what to do with Lightroom dng files.

[rogerjporter]

Ok, i have embraced shooting in raw (usually about 4-5 megabytes), and i edit in lightroom as a dng (5-7

megabytes), then export for the client as jpegs (2 megabytes each), not to mention a bunch of well-edited

shots for the clients wall or large prints (4-50 megabytes each) and fifteen thousand shots later after a full

season of shooting i have a huge disaster of a hard drive from an organizational standpoint as well as

sheer volume.

I have started to weed through the seasons shoots now that it has slowed down, and i am removing

shoots from lightroom. However, i still have a set of raw files, which i tend to archive on a specific drive

long term, and a set of jpegs which have been long ago stored or delivered or burned to cd or whatever,

but i now have a good 15000 dng files, most of which i don't think i need once the photos are gone from

lightroom.

my question is what do i do with all those files, do i need them? i assume they still hold all the edited info

that made the photos look great, but really, do i keep them and archive them with the raw files along side

them, or do i trash them once the shoot is done and gone? i assume i will lose all my edited info, but

realistically do i need that on every shot now that i am just filing the pics away just in case the client loses

their book or needs more prints? i suppose it would help to keep the photos consistent for reorders, but

what do you folks do with your dngs once you are done with the shoot?

thanks!

[glenbarrington]

Personally, I'd back them up off-line to CD or DVD, keep them for a set period of time. Say 2 - 5 years, in case the customer wants something special that jpgs aren't appropriate for, and then trash them.

[wandern]

Perhaps a different angle on this question is why are you creating DNG files to begin with? As long as Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) understands the RAW files from your camera, you can import them directly (CR2, NEF, etc.) and skip the conversion step to DNG. You'll be saddled with XMP sidecar files for each RAW you edit, but they're small and not much of a headache.

 

Alternately, if you're just love DNGs, convert to DNG and throw away your original proprietary RAW.

 

As long as you have Lightroom around, it makes the most sense to stick with one RAW file (either the original from the camera or a DNG), export to JPEG/TIFF for output/distribution purposes, then delete the JPEG/TIFF, and archive the RAW file you choose to use along with (if you're not using DNG) the XMP sidecar file.

 

You might also wish to export each shoot as a Catalog (rather than just copying the RAW+XMP files) for burning to a DVD set to simplify searching/editing if you ever have to revisit that set of photos.

[rogerjporter]

thanks for the tips, i will play around and see what works best.