Handling both JPG and RAW effectively in workflow

[steamboatscott]

I'm curious if I'm the only person with this challenge....

I have my camera set to RAW+JPG, and most of the time I'm shooting out of auto. However, occasionally, especially when my wife is using the camera to actually take a picture with me in the image, the camera (Canon XSi) shoots in auto, and hence only produces a JPG.

I hated using Bridge CS4 to download photos, because it puts JPG/RAW in same directory and hence I have a bunch of duplicates. So, I switched to Downloader Pro by Breeze Systems, which puts JPG files in /destination/JPG/ and RAW in /desination/RAW/. Works great, except if I focus exclusively on the RAW subdirectory for reviewing pictures, I miss any JPG-only images that were shot in AUTO mode.

I can't seem to find any downloader products out there that will download the RAW/CR2 file if it exists, and if not, will download the JPG. Does anyone have a workflow process or software tool that accounts for this? If not, I'm considering building this software.

[sybren]

Why not just shoot in RAW and teach your wife to shoot in RAW too? It seems to me that you're perfectly capable of handling RAW files, so why the hassle with the two file formats?

[steamboatscott]

I always try to shoot in RAW, but just looking for a process which catches any occurrences were RAW wasn't used and I can still grab the JPG.

[sybren]

You're the photographer, aren't you? Just make sure you always shoot in RAW, and see the extra work you need for JPEG as a punishment for not checking your settings ;-)

All fun aside, it's quite easy to write a shell script that does the separation in different directories for you:

#!/bin/bash

mkdir -p RAW
mkdir -p JPEG
mv *.cr2 RAW
mv *.jpg JPEG

That's for Canon (.cr2) RAW files, I'm sure you can change it to whatever you're shooting with. This script works for every current operating system except Windows - if you're using that, ask someone with experience in BAT files ;-)

Personally, I use a Python script to mount my CF card, copy all files to a certain directory on my harddisk, renaming the files on the fly to whatever format I like best. It can easily be extended to place RAW files in a different dir than JPEG. If you want a copy, let me know - just know that it only works on Linux (or any other system that has the org.freedesktop.Hal DBUS service).

[steamboatscott]

Thanks, but again, what I'm actually looking for is a mechanism to download the RAW/CR2 file if it exists for an image, and if not download the JPG. Alternatively, I could download all files and have a batch script delete the JPG if a CR2 exists for that image, or leave the JPG alone if no CR2 exists. I would consider this very useful.

[sybren]

The easiest way of getting a computer to do what you want it to do, is learn how to program The easiest way to get started is by learning Python, Python Programming Language -- Official Website

Really, it's not that difficult, but the flexibility to get your computer to do what you want it to do is very comfortable and fulfilling.