Cleaning Up You Computer

Eirebear

Over the last year or so i have managed to get my computer into a right old mess of files and folders and miscellaneous other messy things.

Ive decided that over the next few days i am going to ruthlessly clean it up, getting rid of everything i dont want or need etc.

What i want to know is though, is there a way of telling my computer, right...send all the jpegs into that folder, all the RAW files into this folder etc etc.
Leaving it easier for me to go through everything and sort out the "keepers" after that?

oshead

If you don't mind getting all your RAW files mixed up. All you have to do is search My Computer for *.CR2. Or whatever the file extension is. Then Cut and paste them to the required folder. If you use lightroom, it might not be a good idea. You need the files in the correct folder location.

Hope this helps.

Dave OS

Borderfox

Depends on what camera you have, I tried the same when I had the 30d and there were so many files that were the same name that it created lots of problems for myself. I dont have any pictures on the computer at the moment. They live on three 1tb drives and any work is also backed up to dvd although this will be changed shortly to a Blu-ray drive.

Has anybody changed their RAW files to DNG to keep compatibility?

Eirebear

Nice one, ive found a couple of Filesorter programmes on the net which seem to do basically the same thing.

As for lightroom, ive only just started using it and havnt really got into the workflow of it as yet so it shouldnt really be a problem if i do it this way and then start from scratch with lightroom should it?

Eirebear

Borderfox wrote: »

Depends on what camera you have, I tried the same when I had the 30d and there were so many files that were the same name that it created lots of problems for myself. I dont have any pictures on the computer at the moment. They live on three 1tb drives and any work is also backed up to dvd although this will be changed shortly to a Blu-ray drive.

Has anybody changed their RAW files to DNG to keep compatibility?

hmmm im using a 30D...looks like its gonna be fun!

Paulw

Borderfox wrote: »

Has anybody changed their RAW files to DNG to keep compatibility?

I've looked at this, but as yet, can't see any reason to. I just keep the raw files, and have the xmp sidecar files for processing. Lightroom is also good at tracking my changes.

Until the camera itself can shoot in DNG (rather than it's proprietary raw) then I'll just stick to what works.

leohoju

Paulw wrote: »

Until the camera itself can shoot in DNG (rather than it's proprietary raw) then I'll just stick to what works.

I realise that you're talking about your camera in this case, but the Pentax cameras already can, so it may not be too long before others follow suit.

Eirebear

I've been doing very little reading/research lately.

What are the benefits of DNG over RAW?

Paulw

There are only a few camera manufacturers who support DNG. The big three don't - Canon, Nikon and Olympus, and neither do many of the other big boys - Fuji, Sony.

Those that do support it - Pentax, Hasselblad, Leica, Ricoh, and Samsung

So, with well over 80% of the SLR market who don't support DNG in camera, the standard is still rather lacking as a standard.

leohoju

Eirebear wrote: »

I've been doing very little reading/research lately.

What are the benefits of DNG over RAW?

For example if you have an earlier version of Photoshop which doesn't recognise your RAW files, you can convert to DNG (converter here for Windows and here for Mac) and edit away happily, without the need to spend another small fortune on some software.

Eirebear

leohoju wrote: »

For example if you have an earlier version of Photoshop which doesn't recognise your RAW files, you can convert to DNG (converter here for Windows and here for Mac) and edit away happily, without the need to spend another small fortune on some software.

Ah right cool.

Then why would they start making cameras which support DNG now then?
Surely the manufacturers would be looking to move everyone onto a later version of their editing software?

Paulw

Eirebear wrote: »

Ah right cool.

Then why would they start making cameras which support DNG now then?
Surely the manufacturers would be looking to move everyone onto a later version of their editing software?

In most cases, the camera manufacturers supply their own editing software for free, with free updates. They also provide the technical details of their raw format to software companies like Corel, Adobe, Aperture, etc.

I doubt they make much revenue from the software or code, and I would assume it's more of a hassle to them than anything else, but is needed due to advances in how the camera stores/processes the information it captures.

DNG is supposed to be a universal standard, but so far, the use is small. DNG has been around for a while now, and DNG 2.0 is due to be released probably early next year. The big boys still don't seem to be showing much interest.

Eirebear

Right ok ive got you now.

I didnt actually realise that every manufacturers RAW files were different from one another, but i suppose it makes sense.

cheers

Paulw

Eirebear wrote: »

I didnt actually realise that every manufacturers RAW files were different from one another, but i suppose it makes sense.

It gets worse than that - ever camera raw is nearly different. ie the raw file produced by a Canon 450d is different in format from a raw from a Canon 40D, which is different from a raw from a 1D MkIII.

Same would be true of Nikon - each model would have it's own raw format.

Eirebear

Paulw wrote: »

It gets worse than that - ever camera raw is nearly different. ie the raw file produced by a Canon 450d is different in format from a raw from a Canon 40D, which is different from a raw from a 1D MkIII.

Same would be true of Nikon - each model would have it's own raw format.

Is there a reason for this?

I mean obviously an industry standard would be great, but with the different capabilities of each and every camera, this in itself could get messy no?