File size; bits or bytes

[craig707]

After getting Elements 5 and loading it onto an external hard drive, I found that after about a year and a half, my hard drive is about 2/3 full.
This prompted my curiosity to look into my file sizes. I had heard that I would save a lot of file space by flattening my image. Time to experiment.
I opened an image, then it's properties (Metdata). The file size was 5,006,237. Sent it to the editor. did some levels, sharpening, and posterized it just for fun. Saved it as a psd and sent it back to the organizer. ( Can't view the properties in the editor).
Wow! The file size went up from the 5 million to over 387 million. I'm not sure what kind of units these numbers represent, my guess it's bits or bytes.
Time to be a little more precise. Back to the editor. This time I'll just do one thing. In a new layer, bring up levels. I move the right triangle left from 255 to 230, lightening the image a little. Save as a psd ( to keep the layer because you can't save layers to a jpeg). File size is 88,021,070 (originally 5,006,237). From 5 to 88 million, still a pretty big jump for a rather small adjustment. I send it back to the editor and flattened it. 29,285,322. I'm getting it down. Next I start over with the original. Make the same adjustment in levels and then flatten it before saving it. 8,698,264. It made a big difference by flattening it first before sending it back to the organizer.
Looks like I've go some work to do. Time to go back and flatten a few pictures.
Anyone have any thoughts or words of wisdom on this?

[genevh]

Generally, when you look at file sizes on your hard drive, the file sizes are given as X number of bytes. Either KB or MB. If you see the B capitalized, it means bytes. If the b is lower case, it means bits. 1 Byte is equal to 8 bits.

Hard drive sizes are given in bytes.

As for what is happening with your pictures, editing them and then resaving as either PSD or TIF is going to increase the file sizes exponentially. Depending on what all you do to the image, and leave it in layers or flatten it, all of this is going to affect your file size. And different edits are going to have different effects. I can't tell you much more beyond that. Sometimes we can know too much, and it falls into what I would classify as useless info, except at a geek convention. :rolleyes:

As for flattening vs not flattening, most people only flatten their images when they are fairly sure they are completely done editing them. Yes - it does save HD space, but you lose the ability to go back and edit specific layers later if you find you have the need or desire to do so. You can always go back to your original file, and start again from scratch, though. But some people end up with a A LOT of layers and this would be totally counterproductive unless they were going for a whole new look for the image.

HD space is getting fairly cheap nowadays. I installed a 1T (Terabyte) drive in my PC a couple of months ago for about $240. And prices are still dropping, so I'm sure that same drive is even cheaper now. I remember my very first HD purchase, a 13 GB, was over $300 at the time. So, you might want to consider an additional, larger drive. OR - start moving some of your older images you are done with from your HD to CD/DVD and reclaim some of that space.

All flattening will gain you now is time. But sooner or later, especially if you take a lot of pictures, that drive will fill up. Also, if that is the only place you have your images saved, you seriously need to start thinking about a backup plan before disaster strikes and you lose all your files. And sooner or later, it will strike. Its happened to a lot of us. :(

[Jeff Perry]

craig707, genevh has given you excellent advice. Personally, I almost never flatten a PSD file, even when I think I am done with it. If I need a JPG, to e-mail, or provide to someone (instead of giving away the PSD) etc., I simply Save As a JPG, and PSE will automatically and temporarily flatten the layers, and after saving, return all your layers to you. So in those instances I have both a PSD and a JPG version of the file.

I try to never flatten AND discard the PSD version with the original layers because in most cases a lot of work went into creating all those layers to make the image "perfect", and in many cases there are new and useful adjustment techniques that I have used (e.g. following a tutorial) that I may need to refer back to (6-months later, "How did I do that?"). I will frequently rename my layers with the instruction/reason for the layer. Other times the PSD may be a "template" e.g., a greeting card, calendar, etc., that I may want to come back to and simply replace the images and reuse it.

I prefer to off-load my working folders and edited files, to both an external HD and ultimately to a back-up CD/DVD for archival purposes. The external HD is a USB drive that is completely portable, and fast to deploy and get to my images when I need them. In fact, my aging laptop with its minuscule 80GB HD does not keep my images very long before they are off-loaded. In part because of space limitations, and in part because it IS aging, and the HD could fail at anytime and they WILL fail someday).

Jeff

[MazG]

Gene and Jeff have given excellent advice. It makes more sense to add additional hard drive space (either internally or with an external drive) than to throw away all your .psd files. You just never know when you might need to change the file or use a layer/technique with another file.

[ljameso1]

I never flatten. Images are on an external drive and backed up to dvd to save hard drive space. My desktop is getting elderly for the computer world(5yrs) and I'm told can't cram more ram/memory in. I viewed that as a thinly disguised attempt to get me to trade in a perfectly functional computer so moved stuff to the ehd. In my case was really easy as have a mac and iphoto has a feature allowing you to move the photo library to ehd.

[Not4wood]

As above discussion, I create an "In Work" Folder and keep all my .psd files here. When I think I am done I will then create a Final folder and place all of my finished images in there. If I think or see something that needs to be corrected I will then go back to this "In Work" Folder, find that image and correct what needs to be done then I will do a "Save As" again and overwrite the Image in the "Final" Folder.

To help me keep everything organized, I keep all of this inside the Image Date Folder that was created by the camera. For example, todays date is

2008_07_20 Party (all the Raw Files are in this folder)
/In Work
/Final

I will place all of the psd files in /In Work that I am working on or even if I think that psd is complete I will keep these psd in case for future editing.

I will then create a Final Folder inside the dated folder and place all of the jpg images that I think are complete in here. If they need to be corrected at a later date I still have the psd file with its layers intact so I can go back later especially if I have learned a new technique in the future.

[genevh]

My folder arrangement is similar.

<date> <Event name> (top folder)
1-DNG
2-TIF
3-JPG

I numbered the folders to keep them in that order when I view them in the directory tree. I start out all my processing in LR, then export to CS3/PSE for further touchups, then save. The exported files start out in the 1-DNG folder, but when I am done editing, I sort them by file extension then move the TIF files to their directory, then do an export from there to the JPG directory. All moving and exporting is done in LR. I don't use PSE's Organizer or CS3's Bridge.