Jodevoy

When raw was new it seemed everyone said to shoot raw and jpeg, which I did. I was looking over my storage yesterday and was reminded just how much space this is taking up! I use subscription Lightroom and Photoshop, if that matters to your response. I do not recall ever going back to the jpeg shots for any reason. Is there some reason I should NOT just go and delete them? It would be easy enough to do. In January I went to a SONY mirrorless and these files are even larger than before, so I am storage conscious right now. My gut instinct is to just delete the jpegs but I don’t want to cause any problems. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Also…for the record, how many others are shooting raw and jpeg, or did I miss the memo saying this was not really necessary. (The camera “how-to experts” seem to suggest setting it up this way.).

bikerguy

I have never shot raw + jpeg since I do not post to social media while out and about (or any other time). Since you do not use them and it is easy enough to export as a jpeg from LR I would delete all of them.

Kmgw9v Loc: Miami, Florida

I shot raw plus jpeg for a short time. It didn’t take long to realize the jpeg’s we’re not needed.

TonyF Loc: Bradenton, FL

I shot raw + jpeg for a reason that eludes me now. I stopped that practice some time ago and just shoot raw.

Tomfl101 Loc: Mount Airy, MD

Delete the jpegs. You can always produce new ones from the raws if you need to print some day.

bobmcculloch Loc: NYC, NY

Only reason I shoot both is that my travel computer does not handle RAW well, not enough power, lets me see what I got when on the road.

pecohen Loc: Central Maine

The only reason I can understand is because you have an immediate need to post a jpeg image on-line. Generally it is not difficult or even very time consuming to reconstruct a good jpeg copy when you have the raw file and a computer.

davidrb Loc: Half way there on the 45th Parallel

Since the PC became the center of attention it now commands maybe you need to re-evaluate your use of said computer. In its infancy the use of that device was limited by storage and computation capacity. Once its usage became as important as it is today storage has become far less of a problem. In today's market 8 tera-bytes of storage is less than $200.00usd. I have memories of 20 MEGA-bytes of storage that commanded a much higher price. For as little as we pay today for storage there is no reason to jettison any photograph because of limited storage space. If you have NO use then delete. Today, $200.00 is the equivalent of a dinner date or a fill-up at the gas pump! Get an external drive and label it "JUNK" but keep what you shot. Old photos can be a great source of study. With storage space priced today it seems to make sense to keep everything you have made. Air and water are necessities. Everything else is simply nice to have. YOU made your photos, their deletion is a decision you must make for yourself.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Due to my exposure techniques, jpg is useless to me. I've never shot RAW + jpg.
--Bob

frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

No reason to shoot both, except when you are going to immediately send a shot with your phone to someone.

Shot raw only, then export when sending a file, them delete the exported file after sending it. You can always export again if needed.

With that said, if you still have the raw file and jpg, I'd delete the jpg files.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

I shot JPEG only for over 10 years after switching to digital photography. From what I can tell, I didn't lose anything, since the cameras of the time had limited dynamic range, and everything captured could be saved in a Fine/Large JPEG file. I did add HDR to my capability, but that capability was initially designed and intended for JPEGs.

I added raw when my wife gave me the gift of a night sky workshop. The instructor required it, although knowing what I know now about dynamic range at high ISOs, someday I'm going to go back and look at the JPEGS just to see if something can be done with them.

Nowadays, I keep both raw and JPEG files. Memory space is not an issue, because I work thoughtfully and do not come back with hundreds of photographs every day. The photos I take are correctly exposed andcaptured, and can be shared immediately, if necessary. The ones I have submitted for the school yearbook have all been accepted and printed as shot. The occasional "special" image is available for editing and finishing as necessary.

I think the secret here is that I do not have an inflated view of my photography. Most of it is pretty good. All of it is of interest to me. Some of it is of intetest to a few others. I don't delete many images. I do share a few. I print a small number. I spend quite a bit of time pursuing interests that aren't photographic. But both JPEG and raw versions are available to use as needed.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Do what meets your needs.
The HOW TO experts are doing what meets THEIR NEEDS and vision, and feel you should be doing it that way also! Which is "the best" way. Horse hockey.

I use the JPEGS to peruse in Windows Explorer as I don't use a cataloger. Explorer and my file structure is my "catalog".
My Win 7 boxes don't display the RAW files, I always edit the RAW files as there is better convenient control over the way the look. Then I save the edited version as a JPEG for use anywhere. I'm not loading a RAW viewer add-on for Explorer, no need to do so.

Again, do what YOU want.....

Deleting JPEGS won't cause any problems, other than requiring to make a JPEG when you need one. I don't worry about disk space used.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

No reason for you to shoot both...
I have my reasons why I do.

Isn't individualism interesting?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

We re-issue the memo most every month under the heading: STOP - you're wasting your time shooting RAW & JPEG, just shoot RAW.

Earlier thus year I did a mass delete of several years of TIFFs that existed in my LR catalog and disk. This maintenance task restored about 25% of my storage, saving me from having to update my storage to add still more capacity.

You can use LR to filter by file type and identify the JPEGs. You probably have some JPEGs in your catalog for valid reasons, so just a blanket file type selection might need to be more refined before the mass delete. I also found the mass delete of 5000+ images tripped up my Windows10 and / or LR6 software. I just restarted the LR software and reselected the images that fit my delete-selection criteria and re-issued the mass delete until all the candidate images were removed from the LR catalog and moved to the Windows recycle bin.

Just Shoot Me Loc: Ithaca, NY

As you said " I do not recall ever going back to the jpeg shots for any reason." This should be enough reason for you not to keep them. And yes I only shoot RAW.

Ron