What to keep NEF & xmp and psd?

[popcorn]

Hi,

I have been using Elements for many years, all this time time I have utilized two folders to save the "keeper" images for each new shoot, Edited Raw and Edited psd.
If I need to send a file I convert it to .jpg. I don't save .jpg.


I have kept the .NEF & .xmp just in case I ever want to go back to process using the Raw sliders.
In the early days of ACR my processing was pretty rudimentary compared to ACR now.
I am so glad I saved the Raw files because I can now retrieve and improve many of my favourite older images.

I have kept the .psd to refer back and improve on my older Elements edits and to use as the file I link to the Organizer.

As Elements has grown and my edits become more complex, so has the size of the .psd file size in my folders.
They have now grown to ridiculous size and so has the number and size of my hard-drives.
This makes finding older images more difficult.

The only way that I know to reduce the size of the .psd files involves flattening layers. 
Is there any way of reducing the size from 200MB to say 40MB without losing too much editing information or detail.

Or must I just buy bigger hard-drives?




 

[fotofrank]

I'm not sure why you are keeping your PSD files if ACR is getting better. I can only make the assumption that you use the PSD to track what you did in elements by looking at the adjustment layers.

Have said that you do have a few options:

1. You can ZIP the PSD files to save space.
2. if you are using the PSD as a reference only to track what you did. You can make sure they are an 8bit file, use the sRGB color space and resize the image and use 72ppi.

[Chris]

Hello Popcorn. PhotoFrank has given some good suggestions. Out of interest are you using the full PS or PS Elements?

Here are some more suggestions I can think of.

1- Delete any layers in the psd file you don't need, and as PhotoFrank has suggested convert to 8 bit with AdobeREGB or sRGB if they are not already 8 bit.

2- On the top layer put a solid colour adjustment layer and set to white. This will reduce the file size a bit by removing the embedded jpg preview in the psd file.

www.imaging-resource.com/news/2015/02/11/did-you-know-placing-a-blank-white-layer-atop-a-.psd-can-cut-the-file-size#:~:text=The%20reason%20this%20reduces%20the,the%20preview%20file%20size%20issue.


Kind regards
Chris

[fotofrank]

If you want to keep the embedded preview, just create a stamped image at the top (Ctrl/CMD+Alt/Option+Shift+e) and desaturate (Ctrl/CMD+Shift+u).

Any method that put a B&W version at the top of the layer stack will work.

[pontiac1940]

Jul 17, 2023 20:17:00 GMT popcorn said:

Or must I just buy bigger hard-drives?

For what it is worth .... 
I have 18 hard drives totally perhaps 40 TB of a capacity. (...two, 8 Tbs and three or four, 5 TBs plus smaller ones.) Some of the older drives are approaching ~20 years old. One new one failed but I had double back ups for 90% on that drive. I digress ... 
I save edited raw files and the small xmp files. I am quite aggressive at deleting (forever) unedited files....thousands annually. I do major deletions every new month. I figure if they were not good enough to edit and consider for saving today, then I won't be checking them again next year. (I recently took over 900 photos of flying osprey in about 30 minutes. Some here. I went through them and edited about 40 of them. I checked the unedited photos again. On about August 1, I will go through all of July's photos and delete forever unedited images, including ~800 osprey photos.) 

If you have the edited raw files I see no reason to save PSD files. The only PSD files I save are ones that have critical editing layers (say, masking) or "posters" that have text layers or several inset images. I save all of my forever photos as jpgs at max quality i.e. zero/low compression. (The edited raw files are saved as well.) 

(Side note: My first hard drive ca 1985 weighted about 3 kg and the size of a shoe box. It stored 10 Mb. HA HA. I'd need more than 3,000 of these drives to store just the July 4 osprey photos.)  

Clive  

[Andrei Doubrovski]

Hi popcorn,
You can keep your RAW photos within your PSDs as linked(!) smart objects.
In other words,  you can use mere links to the original NEF files.
The linked smart objects in PSD files can be re-edited with ACR.
(Requires PSE 13 or later and Elements+)

Video-tutorial:
youtu.be/5Z2vMtoQ2kA

UPD: I've tested this approach with some RAW photos.
It seems, the "linked" smart objects don't reduce the PSD file size 

[popcorn]

Hi all, and thank you.
I apologize for the delayed response. Iam recovering from the worst flu I have ever had ( Covid? ) and am still finding it difficult to think rationally.

I am using Elements 2023 and Elements+
The reason that I want to keep all the information is that I live in hope that I will return one day and be able to release the full potential of a "forgotten Gem".

I call working in ACR processing and working in elements and layers, editing. I am now 83 and my memory has never been good and is now atrocious. I have to summarize on Word every article or tutorial I feel I may find useful. Unfortunately I do not have full ACR.

Frank,
I use .psd because want to reproduce my previously edited image exactly.
As far as I know Elements does not have the facility to Zip the .psd files. Do you do this with an external program, and if so, is there any loss of information after compression?
.tif files seem to have the most options in file size but I never use them and don't know if they retain all the .psd information and whether the image is identical to the .pdf in all respects.
Does an embedded jpg image serve in a saved .pdf file? The thumbnail does not show it.

Chris,
because I use Elements and most of its functions require 8 bit images, most of my saved files are 8bit.
I am never quite sure which of the layers can be removed, some of the them may have no effect on the final image but are steps in the edit.
I have never been able to tell the difference between 12 & 8 bit images on a computer screen or a A4 print.
I will try your solid white layer.

