Do you process all of your RAW files?

[12sndsgood]

I roughly sort into three categories

1 - technically flawed or composition disaster with no documentary value
or accidental doublet or triplett image or anything but the best of a series with different settings
-> erase RAW file

2 - no current use, not outstanding, but might be useful for later projects
-> keep RAW, no processing

3 - outstanding or useful for current projects
-> keep RAW, process

That describes my way of doing it as well.

I need to start doing it this way because I know I have allot of 1's taking up space that I should really ditch. lol.

 

[table1349]

I keep all my shots. I only process those that are needed for prints etc. Storage space is cheap.

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

Since posting this thread I've learned that in Adobe bridge you can load multiple images into ACR and edit multiple images simultaneously. This is handy when you're shooting in steady lighting coniditions and all the photos will need similar edits anyway.

I've started to rate my images upon first review with the star and label system (the ones I plan to work on). I haven't decided whether I like the star or rating system better, but I suppose they are both decent ways to organize. Do you guys use one or the other, or both, and why?

 

[MTVision]

Since posting this thread I've learned that in Adobe bridge you can load multiple images into ACR and edit multiple images simultaneously. This is handy when you're shooting in steady lighting coniditions and all the photos will need similar edits anyway.

I've started to rate my images upon first review with the star and label system (the ones I plan to work on). I haven't decided whether I like the star or rating system better, but I suppose they are both decent ways to organize. Do you guys use one or the other, or both, and why?

I'm horrible at this but I usually don't rate the photos. I mark the garbage ones as rejects and then delete them.

Another thing about bridge - say you have a bunch of pictures in the same lighting and whatnot. You edit one in ACR. Then in bridge you can apply all the develop settings to the rest of the photos without opening them all. You can also apply presets this way or camera raw defaults.

 

[table1349]

For me I organize digital the same way I did film. Each shoot gets a separate folder with Shoot Name/Type and Date. All the shots go in there. Because of the advantages of digital storage instead of negatives in the folder I will highlight certain obvious shots that will be revisited with a key word or words.

 

[DBA]

I wasn't (and still am) not ready for the extended computer processing times with RAW files. Just to copy from my SDHC card to my hard drive (via USB 2 reader) 100 RAW pictures is perhaps 15-20 minutes. Did I mention I am still using a single-processor 3.2 ghz AMD Athlon processor on my main computer? So, it's S-L-O-W by todays standards. Importing 100 RAWS into Lightroom 3 is another 20-30 minutes, and simply bringing up the next RAW in Lightroom is 30+ seconds, each, to start processing them!

What class SD card are you using? My Class 10 Sandisk Extreme 45mb/s cards usually transfer at ~20 mb/s while my older cards were in the low single digits. It takes me less than 10 minutes to download and process ~500 RAW files.

 

[enzodm]

I roughly sort into three categories

1 - technically flawed or composition disaster with no documentary value
or accidental doublet or triplett image or anything but the best of a series with different settings
-> erase RAW file

2 - no current use, not outstanding, but might be useful for later projects
-> keep RAW, no processing

3 - outstanding or useful for current projects
-> keep RAW, process

That describes my way of doing it as well.

"me too". Initially I did not trash any file, but I wasted too much memory. Now I feel I'm more and more increasing such type 1 set to be erased (not because I do more mistakes, but I'm more picky), while type 3 remains maybe the same (10% or so). By the way, the first round of processing is typically screen-sized (1024x), aimed at showing results to my wife , and Flickr/Facebook. When in need of printing, I develop again full size (only some).

 

[slackercruster]

OP, hell no.

When I want to shoot in RAW, I shoot in RAW+ . I look through the JPEGs and save the ones with the RAW info that I like and trash the rest.

 

[Derrel]

No. I process "the best". And I let slide what I term, "the rest".

 

[EchoingWhisper]

First thing I do is select The Good Ones and The Bad Ones in Lightroom. And I'll be left with only 25% of my shots. Once I've chosen the Good Ones, I start processing them. If I see any of them being not up to my standard, I'll send them to be the Bad Ones again. And I'll be left with only 20% of my shots.

I don't delete any photos I shot. None. There's no reason to delete them. Memory space is so cheap nowadays, and I shoot at the rate of 10000 pictures per year. I just can't fill up my HDD! Maybe one day I'll delete all the rejects.

 

[JakePhoto]

When shooting something serious, I shoot RAW+JPEG. If the shot is good, I work in JPEG. If I messed up a little with the exposure, or some serious retouching, I'll open up the RAW.

 

[jamesbjenkins]

I took Scott Kelby's advice and use the rating system inside Lightroom. Upon import, I go through everything and rate from 1-5, tossing everything that is 1,2 or 3. I'll keep the 4's until the next time I look at them and I immediately process the 5's.

If it's a wedding, I put all the SOOC images in a private gallery for my client to select their favorites for the album, then I edit those.

I used to edit everything, but I was a dumb rookie then.

 

[bratkinson]

I wasn't (and still am) not ready for the extended computer processing times with RAW files. Just to copy from my SDHC card to my hard drive (via USB 2 reader) 100 RAW pictures is perhaps 15-20 minutes. Did I mention I am still using a single-processor 3.2 ghz AMD Athlon processor on my main computer? So, it's S-L-O-W by todays standards. Importing 100 RAWS into Lightroom 3 is another 20-30 minutes, and simply bringing up the next RAW in Lightroom is 30+ seconds, each, to start processing them!

What class SD card are you using? My Class 10 Sandisk Extreme 45mb/s cards usually transfer at ~20 mb/s while my older cards were in the low single digits. It takes me less than 10 minutes to download and process ~500 RAW files.

I'm not sure whether it was my old slow single-processor that was simply being 'overrun' or what. I just put the finishing touches on my 'screamer box' (quad processor AMD w/2 SSDs, etc). Between the USB3 and quad processor, it should fly through downloading lengthy shoots. So far, I've only downloaded a small 40 picture shoot. Even that was far faster than the old computer.

 

[DBA]

I took Scott Kelby's advice and use the rating system inside Lightroom. Upon import, I go through everything and rate from 1-5, tossing everything that is 1,2 or 3. I'll keep the 4's until the next time I look at them and I immediately process the 5's.

I could never understand a 5 star picture rating system. What's the difference between a 1-2-3? How about a 3-4-5? Is a 4 just a tad better than a 3, but not as good as a 5? IMO that's way to confusing.

I personally use the LR "flag" rating system which gives you three options:
1 = junk, completely out of focus, random accidental ground shots. (delete at some point)
2 = tag and keep for possible future use (I do motocross events)
3 = process/edit

At a typical event I'll take 500-800 images and only ~5% get flagged (3).

 

[Kolia]

5% ?

Wow I got my rear end chewed up in a different thread for claiming that a ratio of 1:100 very good picture was a good ratio for an amateur...

Lol