# Keeping original scans

**URL:** <https://forums.negativelabpro.com/t/keeping-original-scans/6618>\
**Category:** General Film Photography\
**Created:** [August 20, 2023, 5:49pm UTC](https://forums.negativelabpro.com/t/keeping-original-scans/6618 "2023-08-20T17:49:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dillonmitra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cdc98d/32.png) [@dillonmitra](https://forums.negativelabpro.com/u/dillonmitra)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2023, 5:49pm UTC](https://forums.negativelabpro.com/t/keeping-original-scans/6618/1 "2023-08-20T17:49:04Z")

</div>

My original DNG scans from vue scan are taking up a lot of space on my hard drives, after countless rolls, it’s amounting to near 100gb. is there a point to me keeping the original DNG files or should i delete them. i keep the edits obviously but i am torn.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![HansV](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ba9def/32.png) [@HansV](https://forums.negativelabpro.com/u/HansV)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2023, 6:04pm UTC](https://forums.negativelabpro.com/t/keeping-original-scans/6618/2 "2023-08-20T18:04:27Z")

</div>

Hi,

I would never throw away my digital negatives - you could always go back to the original negatives (‘real’) but every time you manipulate these you risk damaging them.

hope this helps,

Hans

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![greene881](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/57b2e6/32.png) [@greene881](https://forums.negativelabpro.com/u/greene881)\
**Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 10:48am UTC](https://forums.negativelabpro.com/t/keeping-original-scans/6618/3 "2023-08-22T10:48:38Z")

</div>

Why not transfer your DNG’s to an external drive.  
They are relatively inexpensive these days.  
Amazon for example have a 1TB hard drive for (UK) £40  
Also plenty of space for other back ups.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![HansV](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ba9def/32.png) [@HansV](https://forums.negativelabpro.com/u/HansV)\
**Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 5:27pm UTC](https://forums.negativelabpro.com/t/keeping-original-scans/6618/4 "2023-08-22T17:27:24Z")

</div>

Fully agree.  
Personally I keep both the scans straight from my scanning software, as well as the DNGs in my Lightroom catalogue.  
Hard drives are relatively cheap, but of course you need a good back up system

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![edbr](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/forums.negativelabpro.com/edbr/32/2310_2.png) [@edbr](https://forums.negativelabpro.com/u/edbr)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2023, 6:38pm UTC](https://forums.negativelabpro.com/t/keeping-original-scans/6618/5 "2023-11-05T18:38:11Z")

</div>

100GB? That’s $3.50 worth of space on a $70 2TB hard drive! Storage is cheap, film is expensive, art is priceless.

I am guessing you are using a laptop of some kind? If you are on a desktop, get a 3.5" internal hard drive and call it a day, otherwise get something like a [2TB external drive](https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Elements-Portable-External/dp/B06W55K9N6) (amazon US link). Keep your LR “catalogue” on your laptop, keep the DNGs and/or TIFFs on the external HDD, export JPEGs to your laptop for use elsewhere.

Ed

[edbr.xyz/](https://edwardbrown.xyz/)