[ubuntu-uk] sony camers files

[mac]

On 10 Nov 2011, at 07:57, "Jon Reynolds" <maillist at jcrdevelopments.com> wrote:
<snip>
> But then its a question of whether to keep all the
> RAWs or go through the photos and decide which ones are worth keeping and
> then bin the rest.

Yes, the ease with which you can produce hundreds of shots with a digital camera means it's a real problem at first to know what to bin and what to keep. As you build experience, one of the most important things you get better at is ruthless culling of your images, and keeping only the good stuff. 

Out of focus and badly exposed shots are fairly easy to spot and bin; but then you have to ask, "Am I, or anyone else, ever going to want to look at this again, or to try to improve it by editing?" If the answer's 'No' and it's not a photo that has personal sentimental value, bin it!

Try shooting in RAW. Then transfer the files to your computer. Skim through them, and delete the obvious junk. Then go through them again, and flag or rate the images as Promising / Maybe / Nah, Not Really. 

Geeqie is good for this on Ubuntu if your not yet using a digital asset management program like digiKam (KDE) or Shotwell (Gnome).

Then work on or convert the stuff you think is worth keeping. (Shooting in RAW and then converting everything to JPG for starters is just inefficient.)

Some cameras can save images to both a RAW file and a JPG simultaneously. If you import them into Shotwell, it displays them as a single image (Geeqie can do this, too) so that you can do the first-pass culling very easily. If your camera can do this, try it for a bit to see what works best for you.

And join a local camera club or photographic society. It'll help your photography a lot (even though you may be the only Linux user there!)

mac