Is there a middle-ground for archiving between RAW and JPEG compression?

[jaomul]

You could download Adobe dng converter and process your raw files into lossy dng, basically a cross between raw and jpeg in that you still retain raw functionality once you use an Adobe based software to process but there is a degree of compression. It can result in files about quarter size

Edit.Derrel got there first

 

[Gavjenks]

You don't need a middle ground, because archiving every photo you've ever taken is dumb, and the amount of space the actual keepers take up should be fairly trivial on hard drives and DVDs (or clouds).
And if it causes you any issue in space problems, archiving all of your keepers in RAW is also frankly a little dumb, too. There are a lot of photos that you should pretty much know you'll never want to edit again.

So 3 categories of photos:
1) Non-keepers. Don't keep any copies of these anywhere.
2) Keepers that you have no earthly reason to want to edit again: JPEG
3) Keepers that you think you may need to re-edit (especially portrait/wedding client stuff): RAW

And the tiered nature of the above should easily keep sizes down to being very affordable. If, let's say, the ratios of the above are something like 60%, 30%, 10%, then the average amount of space a photo will eventually take up at the time of snapping = about 4 megabytes. Which means that you have to take about 1,000 photos per DVD, and something like quarter million photos per modern hard drive.

Taking the time to shoot raw, only to save everything as a JPEG, is kinda like shoot film, making 4x5 prints, then tossing out the negatives.

That's a terrible comparison. You need negatives to make more prints. Whereas you do not need RAWs to make more prints.
And in fact, RAWs do not lead to better prints than jpegs do, unless you have some need of re-editing for a different look (in which case save the RAW by all means, see above)





Bottom line: Jpegs were specifically designed as the smallest format that isn't detectible as low quality by the human eye for photographic images. So as long as the image looks how you want it, save it in jpeg, and you'll be fine. RAW is specifically designed for widest editing latitude, so save RAW if you need to edit.

It's just a simple matter of using tools for their intended purposes.

 

[Nevermore1]

I've read in multiple articles from various sources that .tiff files are the best option. They don't lose as much file info as the conversion to .jpg does.

 

[Gavjenks]

Tiffs usually take up about the same space as RAW

 

[cheshirecat79]

I'd personally suggest one of the following:

- Using Lightroom to flag your photos for Pick or Reject. Reject those that, as another poster stated, will never amount to anything. Usually, blur is the worst offender. Turn on auto-advance and just use the x/p buttons to cruise through your library. I was able to get through about 15k photos in around 3 hours. It's tedious, but it'll help cut down on clutter.

- ZIP your RAW files as another poster mentioned. Keep high-quality JPEGs as your "live" photos wherever you may keep them.

- I know you mentioned that you didn't want to get into this, but entertain the possibility of taking the RAWs off disk and enter them into cold storage. Get a blu-ray burner and start archiving- you can get 25gb on a disc in a pretty short amount of time. Keep these masters in a very safe place.

Unfortunately, RAW is really the only option when it comes to no-compromise editing. Keeping the RAW files of your final pictures is good practice- you never know when you may need them or when you may learn a new processing method that might turn your old ho-hum picture into something really special.

I wouldn't recommend TIFF as it's just an uncompressed graphic- your storage concerns will not be addressed with this method.

tl;dr: delete the useless photos and take the raws offdisk once you make a high-quality jpeg export.

 

[vimwiz]

I wouldn't recommend TIFF as it's just an uncompressed graphic- your storage concerns will not be addressed with this method.

Not true, TIFF supports losless compression, pretty big, sure, but less than a RAW.

 

[robbins.photo]

Hi everyone

I am trying to consolidate the better half of a terabyte of data from an external hard drive and my laptop's internal disc storage as well... and just a few sporting events I recently photographed are taking up nearly 100gb of data, alone.

QUESTION: I was wondering if there is a nice in between file-type I could convert all of my RAW images to, before either storing to my hard drive(s) and/or burning onto physical media like DVD-Rs, so I don't use all of my storage so quickly? My RAW images are between 20-30mb each, and it adds up ridiculously quick. I know RAW is king when it comes to loss-less quality and photo editing, so I'll keep the images I really like in their native format... but what about everything else?

JPEG downsizes everything SEVERELY from 25mg to 1mb, so I'm wondering if there's something I'm missing that I can convert my photo-archives to so I can compress them without TOTALLY sacrificing quality, in case a friend or client wants copies of them in the future etc.?

THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE!

Have you considered compressing the RAW image files with either ZIP, 7ZIP or RAR? 7ZIP or RAR would give you the best compression, ZIP would be the easiest to work with because newer versions of windows would allow you to open the file easily and get the RAW image inside.

Just a thought.