.NEF files

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Kelsey Wogan

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Aug 24, 2021, 12:26:05 PM8/24/21
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Good morning,

As we digitize the collections in the SRSU herbarium, we have been saving both the .JPG and the .NEF files of the specimen images. While the .JPG files are uploaded to SEINet, both the .JPG and the .NEF files are saved to an external hard drive exclusively dedicated to the digitization images.

Are the .NEF files actually necessary to hang onto and to archive or would we be able to just deal with the .JPG images without compromising the efforts of the digitization project?

Thank you,
Kelsey

James Ryan Allen

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Aug 24, 2021, 12:49:36 PM8/24/21
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Kelsey,

My opinion is that you always want to keep the raw version of any images generated. You can always create a JPG from a raw file (NEF to JPG), but JPG is a lossy format meaning the conversion process does not allow you to go back to the original.

I know it might seem like a large amount of data to store, but I always think about the cost to regenerate the images and that is going to be way more expensive than the cost to store the images.

Even on a budget two hard drives (a primary and a backup) can be a reasonable backup.

I am not sure where you are based, but many universities also have some form of research space and you might be able to store data in campus cloud space.

Ryan

J Ryan Allen

Project Coordinator Southern Rocky Mountain TCN

Project Manager Biodiversity Informatics

University of Colorado Museum of Natural History
Herbarium (COLO)

350 UCB

Boulder, CO 80309

303-492-3216





From: symbio...@googlegroups.com <symbio...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Kelsey Wogan <kelsey....@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2021 10:26 AM
To: Symbiota <symbio...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: .NEF files
 
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Katelin Pearson

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Aug 24, 2021, 1:25:00 PM8/24/21
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Hi Kelsey,

For California Phenology Network digitizing institutions, we have strongly recommended that everyone keep a copy of the raw files, either as a DNG or a NEF/CR2. It's a difficult decision to make, especially since we are banking on future use cases of the raw files that may or may not currently exist, but as Ryan mentions, there is a high cost to re-imaging everything.

Best,
~Katie



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Katelin (Katie) D. Pearson
Data Manager - Symbiota Support Hub
Arizona State University
Project manager, California Phenology TCN
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
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