Shooting in RAW

[jann1033]

not trying to hog this thread but wondering, i figured out the trimming in ddp but when i saved it it appears to have converted the raw image to b&w instead of just the edited image...did i do something wrong when i saved it? i think i clicked convert and save and then could save it as jpg, tiff some other things i forget. but now only one image, the b&w is in the main window where the raw should be along with a second b&w crop of that image which is the one i was trying to save( the crop) without effecting the raw original.( tried to look it up in help but it was not any help to me)

 

[geetey]

I am taking the kids to the Butterfly House tomorrow and was planning on trying to shoot in RAW for the first time. Now I think I might just stick with my jpgs since I am hoping to get a couple of frameable shots. I am working on an it-needs-to-be-replaced computer with PSE4.

 

[handicap18]

If you have a free USB2 port, you could get an external DVD for around $50-75. If it does not have USB2 and is a desktop with a free slot on the motherboard, you could add a USB2 port. I cannot imagine not having a DVD drive in today's time where files are taking so much space. I see what you mean on the frustration of having that many files with no easy way to clear up some space.
Kevin

I have 2 external hard drives. I also added the 2.0 USB card to both of our computers. The PCI cards were about $20 and VERY easy to install.

For my external HD's the case I have them in also has a 9 in 1 card reader. I think I got them for $30 at geeks.com.

My HD's are 200GB and 250GB. They are great to have, especially since I'm now well over 7,000 shutter clicks on my D50. Of that I think I have about 6,000 image files and the last 1500 or so pics I've been shooting RAW so now I have more than twice the file size. Not to mention I back everything up to a DVD (jpeg's and RAW on seperate disks) before they are deleted off the SD cards (reformated in camera of course).

I think I got the 200GB HD for $50 and the 250 was about $80. That was a while ago, so I'm sure you can probably get a 300GB HD for about $80, then for $30 get the external case with card reader.

Works for me.

 

[jann1033]

try the raw( or raw + jpg if you have it) you'll do fine, my software just doesn't understand me

 

[cpbjgc]

not trying to hog this thread but wondering, i figured out the trimming in ddp but when i saved it it appears to have converted the raw image to b&w instead of just the edited image...did i do something wrong when i saved it? i think i clicked convert and save and then could save it as jpg, tiff some other things i forget. but now only one image, the b&w is in the main window where the raw should be along with a second b&w crop of that image which is the one i was trying to save( the crop) without effecting the raw original.( tried to look it up in help but it was not any help to me)

With the RAW image, I do believe you can go back to shot settings at any time as the changes are saved with the file (as a recipe) without changing the underlying image data. The only time you get permanent changes is when you use "Convert an Save As", which normally goes to a jpg file (or tiff). What file name is on the image (does it have a jpg or CR2 extension)?

 

[Groucho]

I too am confused on the TIFF vs RAW thing. TIFFs are uncompressed so you're likely to have as big or bigger files (depending on whether or not your camera compresses RAW files). My RAWs are about 10 megs and when I export for HDR, the TIFFs are somewhere around 30 megs.

If the TIFFs are smaller, chances are they're being saved with 8-bit color depth, which is tossing away a bit of information.

The only advantage I can see for keeping your photos that way is that they're quicker to view with a regular photo viewer (like Irfanview)... other than that, RAW has got it all over TIFF.

I'd agree with the others, get a DVD burner in that PC! If it's a desktop PC, you can definitely rip out the existing CD drive and put in a DVD burner for maybe $35 or so. If it's a laptop, then USB is the way to go; if it doesn't support USB2, then it's not ideal but it still can be done.

Once you get some blank DVDs, you're looking at storing about 4.5 gigs of RAWs for all of a quarter or so. If you want redundancy - 50 cents! Can't beat that!