[Marc Sabatella]

Non-destructive editing - more accurately, "parametric" editing - means that the editor keeps a copy of your original file for you, and keeps track of all changes you make to the file. This allows you to at any time not just recover your original file (you can do that much with any editor editor can do that just by saving a copy of the original), but also, you can change individual settings at any time while leaving the others intact. It also means you can copy any or all of those settings from image to image, and still retain the ability to go to any of those image and revisit any of the copied settings. It's kind of hard to explain this in a way that makes it clear how incredibly life-changingly powerful this is, but it's of the same order as, say, going from a manual typewriter to a word processor, or from a 1960's-era telephone to a modern smartphone. Krogh does a pretty job of explaining this in more detail.

As for IPTC, yes, you want to write that to the image files themselves; that's a totally separate thing. Actually, for PEF, it normally wouldn't be written to the files, but to a sidecar XMP file (just a text file).

[gooberlx]

Before Lightroom, I found Windows Live Photo Gallery to work pretty well. As far as non-RAW files go, it works well with tagging, face recognition, importing, exporting, basic edits, etc... I don't think the tagging features embed in the RAW formats (it does maintain a local db).

I used to import all my RAWs to a sub-folder by date (i.e. Pictures/RAWs/yyyy/mm-dd-yyyy/*.dng)
My P&S and post-processed jpgs are placed in to subfolders by activity/event and/or descriptor (i.e. Pictures/Photos/Hiking/2010/Boulder/*.jpg)

For both processes, I add relevant tags as needed during the import.

Since I bought Lightroom and am still learning that product, I may need to re-think how I do things.

[HenrikDK]

Marc - a BIG thank you for you comments and advice. It has already been a huge help. I knew there had to be much better options than what I was doing (using basic file and folder organization), but I had no idea HOW much better. WOW

Got the DAM book and have gotten to page 60 - so have a long way to go Also got Lightroom, though I have not installed it yet. Expect (at least for now) that I will not need other software between LR and Elements, and it sounds like LR will probably meet 90% or more of my editing needs.

Have a lot of work to do to organize lots of older pictures, though most of it is family stuff, so probably will not be too bad once I get going. First I need to finish the book, so I can get started "right".

One question: Sounds like using DNG is the way to go, but I saw a couple of posts (mostly older) that claimed PNG produced better results. If I understand this correctly there should be NO difference in resulting image quality? ANY reason to use PNG rather than DNG, other than the slightly smaller file size?

Thank you again!

[eddie1960]

the main difference with DNG is a little more (lossless) compression for smaller file size on PEF. Inherently RAW is the same unprocessed info regardless of file type. DNG has the benefit of widespread compatability for programs and is usable before the codecs are released for new cameras in LR etc. I shoot DNG personally seeing no benefit in PEF. I use LR,PSPX3,DXOv6.0 and older photoshop on an old laptop. no problem on any of them

[reeftool]

For organizing purposes, the free Picasa probably can't be beat. It's photo editing capabilities are limited but does basic fixes very easily and it's probably a great place to start.

[Marc Sabatella]

Marc - a BIG thank you for you comments and advice.

You're welcome! I definitely remember when I was where you are now, and how incredibly empowering it was to finally be getting somewhere with all this.

One question: Sounds like using DNG is the way to go, but I saw a couple of posts (mostly older) that claimed PNG produced better results. If I understand this correctly there should be NO difference in resulting image quality? ANY reason to use PNG rather than DNG, other than the slightly smaller file size?

I suspect either you or the other posters you refer to are misunderstanding something. DNG is a raw file format, as is PEF. PNG is *not*. So no, PNG is not going to be anywhere near as good as DNG, at least for the things where RAW is useful. Sometimes people accidentally type PNG when they mean DNG, and perhaps that's where the confusion comes from, but PNG is *not* something you'd be dealing with normally except perhaps as final output after processing your RAW files (whether DNG or PEF).

PNG is it's like JPEG, but with a lossless compression (so quality is ever so slightly better, and file sizes are correspondingly bigger), and no support for IPTC. It's basically used for one thing and one thing only - web display.

It's also possible they meant to be comparing DNG with PEF. In theory, they are the same data just packaged in different ways, but any given release of any program might happen to treat them slightly differently in terms of how they render that data. Neither is inherently better or worse.

The reason Krogh is so big on DNG is that it is "standard" (well, openly documented, and has been submitted to ISO for standardization), that it can include IPTC info in the file itself rather than require a sidecar XMP file, and -= most importantly - that it can contain a "corrected preview" (a JPEG that reflects the adjustments you've made). The latter means that any program displaying the DNG file would be able to see the adjustments you made, which is not true of PEF.

I personally find I like working in PEF better, though - I like the idea of never actually modifying the original file. I never view my DNG files with any program but the one I use for my processing them (ACDSee Pro) so I don't care about embedded previews, and I have no issue the fact that my metadata is in sidecar files - I've been using sidecars in some form for as long as I've been using computers (like, over 30 years now). If I ever did move to a different program for managing my images, I might want to see the corrected previews I made with ACDSee, but I generate JPEG "proofs" of all the images I've processed and I mostly interact with those, so my adjustments would continue to be visible there. ACDSee also generates full size previews for use with the PEF files (stored in a subfolder), and if need be, I could eventually generate new DNG's that embed those previews. So I don't feel I'm losing a thing using PEF instead of DNG.

