[Leica] Drowning in digital files

[pklein at 2alpha.net (Peter Klein)]

I'm a bit of a squirrel.  I rarely throw anything away unless forced 
to.  Then once in a while, reluctantly, I do a big cleanup.  As with life, 
so with computers.  I have files on my computer that date back to 1983, the 
year I started working with PCs, plus some converted CP/M files from even 
earlier(!)  This has not been much of a problem--most of it has been text, 
and the size of the hard drive on the new computer I buy is always bigger 
than the old one.  So I never hit the ceiling.

Until now.  Enter digital photography, where one TIFF is the size of my 
entire hard drive 10 years ago!!  A 16-bit TIFF of a scanned frame of color 
film is about 125 megs.  An E-1 RAW file is 10 megs, and a 16-bit work TIFF 
is 28 megs.  B&W films scans are 40 megs.  It adds up.

My hard drive is nearly filled with RAW files, scanned TIFFs and 
intermediate work TIFFs.  I was embarking on a ruthless rampage through the 
directories, meaning to get rid of lots of digital flotsam and jetsam. Then 
I found a keeper RAW file I hadn't noticed before (see "Found on my hard 
drive").  And this gave me pause.

Problem is, I end up with a lot of unneeded junk on my drive, but it's hard 
to decide what's needed and what's not.   I'd be interested in how other 
LUGgers cope with this--what do you keep? What do you throw away? How do 
you decide?

My inclination is to keep:

1. RAW file or the original scan.
2. Final version, unsharpened (8-bit TIFF, PNG, or high-quality JPG)
3. Reduced JPG for Web.

But with film, sometimes it seems to make more sense to keep the spotted 
version of the original, or even the 8-bit version after the curves are 
right.  It depends on the image.  Sometimes I save several version, decide 
on one, then come back and use another curve or cropping later.  Or I don't 
spot until I decide the image is worth working furthre.  That's where it 
gets confusing.

Add to that, what format do you keep your final files in?  I used to think 
TIFF was the only way to go, but I'm now wondering if PNG might be better 
(lossless compression, often 30% smaller than an 8-bit TIFF).  And I've 
read that some people keep a very high-quality JPG--and I must say, with my 
E-1 DSLR photos, I usually don't notice a difference between TIFF and such 
a JPG.

I'm also wondering whether it's worth it to go through years of files and 
delete intermediate files, or just buy a bigger disk and try to streamline 
my future workflow to leave fewer files in the first place.  Or buy a DVD 
burner--but I'm concerned about the longevity of any home-burned optical 
media.  A big hard drive or two, plus a matching external for backup seems 
better.

Note that I use Picture Window Pro, not Photoshop, so I end up saving 
several different files at various stages of editing, rather than having 
layers in one humongous file.  Then again, I don't need a gamer's PC with 2 
gigs of RAM just to get by.

--Peter