Raw Vs. JPG

[Franglais]

Ok, then let me pose another question to the panel of distinguished photographers. Would it be a good idea to shoot everything in raw, convert the raw to JPG, and then keep the raw files as well for a later time, because as software continues to develop eventually you will be able to have more control over the raw images than you do today?

This is what I do. I made a terrible job with some of my first RAW images in Turkey last year. They were much too saturated. 6 months later I converted some of them to black & white. And now - that doesn't seem right either, I might have another try at a colour version. With RAW it's easy -I just get back the RAW file from archive, undo the adjustments I did last time, make some new ones, generate the JPG for my online library then pop the RAW file back on the archive.

I use the Rampant Paranoia method of archiving. I have at least two copies of any RAW file, on different media. Last weekend one of my RAW archives on DVD+RW got a CRC check failure (i.e. it's terminally unreadable). I got back all the files from my original CD-R and DVD-R archives, burnt a new DVD+RW - and I also copied all my RAW files to USB hard disk.

3 months ago my first 300GB USB hard disk cost me 156 Euros. On Saturday my second one cost me 114 Euros! Storage is not going to be a problem, it's going to keep getting cheaper and cheaper..

Charles

[Ronnoco]

This is what I do. I made a terrible job with some of my first RAW images in Turkey last year. They were much too saturated. 6 months later I converted some of them to black & white. And now - that doesn't seem right either, I might have another try at a colour version. With RAW it's easy -I just get back the RAW file from archive, undo the adjustments I did last time, make some new ones, generate the JPG for my online library then pop the RAW file back on the archive.

Charles

Well, if RAW is so easy, why were you having such a hard time...oversaturated images etc. Sounds to me that you are not really finding working with RAW format that easy at all.

Ronnoco