Raw Photos in Lightroom: I am using Lightroom to organize and edit. I have seen the advantages of shooting in the raw format. I now have many photos which I want to keep, however they...

gorgehiker Loc: Lexington, Ky

I am using Lightroom to organize and edit. I have seen the advantages of shooting in the raw format. I now have many photos which I want to keep, however they are not my favorites and they don't deserve so much space on my hard drive. Is there a way to convert them to .jpg without using the export dialogue. I want them in my computer, but not as big raw files. Thanks for your help as always.

birdpix Loc: South East Pennsylvania

gorgehiker wrote:

I am using Lightroom to organize and edit. I have seen the advantages of shooting in the raw format. I now have many photos which I want to keep, however they are not my favorites and they don't deserve so much space on my hard drive. Is there a way to convert them to .jpg without using the export dialogue. I want them in my computer, but not as big raw files. Thanks for your help as always.

No, there is no way around the export dialogue. You can export them to the same folder that they are now in, use the import dialogue to "ADD" them to LR and then delete the RAW files from inside LR. That way they will remain catalogued

KennyMac Loc: Lynchburg, VA

birdpix wrote:

No, there is no way around the export dialogue. You can export them to the same folder that they are now in, use the import dialogue to "ADD" them to LR and then delete the RAW files from inside LR. That way they will remain catalogued

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

If you have 2nd thoughts with deleting the raws, you could EXPORT those to a DVD and then delete them (within LR) .

Wall-E Loc: Phoenix, AZ

gorgehiker wrote:

I am using Lightroom to organize and edit. I have seen the advantages of shooting in the raw format. I now have many photos which I want to keep, however they are not my favorites and they don't deserve so much space on my hard drive. Is there a way to convert them to .jpg without using the export dialogue. I want them in my computer, but not as big raw files. Thanks for your help as always.

Do you REALLY want them IN YOUR COMPUTER?

External disk drives are dirt cheap. In today's Fry's Electronics newspaper ad, they have a 2 TB [that's 2,000 GB!] for $89.

I have 2 external drives. 1 that I work from, and 1 strictly for backup. I learned my lesson when I had an internal drive fail, with 2 years of pics I didn't have anywhere else, and I have a quote from DriveSavers of $700 to get it recovered.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Wall-E wrote:

Do you REALLY want them IN YOUR COMPUTER?

External disk drives are dirt cheap. In today's Fry's Electronics newspaper ad, they have a 2 TB [that's 2,000 GB!] for $89.

I have 2 external drives. 1 that I work from, and 1 strictly for backup. I learned my lesson when I had an internal drive fail, with 2 years of pics I didn't have anywhere else, and I have a quote from DriveSavers of $700 to get it recovered.

Isn't an external drive slower - working through the USB cable? I have a second internal drive for data, and I use externals for backup.

Wall-E Loc: Phoenix, AZ

jerryc41 wrote:

Isn't an external drive slower - working through the USB cable? I have a second internal drive for data, and I use externals for backup.

Yes, but LR doesn't work on the photo on the external drive, it pulls it in and the actual 'work' is done on the scratch drive.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

gorgehiker wrote:

I am using Lightroom to organize and edit. I have seen the advantages of shooting in the raw format. I now have many photos which I want to keep, however they are not my favorites and they don't deserve so much space on my hard drive. Is there a way to convert them to .jpg without using the export dialogue. I want them in my computer, but not as big raw files. Thanks for your help as always.

Don't do it. Buy a larger hard drive. Hard drive space is cheap now and you should never throw away the negative. You'll be sorry if you do.

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

jeep_daddy wrote:

Don't do it. Buy a larger hard drive. Hard drive space is cheap now and you should never throw away the negative. You'll be sorry if you do.

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

oldtool2 Loc: South Jersey

jeep_daddy wrote:

Don't do it. Buy a larger hard drive. Hard drive space is cheap now and you should never throw away the negative. You'll be sorry if you do.

I use a laptop to do my PP on and it is running low on space on its HD. I now keep three months of my raw photos on it and move all others to a Seagate external drive. I never get rid of my original photos! On occasion I go back and look at them and sometimes find a photo I want to do some PP on. Here is an example. I decided to work on this photo using a technique I recently learned about in LR and am now much happier with this photo. If I had not saved the original I would have been out of luck!

Jim D

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

oldtool2 wrote:

I use a laptop to do my PP on and it is running lo... (show quote)

And you backup that external? One of my externals fell off the desk while it was doing a backup. That one was a goner, but I had two others.

gmcase Loc: Galt's Gulch

If you don't back up your back up off site you are cruisin for a bruisin.

mdorn Loc: Portland, OR

Wall-E wrote:

Do you REALLY want them IN YOUR COMPUTER?

External disk drives are dirt cheap. In today's Fry's Electronics newspaper ad, they have a 2 TB that's 2,000 GB! for $89.

I have 2 external drives. 1 that I work from, and 1 strictly for backup. I learned my lesson when I had an internal drive fail, with 2 years of pics I didn't have anywhere else, and I have a quote from DriveSavers of $700 to get it recovered.

I think the key here is that you have two different locations for your data. Whether you have two external hard drives or one internal and one external makes no difference. Redundancy is the key. However, if you want to maximize speed, having an internal drive wins. Although some won't notice, an internal SATA III drive is faster than an external USB 3.0 drive, all things being equal on the drives.

mdorn Loc: Portland, OR

gorgehiker wrote:

I am using Lightroom to organize and edit. I have seen the advantages of shooting in the raw format. I now have many photos which I want to keep, however they are not my favorites and they don't deserve so much space on my hard drive. Is there a way to convert them to .jpg without using the export dialogue. I want them in my computer, but not as big raw files. Thanks for your help as always.

Yes, keep them in your computer! After you've edited the raw files to your liking, export them to JPGs and delete. Unless you own a business and are a professional, there is no good reason to keep the raw files. Yeah, some will argue memory is cheap, but keeping organized is not. Better to remove clutter than to spend hours trying to manage duplicate files in different formats. Oh yeah, the other argument is that I may go back someday to those old raw files and edit them with the latest and greatest Adobe software. I've already taken my masterpiece shot, all I need is some good software to make it sell. What a load of crap. A great photo is a great photo, and a bad photo is always going to be a bad photo.

mdorn Loc: Portland, OR

jerryc41 wrote:

And you backup that external? One of my externals fell off the desk while it was doing a backup. That one was a goner, but I had two others.

I think you've taken the term "redundancy" to a new level, Jerry. Clean up the clutter on your desk. ha ha... :-)

oldtool2 Loc: South Jersey

jerryc41 wrote:

And you backup that external? One of my externals fell off the desk while it was doing a backup. That one was a goner, but I had two others.

And back up your backup? How many usb ports do you have Jerry? Whoops, I forgot, I can add more ports!

No, I don't but probably should. You just made me move my external Seagate farther away from the edge of my table though. I guess you never know what is going to happen. Gong to have to shop for another 2TB external drive. I just realized my Seagate is a little over 1/2 full. It doesn't take long to fill up a drive when you are saving raw files!

Jim D