up copies of my pics, and asked for some suggestions as to the best device(s) to use. I believe I settled on DVD. The reason I'm going with DVD, is because I figured I'd save each DVD by location: Rcky Mtn Natl Park, Grand Canyon, wherever. I did not want to go with an external drive, because I would need at least 2, and, more importantly, if I went that route, I'd lose copies of ALL my pics, as opposed to losing all the photos for JUST the Grand Canyon, if I lost a single DVD. Flash drives did not seem to make sense, basically because I cannot label one as clearly as I could DVDs.

So, I'm going with DVDs. Since the file that was on my memory card is now gone, the file that now lives on my laptop then becomes the "original", correct?

If I understand this correctly, I should make all backup copies from THAT original. Or, DOES a photo file degrade when one makes a copy of a copy of a copy, etc?

So, I envision having the "original" on my laptop, and then having probably 2 backup copies on separate DVDs. At least one backup copy will live at someone else's home. I think that should suffice.

The other thing I wondered about....Should my original remain just in its immediate post-processed state? Meaning, just as it was right after the RAW processing completed.....without any color, sharpening, or any other kind of adjustments to it? I'm thinking maybe the original should be saved after I develop the pic, the color, saturation, etc. That way, when I FINALLY get my first SmugMug sale, the photo as it was uploaded to SmugMug, the one the client saw on my site, is all ready to go. So then I just need to upload the adjusted, much larger, "original" file.

I hope I stated this clearly.

Thx a lot,

Tom

jfriend

Tom Potter wrote:

The answer to my question may be an obvious to many, but I'm not 100% clear on something.

I shoot nature / landscape in the RAW format. I upload those files from my memory card to Light Room. I reuse the memory card, so the "original" goes away.

When the RAW file is processed in Light Room, or whatever program, is that file still a RAW file. If not, what is it?

Yes, Lightroom retains your original RAW file. What you see in Lightroom after you have adjusted your image is a manufactured view of your file that takes the original RAW file, combines it with whatever settings you have done in Lightroom and displays that to you realtime. Your RAW file on disk is never touched. When you want to take an image out of Lightroom, you have to "render" it to an image format like JPEG or TIFF. At that point, those changes are baked into the JPEG or TIFF so that other programs can see the finished image. Your original RAW files are still untouched on your disk.

Tom Potter wrote:

About a week ago, I posed a question in this forum, but possibly in a different area. I stated I wanted to have a few back-up copies of my pics, and asked for some suggestions as to the best device(s) to use. I believe I settled on DVD. The reason I'm going with DVD, is because I figured I'd save each DVD by location: Rcky Mtn Natl Park, Grand Canyon, wherever. I did not want to go with an external drive, because I would need at least 2, and, more importantly, if I went that route, I'd lose copies of ALL my pics, as opposed to losing all the photos for JUST the Grand Canyon, if I lost a single DVD. Flash drives did not seem to make sense, basically because I cannot label one as clearly as I could DVDs.

So, I'm going with DVDs. Since the file that was on my memory card is now gone, the file that now lives on my laptop then becomes the "original", correct?

Yes, the RAW file on your hard disk is the same as what was on the memory card.

Tom Potter wrote:

If I understand this correctly, I should make all backup copies from THAT original. Or, DOES a photo file degrade when one makes a copy of a copy of a copy, etc?

Copying files is lossless so you can make as many file copies as you want with no loss of data.

Tom Potter wrote:

So, I envision having the "original" on my laptop, and then having probably 2 backup copies on separate DVDs. At least one backup copy will live at someone else's home. I think that should suffice.

That should be safe for the life of the DVDs. Quality DVDs will last awhile, but they will not last forever.

Tom Potter wrote:

The other thing I wondered about....Should my original remain just in its immediate post-processed state? Meaning, just as it was right after the RAW processing completed.....without any color, sharpening, or any other kind of adjustments to it? I'm thinking maybe the original should be saved after I develop the pic, the color, saturation, etc. That way, when I FINALLY get my first SmugMug sale, the photo as it was uploaded to SmugMug, the one the client saw on my site, is all ready to go. So then I just need to upload the adjusted, much larger, "original" file.

I hope I stated this clearly.

Thx a lot,

Tom

In Lightroom, there are three ways to back up your "processed" versions of the images.

1. You can generate JPEGs from them all which will "bake in" your adjustments and back those up. The disadvantage here is you aren't getting your original RAW file or all the adjustments you did in Lightroom to create this JPEG.
2. You can have Lightroom put all it's settings in an XMP sidecar file and then backup both the RAW file and the XMP file. You can generate XMP files in batch or set Lightroom to just keep them up to date any time you edit your image in LR.
3. You can backup both your RAW files and the Lightroom catalog (which contains all your settings). This is a bit harder to do one directory at a time like you were proposing because the catalog covers all your images in the same catalog. This is how I do backup because I backup everything to other hard drives so I can do everything at once to one set of media. If you really want to put each trip on a DVD, then option 2) might be your best bet.