[HenrikDK]

I suspect either you or the other posters you refer to are misunderstanding something. DNG is a raw file format, as is PEF. PNG is *not*. So no, PNG is not going to be anywhere near as good as DNG, at least for the things where .

I confused PNG with PEF - probably misqoted what I read. To many acronyms!

I will have to digest what you are saying

Henrik

[eddie1960]

You're welcome! I definitely remember when I was where you are now, and how incredibly empowering it was to finally be getting somewhere with all this.



I suspect either you or the other posters you refer to are misunderstanding something. DNG is a raw file format, as is PEF. PNG is *not*. So no, PNG is not going to be anywhere near as good as DNG, at least for the things where RAW is useful. Sometimes people accidentally type PNG when they mean DNG, and perhaps that's where the confusion comes from, but PNG is *not* something you'd be dealing with normally except perhaps as final output after processing your RAW files (whether DNG or PEF).

PNG is it's like JPEG, but with a lossless compression (so quality is ever so slightly better, and file sizes are correspondingly bigger), and no support for IPTC. It's basically used for one thing and one thing only - web display.

It's also possible they meant to be comparing DNG with PEF. In theory, they are the same data just packaged in different ways, but any given release of any program might happen to treat them slightly differently in terms of how they render that data. Neither is inherently better or worse.

The reason Krogh is so big on DNG is that it is "standard" (well, openly documented, and has been submitted to ISO for standardization), that it can include IPTC info in the file itself rather than require a sidecar XMP file, and -= most importantly - that it can contain a "corrected preview" (a JPEG that reflects the adjustments you've made). The latter means that any program displaying the DNG file would be able to see the adjustments you made, which is not true of PEF.

I personally find I like working in PEF better, though - I like the idea of never actually modifying the original file. I never view my DNG files with any program but the one I use for my processing them (ACDSee Pro) so I don't care about embedded previews, and I have no issue the fact that my metadata is in sidecar files - I've been using sidecars in some form for as long as I've been using computers (like, over 30 years now). If I ever did move to a different program for managing my images, I might want to see the corrected previews I made with ACDSee, but I generate JPEG "proofs" of all the images I've processed and I mostly interact with those, so my adjustments would continue to be visible there. ACDSee also generates full size previews for use with the PEF files (stored in a subfolder), and if need be, I could eventually generate new DNG's that embed those previews. So I don't feel I'm losing a thing using PEF instead of DNG.

I would agree in general with your assessment Marc for your workflow. The reason I use DNG is because I use multiple pieces of software so the info transitioning with the raw is handy (at one point or another I have used about 8 different programs, though LR is my main one now). Aside from images I upload here I rarely convert to jpeg; for flickr with LR I can go straight from dng in the upload
If I am printing from LR same thing. If I am sending out I will output in TIFF usually since sending out to print usually implies a much larger print for me, I archive in DNG, and if it becomes an ISO standard then my archives should be open-able for a long time. my older stuff I archived to TIFF but kept the PEF I shot at the time
I like the lack of a sidecar myself.

[Marc Sabatella]

My reason for generating JPEG's for many of my images - the 40% or so I consider "keeper" - is to keep them on my laptop hard drive. I have way too many originals to keep on a laptop drive, but I've got these medium resolution JPEG's - 1200x1800, which more than sufficient for upload, emailing, full screen views, slide shows, even 4x6 prints at 300dpi, but with file sizes 1/20 of the original - for all the "keepers" I've shot since I got my first digital camera just over 10 years ago. In fact, I just checked, and they'd all fit on an 8GB flash drive.

I think if I wasn't primarily using a laptop and didn't care about constant access to my image archive, I wouldn't be generating these JPEG's. And then having embedded previews in my DNG's would seem more important to me.

[eddie1960]

My reason for generating JPEG's for many of my images - the 40% or so I consider "keeper" - is to keep them on my laptop hard drive. I have way too many originals to keep on a laptop drive, but I've got these medium resolution JPEG's - 1200x1800, which more than sufficient for upload, emailing, full screen views, slide shows, even 4x6 prints at 300dpi, but with file sizes 1/20 of the original - for all the "keepers" I've shot since I got my first digital camera just over 10 years ago. In fact, I just checked, and they'd all fit on an 8GB flash drive.

I think if I wasn't primarily using a laptop and didn't care about constant access to my image archive, I wouldn't be generating these JPEG's. And then having embedded previews in my DNG's would seem more important to me.

I can understand that, when i worked via laptop previously i had everything on external drives as the built in drive was only 100 gb , I now have a desktop running and close to 4 TB of different drives accessible. I am looking at a secondary laptop for travel (it has 500gb drive) but I'll likely still take a small external as it will simplify moving it into my main system when i get back