XMP Files?

[Josh66]

It's not a back-up.

It records what you did to the RAW, since you can't actually alter the RAW.

Edit one of your RAWs. Close PS, open it back up. All of your changes are still there.

Now, edit one, close PS, delete the .xmp file. Open PS back up. All of your edits are gone, you have to start from scratch on the RAW.

 

[iflynething]

OOOOOOOOH, that make sense.

I have never needed to "redo" or figure out the same settings I used. Once I edit a RAW file once and set the WB, Exposure, etc. I save that as a JPEG and edit that unless the editing is going to be heavy

~Michael~

 

[UUilliam]

In that case you can go ahead and delete the .xmp
the XMP basically records your edit history then re applies it each time you open your raw
only keep it if you plan on editing the raw later and you want to keep it the same as last time

 

[KmH]

OOOOOOOOH, that make sense.

I have never needed to "redo" or figure out the same settings I used. Once I edit a RAW file once and set the WB, Exposure, etc. I save that as a JPEG and edit that unless the editing is going to be heavy

~Michael~

One of the major advantages of a RAW or TIFF file is that it's 16 bit depth file. JPEG has only an 8 bit depth.

 

[Josh66]

As small as the .xmp is, I don't really see any reason to delete it.
(I just opened up one of my folders just to double check - looks like they're all about 12 KB. I'm not too worried about that.)

I always keep mine, just in case.

There have been a few that I decided to tweak months after I originally processed it.
Having to start from scratch, while not impossible, would have been an inconvenience.

 

[UUilliam]

OOOOOOOOH, that make sense.

I have never needed to "redo" or figure out the same settings I used. Once I edit a RAW file once and set the WB, Exposure, etc. I save that as a JPEG and edit that unless the editing is going to be heavy

~Michael~

One of the major advantages of a RAW or TIFF file is that it's 16 bit depth file. JPEG has only an 8 bit depth.

actually most RAW is only 12bit - 14 bit
but it gets used as a 16bit image
But there is camera's out there that can record 16 bit and possibly soon 32 bit.

 

[KmH]

OOOOOOOOH, that make sense.

I have never needed to "redo" or figure out the same settings I used. Once I edit a RAW file once and set the WB, Exposure, etc. I save that as a JPEG and edit that unless the editing is going to be heavy

~Michael~

One of the major advantages of a RAW or TIFF file is that it's 16 bit depth file. JPEG has only an 8 bit depth.

actually most RAW is only 12bit - 14 bit
but it gets used as a 16bit image
But there is camera's out there that can record 16 bit and possibly soon 32 bit.

True, Nikons record 12 bit and some Canons record 14 bit. The extra 2 or 4 bit positions are ignored, but there is still a big advantage to having 4096 color variations per channel (12-bit) rather than 256 per channel (8-bit).