Do You Keep Your 'NEF's"?

[NikonUser]

Hi there,

I currently use ACR to process my photos and save a copy of my RAW images with the original NEF embedded in it...

I keep the original NEF along side the DNG file (with NEF embedded)...

Is it safe only to keep the DNG and discard the NEF file or should I continue to keep both versions?

Paul

[darb]

i keep my nef, if its a good shot that may require future modification or large scale print.

Used to keep PSD's aswell, but nef at 5mb is less intensive on disk space. (but means i have to re-PP.)

[marcotrov]

Is the Pope a Catholic
cheers
marco

[NikonUser]

At the moment I keep

NEF - 6MB
DNG - 10MB PSD - 30-60MB
JPG - 1 MB

That's a LOT of space per image!!

[Killakoala]

I keep and archive pretty much all the NEFs i shoot. If i am not happy with them i delete them but on the whole i keep most images i take. Same as i have kept thousands of film negatives.

My NEFs get archived on TDK armourplate DVDs.

[Alpha_7]

I keep all the NEFs I shoot, of the 15000 odd that I have taken I'd say less then 100 I've deleted. I have the core of my photo library on a 320 gig removable HD. I also have an off site backup which is (semi) regularly updated, and then I peroidically (should more frequently) burn the NEFs to DVD. So far I only keep the NEFS or any heavily PP'ed JPGs, the rest selectively get pruned every so often.

[LostDingo]

it's a tough one isn't?

I keep my raw NEF's but images I process for printwork I save as TIFFs.

Storage is the issue we all face!

Interesting as advice is to keep 2 copies of your data files but you know when I shot film this was not really an option! As technology has improved the more work in archiving appears to be taking place.

Such as the "paperless" office with computers....we use well more paper than ever before!

[johndec]

Any NEFs that make it past my 2 stage editing are archived. Stage 1 is if they survive my chimping (I'm pretty savage when I've got time to chimp). Stage 2 is the initial upload to the PC. All are keepers except for those that may be part of a continuous series (sports,etc). I'll pick the best few and flick the rest.

That still leaves a lot of pics, however storage is cheap. I back up to Verbatim DVDs every 3 months to be on the safe side. A lot of them are crap and probably will never be used, but you never know what future technologies and software are going to be able to do with them one day.. There may be a few sows ears that can be turned into silk purses

[BBJ]

i keep most of my RAW files as well as the converted to Jpg files as something i might go back to the NEF to adjust maybe, so after an event i burn all when i have enough to fill a dvd although i shoot in JPG more now with the D2x.

[Glen]

Yes.

[leek]

I keep (nearly) all of my NEFs, PSDs if I've done a reasonable amount of PP (i.e. more than simply resizing, sharpening & resizing) and JPGs that I publish...
I don't really see the point of saving to DNG format... I'm not convinced that it really has a future and don't quite see the point if you have the NEF anyway...

[Marvin]

I keep and archive pretty much all the NEFs i shoot. If i am not happy with them i delete them but on the whole i keep most images i take.

My NEFs get archived on TDK armourplate DVDs.

Me too, but I'm thinking the armourplate dvds are quite expensive and perhaps next time I'll just buy an external hard drive.

[Grev]

I keep the NEFs, but only if it's a good shot, therefore I delete alot.

[Big V]

I keep all my raw files - canon user - and they are backed up onto 2 external hard drives. I also burn them to cd and dvd, which I know has questionable long term storage value but will do for a couple of years. These are kept at another house...
My favourite pics are also kept on the lappy...

[Aussie Dave]

I also keep all my NEF images. I use Nikon View to scan through my photos, once uploaded to PC (after a shoot), and delete any bad ones.
From there, I go through and pick out the one's I want to PP and decide whether its for printing or for web viewing.
I then keep all PP'd JPEG images in seperate folders (eg. 6x4, 8x12 or web) for later use - if required.

When I have around 4Gb worth of current files, I burn them onto a DVD.
Occassionally, I will go through and delete older files from the PC & make a 2nd backup copy on another DVD.

I don't bother saving PSD's or DNG's. If I really need to redo something, as long as I have the NEF file, I can re-create whatever I did before....it will just take me a bit longer (but as it doesn't happen very often, I don't see the point in wasting disk space).

Just my personal opinion