Offload, back up, cull hard, then edit only the survivors — and only five things: exposure, white balance, crop, highlights and shadows, and a little sharpening. Everything else is optional for years.
offload back up cull edit 5 things export
File organisation that survives ten years
- One folder per shoot, named by date first:
2026-08-14 Lisbon day 2. Dates sort themselves; names never do. - Never rename or restructure the originals. Keep the camera’s files as they came off the card.
- Two copies, minimum, in two places. An external drive plus cloud storage is enough. A card is not a backup.
- Verify before formatting. Open a few files and check the count matches, then format in the camera.
Culling, which matters more than editing
Go through once, quickly, and mark only what you would show someone. Do not rate on a five-point scale; you will agonise. One pass, two categories: keep, or ignore. Then a second pass over the keepers to pick the ones worth editing — usually two or three from a day.
The five edits that matter
| Edit | What it fixes | How far to go |
|---|---|---|
| Exposure | The whole frame too dark or bright | Until the important tones look right, not until the histogram is centred |
| White balance | Colour cast from mixed light | Neutral, then a nudge back toward how the place felt |
| Crop and straighten | Loose framing, tilted horizon | Straighten always. Crop only to strengthen, never to rescue |
| Highlights and shadows | Bright sky, dark faces | Recover highlights first; lift shadows last, because lifting adds noise |
| Sharpening and noise | Softness and grain | A little sharpening for the size you will show it at; leave some grain |
One Fujifilm-specific fact about software
The film simulation is a rendering instruction, not something baked into the RAW. Only the camera itself — in-camera conversion, or Fujifilm’s X RAW STUDIO — applies it exactly. Capture One and Lightroom’s Camera Matching profiles get close; a general photo library app does not. So if the Fujifilm look is why you bought the camera, either keep the JPEG or convert in camera.
Exporting
| Destination | Settings |
|---|---|
| Social media, messaging | Long edge 2048 px, sRGB, JPEG quality 80-90 |
| Your own website | Long edge 1600-2048 px, sRGB, sharpened for screen |
| Printing at home or a lab | Full resolution, sRGB unless the lab asks otherwise, no extra sharpening beyond what the lab suggests |
| Archive | Keep the RAF plus the edit instructions. Do not archive JPEGs as your only copy |
Work non-destructively. Lightroom, Capture One, Apple Photos and darktable all store edits as instructions and leave the original untouched — which means an edit you regret in two years costs nothing.