Hi Clive,
I try to be ruthless in my deletion files not worthy of eiteing, I only keep the "special occasion" ones.

Hi Andrei,
Its always the 'pdf file that become so big anyway.

Thanks everyone for your help.

[VickiD]

Popcorn, just an aside, PSD files and TIF files both save all the edits (make sure you save your TIF files with layers). The main difference is that TIF files can be opened by editing programs other than Adobe products, while PSD files can only be opened with Adobe programs. This allows you some flexibility; however, I believe TIF files are a tad larger.

[popcorn]

Thanks Vicki,
I always convert any files that I send to others to jpg just on the basis of file size.
I have been asked to supply TIF files on occasion and have always found them to be of similar size to the PSD.

[BuckSkin]

I am probably the least financially affluent visitor of this board and my advice when things get bigger than the barn is to build more barns; if it was ever worth having, it is worth keeping.

And, load anything worth keeping with every scrap of information you can gather; nobody twenty years from now cares what F-Stop or exposure you used; what they do want to know is first "When", then Who/What, Where, Why, Etc.

And I highly advise keeping a full-size jpeg of the most finished stage of every photo; that way, anyone else who may stumble upon your photo collection can easily see what they have found without having to work to see it; they may have no idea what a RAW or PSD is, nor even if they have anything to do with pictures, but most can tell what a jpeg is and be able to view it.

[popcorn]

Hi Buckskin,
Try living in South Africa where a $ costs nearly R20!!! and all technology is subject to heavy customs taxes. I remember the days when R1 bought $1,5. Travelling to the USA was a cheap holiday!!

Your advice has really hit home. It brought back memories and I thought this may be interesting.

My Dad was a keen photographer. He was a professional Engineer and had a friend who was a Chemist and they must have been one of the first to use colour processing in South Africa. They lived in Durban, a port on the mailship line between South Africa and the UK. They used friends, working on these ships, to import photographic material. They experimented with both Kodachrome and Agfacolour, they did their own processing. Agfacolour was released in 1936, Kodachrome 35mm in 1937 but I am not sure when the 120 colour negative film, used by my father, was introduced.

My Mom died in her late twenties in September 1940, I still have a colour negative of her which must have been taken circa 1939. This must be one of the first colour images taken in South Africa.
I can't find a print.

Apropos your advice, all I have to do is open one of the many photo albums my father left behind, and his memories are all there, including my mother, who I never saw.
Hundreds of tiny B&W images ( I have only found one colour negative ), he must have developed, printed and placed nearly every photograph he took into albums.
The only clue to the identity, time and place are in pencil notes, made by my mother, on the backs of each print. My mother only exists for me in those albums.

What a difference! My descendants will inherit my memories in the form of thousands of undecipherable digital files, all neatly Organized, with Tabs for date, name, occasion and place, but no way of knowing how to unlock the contents!!!

I only print my best images, never smaller than A5. I guess I am about to change my ways, I have forgotten that, for most people, the most important function of photography is too record the past and memories.

My printer is going to run hot producing lots of 100 x 70mm indifferent images. Thank you for reminding me.

I hope this is not out of place here, if so, I apologize.

[popcorn]

Hi Andrei,

Just a quick question.
"The linked smart objects in PSD files can be re-edited with ACR."
If you edit the smart objects, does the edit affect the .psd file?

[BuckSkin]

Popcorn,

Something you said way up there in maybe the first post, something about having many disks and older images being hard to find, brought this suggestion to mind.

A while back, I learned how to "mount" hard-drives in empty purpose-created folders of existing established hard-drives; it is really quite simple.

The advantage to "mounting" into an existing hard-drive, instead of the typical method of establishing a new Drive Letter, is that a mounted drive behaves just as if it were a folder within the existing parent disk, thus you can just keep adding years without them being in separate Drive Letters.

This makes finding and going straight to any year really quick and simple; and, you can Move things from mounted drive to mounted drive and the parent drive without it wanting to Copy instead; it behaves as if all the mounted drives were one big disk.




I really enjoyed your story about your ancestors and their photographic talents; it sounds like you had good parents --- something I never had.....

My father was in Korea and Japan and had many many photos of his travels.

We had this big old flap-top wooden desk, with many drawers and pigeon-holes.

That desk was crammed full of all of our photos, including those wonderful Korean War photos.

My parents divorced and my father then married the most evil jealous woman alive(and still alive) except for my mother who was worse by far(and also still alive).

They hadn't been married a week before this stepmother from hell was home alone and BURNED every photo in that desk --- all of them --- reduced to ashes in one afternoon.

All of my grandparents were alive until just a few years ago and all of my Great Grandparents on my father's side were still alive into my early twenties; the WWI Flu pandemic took out all of my maternal great-grandparents.

I don't have a single photo of any of them, not one.

[popcorn]

Hi Buckskin,

Thanks for the tip. I have never heard of "mounting" hard drives.
Sounds like the answer to my problem.
I will find it on the web.

Very sad, even hard copy photo's aren't foolproof. May be I will have to leave my kids my memories, complete with computer, Elements and hard drives!!

Thanks again.

[pontiac1940]

Jul 24, 2023 23:44:08 GMT BuckSkin said:

what they do want to know is first "When", then Who/What, Where, Why, Etc.

Amen to that.

Interesting family backgrounds popcorn and BuckSkin ... also interesting workarounds to solve problems.