Rob Cole wrote:
Well, if you import the jpeg and throw away the raw, then yeah - you save a lot of storage, but if you are keeping the raw for possible import later, then you're still having to store it somewhere - that's all I meant - the act of importing doesn't consume storage, not throwing away raws is what takes storage - whether they're imported or not.
Put another way: when you import a raw image, it just makes a small entry in a database, it doesn't make an internal copy of your raw file. OK, yeah: it'll copy it from your camera card, but you need to do that anyway if you want to have the option to import later, whether importing now or not.
Not my most eloquent description, but does that make sense?
In other words, a raw file takes the same amount of space on your disk whether it's been imported or not, thus you don't save any storage by not importing it (you can only save storage by deleting the raw file itself from your disk).
Yes, of course. But I'm not at all concerned about total hard disk space. What I meant about saving space is saving space on my laptop, where disk space is constrained, especially with SSDs that I'm fond of.
The camera cards can be dumped onto external drives at my leisure, but copying to the laptop is often done in the field, and it's nice to be able to copy the jpegs only and still get high quality without tethering, and then load the raws when you need them. When the projects done, they can all be archived, keeping only the previews.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to suggest there is no value in being able to defer importing of the raw file - there are a fair number of people who want to do it - NOT to save storage, but for "workflow" purposes: start with the jpeg and do minor edits if any, then import raw only if more painstaking editing is warranted.. - that way you don't have raw images cluttering your catalog when you have no use for them, yet.
Right. But they do also clutter your disk and limit your storage if you find it convenient working on a laptop without external drives.