Robert wrote:
@Joanna It makes sense to make and create masters in 16-bit format, as current RAW formats is and tools like Photolab to open up RAW with existing corrections are far from a sure thing. There’s real issues with long term digital storage and the best suggestion is to store files in a lowest possible denominator. I’ve been doing this with 100 jpegs up until this year. I did open up some old PSD files from a my first full frame camera, a 5D recently. The processing I did in ACR was remarkably good in 2011. One reason the files are looking so good as I saved them in PSD, a 16-bit format at the time.
As I have a lot better gear now than then and my processing is better (there was a period of the dark ages between Aperture (came after the ACR/Photoshop period) and finding Photolab. Lightroom always had its limits, Iridient Developer wasn’t Adobe and is amazing software for what it is but has its limits, Corel AfterShot Pro did a few things right but was worse than either of those, PhotoNinja was never much good except with really problematic files. In retrospect I should have gone back to ACR/Photoshop until I found Photolab. But Aperture had spoiled me and I thought I wanted a dedicated RAW developer not Photoshop. Very, very silly. I had a lot less time for my photography as I was running a very busy and rapidly growing tech company.*
Now that my post-processing is back where it was in 2011, it would be a lot better to save my finished output masters in 16-bit TIFFS which my great-grandchildren should be able to open up without any issues. There’s no processing which still has to be done on these masters. In terms of reprocessing older files, the round of processing I do now on my archives will probably be the best processing I ever do. I might re-open a file or two in ten or fifteen years but I’ll probably be inclined to grab the best output master than start with the RAW.
Those great-grandchildren or even my children will be even less inclined to start with the RAW and process it properly. I would suggest that every photographer here in our DxO community think seriously about legacy and create a parallel directory of finished output masters photographs organised by date. Realistically, that’s all anyone coming after us will have time for. We can create our own legacy, leaving just the images, shots and expressions which we want people to remember.
After that the wisest course of action would be to digitally incinerate the rest of our outtakes, bad moments and poor shots. If we don’t leave those output masters well-ordered (in 16-bit TIFF preferably but 8-bit 100 quality jpeg will do), then we’re at the mercy of whatever time a time-deprived citizen of 2073 can find to rummage through tens of thousand of uncurated and unprocessed files.
All of these conditions would have to be met then:
- DxO Photolab to exist in thirty plus years
- the person searching your photos to have a valid Photolab license
- the person searching your photos to know how to use Photolab at all, let alone better than you or I do
- Photolab to still be supporting RAW files from the year 2001 (when I first acquired a Canon S30 and started to shoot RAW) or 2004 when I acquired my first DSLR, a Canon 20D.**
There’s just too many variables to really put a value on RAW files beyond our own working lifetimes (at some point our own eyesight will fade too far for us to process our existing photos in a worthwhile way). In the end, 16-bit TIFF output masters are the only friend you have against the inevitable push of time.
(*) I avoided DxO at the time, as they were using some kind ROOT-kit for copy protection. Like Adobe except worse. Fortunately at some point, DxO dropped the invasive copy protection but it took me a few years to find out.
(**) In between there were Sony jpeg cameras, the amazing and well-loved Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ10 12x optical zoom and a Pentax *istD which while nice in its way cured me of my nostalgia for my film Pentax K1000 and pushed me into the only too willing embrace of Canon for fifteen years. The last Canon camera with which I was really satisfied was that 5D. The 5D III did offer micro-focus adjustment – fantastic – but no longer allowed the focus screen to replaced by one suitable for manual focus, and the headline feature of 1080p video was in fact more like 480p after line-skipping (deliberate crippling). Nikon has been much kinder to me with real 4K video and auto-focus tracking which actually works and high ISO shadows which are ludicrously free of chroma noise, even before Prime Noise. Skin tones are more of a challenge than with Canon but with a good eye and Photolab at my side, I’ve partially made Nikon skin hues fresh and pink and not their default sunburnt yellow. Canon and Nikon both at least don’t have much green or magenta in their skin tones (Sony) and offer proper detail in skin tone (Fujfilm files even processed carefully eliminate skin texture after ISO 200).