Hello folks. There is a surprisingly high level of misinformation and lack of clarity around your original images that you copy or download from your camera memory card.

Some people believe that it’s different for RAW and for JPEG files. That’s wrong. From an original integrity perspective the situation is identical unless the user does something foolish.

RAW Files

However you get your RAW files onto your computer is your business. Whether you do so as part of an import process in your editor of choice, hopefully one that actually has a digital asset manager, or you just copy the files from the card into some structured folder hierarchy that you manage manually, the RAW file gets to the computer. Wherever that happens to be, you have a responsibility to yourself to have two backups of each file, one locally and one in the cloud (offsite). If you choose not to do so, your call but remember the IT Professionals rule, two backups can only be depended on to be one, and one backup is the same as none at all.

When you open a RAW file in whichever editor you use for the purpose of editing, the RAW file gets converted to something else that the editor understands. No changes are made to the RAW file, ever, for the simple reason that a RAW file isn’t even a picture until it has been converted into something else. So you do your edits using whatever tool that you like and when you save your edited image, it is either saved as a series of XML commands to be applied against the RAW file, or you actually save the edit as a new, separate file, in a viewable format. The most common is JPEG which has a negative impact on the quality of the final export, that you probably cannot see, or TIFF which preserves the integrity of the original’s data producing a lossless and large file. However even when you save from a program like Photoshop, the RAW is never changed and you get a new file, most commonly a PSD.

In fact, without the XMP sidecar that holds the XML instructions or an export such as a TIFF, or JPEG or a save in a new format such as PSD, your RAW file has NO information and NO changes as a result of your editing. If you convert your RAW file to DNG for some unknown reason, and then delete the original RAW, you are now at risk. To prevent this, never convert your RAW files to DNG and that problem can never appear.

JPEG Files

What many people do not understand is that the same is true unless for some human reason you save an edited version over the original thereby replacing it. That’s nothing to do with technology, that is 100% user error. Thus if you are editing a JPEG in a tool that doesn’t store your work as a set of XML commands, separate from your original, be sure to NEVER do a File | Save and then proceed to ignore the warning that you are replacing an existing file. If you do. you are 100% at fault. That’s why tools like Photoshop and Affinity Photo and DXO all have their own native formats. To help prevent people from being lazy and stupid. One actually has to WORK AT IT to destroy an original JPEG with any of these tools.

Virtual Copies

Some editors offer what are called Virtual Copies. There is no magic here. What it means is that the program can store multiple alternative processing XML commands and attach them to a pointer to the original file. Virtual copies are great tools to help one experiment with different processing approaches, but a virtual copy does nothing to protect an original because the original isn’t being directly impacted.

Originals and Exports

This week I have been doing a lot of product shots for an online store. Hundreds of images in fact. Because I know in advance that no print will ever be made from any of these images and that they will only ever be looked at on a screen, I shot them all in Large JPEG. This is the least compressing JPEG option and even though there is a ton of data loss when making a JPEG at time of shooting, I also know that where the images will be seen is of much lower resolution than the JPEG itself.

An Example Process

When I put those originals on the computer, in my case by importing them into Lightroom Classic and having them go into a new collection on Import, the originals go to a drive that I know has multiple backup targets. I could figure out where they are physically but don’t care because the originals are only pointed at in any of the Lightroom Classic modules. They never change. I then do my edits and when done make a new collection called Export with the Date of the Shoot included. Then I export the files as JPEGs at 100% quality into a new location. I then use those images to attach to the products in the back end of the online store. My exported JPEGs are the edited versions, and my originals are completely intact and were never altered at all. I use Lightroom Classic SOLELY because of the digital asset management in the Library module. None of the other modules are special or do things that other tools can never do. The Collection capability of Lightroom Classic is the one thing that sets it apart.

Storage Structure of the Originals

Those folks who work without a digital asset manager must manually manage where their originals are stored. As I use the Lightroom Classic library, I know that it stores the originals in a volume on one of my NAS devices. It uses whatever file structure Lightroom Classic uses by default which is some kind of year - month - day thing. I know that the volume gets backed up to two different locations and I never touch nor go to the folders containing the originals. NEVER, EVER. Because to do so completely defeats the power of the digital asset manager in Lightroom Classic which is why I pay for the darn thing every month.

The pointer to that one original can be in one collection, the one created on import. It could be in hundreds of collections over time, because while there can only be one volume/folder/file structure at a time, you can have unlimited collections without consuming any disk space worth considering.

Whether you use a digital asset manager or not is a personal decision, but since so many people still subscribe to Adobe’s lock you up forever subscriptions to get Photoshop, they also get the best photo DAM on the market. Why one would choose to hone the rod for one’s own back and then beat themselves with manually managed folders is completely beyond me, but what others do is not my problem, regardless of how sad I may opine that it is.

Wrapping Up

Let me net this out. For every original you need two additional copies, one local one offsite where the cloud is the cheapest and most convenient option, unless you pay Adobe for their outlandishly expensive cloud storage. But that’s user error.

Once you open an original in any editor, the original will never be changed unless you intentionally overwrite it. This is possible with JPEG originals but not even possible with RAW originals. And for those who are doing most picture taking with a smartphone, the HEIC file format that Apple uses is NO different from a data integrity perspective than a JPEG. It’s just another lossy compressed format.

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