Storage affected by RAW files

Hi again,

Here's some info about my Mac (taken from an EtreCheck). It does indeed look as though I have sufficient storage on my hard drive. My husband wonders if insufficient RAM could be an issue.

(I have uninstalled Norton and a redundant flash drive as highlighted by the EtreCheck report and I am now also making sure I completely quit Chrome and other apps when I am using Photos.)

Hardware Information:

iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2017)

iMac Model: iMac18,2

3.4 GHz Intel Core i5 (i5-7500) CPU: 4-core

8 GB RAM

BANK 0/DIMM0 - 4 GB DDR4 2400

BANK 1/DIMM0 - 4 GB DDR4 2400

Video Information:

Radeon Pro 560 - VRAM: 4096 MB

iMac (built-in) 4096 x 2304

Drives:

disk0 - APPLE HDD HTS541010A9E632 1.00 TB (Mechanical - 5400 RPM)

Internal SATA 3 Gigabit Serial ATA

disk0s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB

disk0s2 [Fusion Drive] 999.35 GB

disk2 - Macintosh HD (Journaled HFS+) 1.03 TB (689.12 GB used)

disk0s3 - Recovery HD (Journaled HFS+) [Recovery] 650 MB

disk1 - APPLE SSD SM0032L 28.00 GB (Solid State - TRIM: Yes)

Internal PCI-Express 8.0 GT/s x2 NVM Express

disk1s1 - EFI [EFI] 315 MB

disk1s2 [Fusion Drive] 27.55 GB

disk2 - Macintosh HD (Journaled HFS+) 1.03 TB (689.12 GB used)

disk1s3 - Boot OS X 134 MB

Mounted Volumes:

disk2 - Macintosh HD

Filesystem: Journaled HFS+

Mount point: /

Fusion drive

Used: 689.12 GB

Size: 1.03 TB

Free: 336.59 GB

Available: 340.84 GB

Network:

Interface en0: Ethernet

Interface en5: iPhone

Interface en1: Wi-Fi

802.11 a/b/g/n/ac

Interface en4: Bluetooth PAN

Interface bridge0: Thunderbolt Bridge

iCloud Quota: 72.07 GB available

Printer sharing: Enabled

System Software:

macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 (17G14042)

Hi, thanks for your reply.

I was trying to free up storage in the hope that Photos would stop getting the beach ball for every action I try to do.

I have recently deleted Norton and a flash drive and am working through a few other tips about 'minor issues' that EtreCheck threw up. This is my current storage situation. I use time machine to 'back up' on an external hard drive. But otherwise everything is stored on my computer. I use iCloud on my phone, but have chosen not to sync with Photos on my computer.

What is really puzzling me as I have tried to reduce the storage my photos are taking up is this. When I have taken certain landscape photos I have shot in RAW. Sometimes I have chosen to just use the JPEG after all, so I thought I should get rid of the RAW and expected this to reduce the file size. HOWEVER, after exported the edited image from Photos and then deleting the JPEG/RAW files, when I re-import the JPEG from a folder on my desktop (without any further editing), the file size has actually increased, usually from around 8 or 9MB to 13 or 14MB. I don't understand why it's now a bigger file!

I realise that to separate the RAW and JPEG I should really do it before I begin editing, but I'm doing this in hindsight and don't want to lose the previously edited JPEG.

Once I have re-imported the image, it doesn't have the little icon saying that it is still JPEG and RAW, so surely the file size shouldn't have increased from when it was a JPEG with a RAW lurking somewhere in the background. Does the unused RAW take up as much storage as it does if it is the chosen format?

It's currently doing my head in!

Okay, thank you. I did export at the highest quality so

I guess that makes sense.

But hopefully by ‘losing’ the RAW files which are mostly around 25MB I’m still reducing the storage used.

Though it remains to be seen whether it will speed things up at all!! Probably unlikely.

I do prefer to preserve the digital negative. The only reason I am doing this dance is because Photos is working so frustratingly slowly that I am doing anything I can to try to increase my storage and hopefully speed things up a bit.

Most of the time now I just shoot in JPEG, shooting in RAW when the shooting conditions suggest that it may be a better option. I was a semi-pro landscape photographer for a number of years when I lived on the south coast (UK) and sold my work in a number of art trails and galleries and it was important to be able to produce the best from each image.

However, I had to move away to the north of the country to look after a family member and that has limited my opportunities. So now I mainly use my camera to photograph my grandkids and I occasionally get out in nature. Because the photos are only for my own pleasure or sharing on social mediaI I don't feel it's so essential to shoot in RAW.

I recently had my first holiday in a number of years and well took over 1000 shots in beautiful North Devon - I haven't been able to go through these yet or edit them because my computer is continually beach-balling. Hence the dance and the sacrifice of originals taken a number of years ago that may be taking up much-needed storage space!