A couple of TIFF questions

[Steven Draper]

Any help with these questions would be great.

So I have a nice RAW image a little work to adjust a few things here and there, but is it best to tweak the curves, colour etc. in 12-bit Raw or after converting to 16-bit TIFF?

I have my TIFF, in theory should this be upresed NOW to the max size / resolution prior to working on it? (I know this is probably not possible due to file size on most computers in practice, but curious)

Now I have a "master" tiff, and I do various things, curves, perhaps some blending etc. I have a Tiff which then might have a couple of layers, background, Curves, Dodge & Burn, Noise Control etc. I save - Big File!!!

Then I want to make a few versions, a print, I resize the image in genuine fractals, maybe need to tweak the curve, apply all the sharpening, perhaps a grain effect. Save as a layered (incase I want to change things - bin this later or after the client has seen the image), and as a flattened which I use to make the print. May be another size of print too - plus of course a couple of Jpegs for the web.

Suddenly I find one image with a couple of version is several hundred Megs even over a Gb of files space. Is this how it is and I just need lots of HD space, or am I missing something that may be useful.

Your help is greatly appreciated.
Steven

[marcmccalmont]

I made a compromise with 5D files, I convert to a tiff with DXO preserving data (looking for a nice histogram, shifted to the right, no clipping) I then do most post processing in PS. Once in PS I upsize the file to a standard size (for me)
6"x 9" 600ppi (600ppi is what the ipf5000 wants to see, better print quality) using bicubic smoother. I do my adjustments, leave the layers intact and save it as a master file. If I have a lot of versions I save them on a DVD. I have monthly archives of all my raws on DVD in one file and another file of "projects" on DVD each DVD containing one project say Kilauea Caldera or Holei Sea Arches etc. I got out of the habit of uprezzing to print size because at 600ppi the files were way too big
Marc

[booksmartstudio]

An easy way to go back an forth between raw and tiff is to make it into a Smart Object.  You can do whatever you want and change it back later.