Do you keep everything?
Nov 14, 2017 16:19:59 #
I keep only the best and delete the rest. I see little value in keeping images I don't care to look at again.
Nov 14, 2017 18:30:54 #
If it's blurry, or not recoverable with processing, it goes away.
Nov 14, 2017 19:58:16 #
I take hundreds, and in some cases (e.g. African safaris) thousands of photographs and keep them all. I use photography for a variety of reasons, including as my research for writing, book cover design, promotion, etc. I put everything on external hard drives and back them up, putting them in folders wth names based on the dates of download from the camera. The only problem you might have is external hard drives that for some stupid reason don't let you save pictures that you've modified in Photoshop. I use Lightroom sparingly for a variety of reasons, none of them valid (probably) for the really good photographers. If I were really organized I'd make a spreadsheet with comments about the date-folder contents, and I've done that for some years. But I would keep it all. Never know when you might want to come back and use something. And, you can always drag and drop your favorites to a special folder.
Nov 14, 2017 22:02:43 #
I have the perfect solution, at least for me. After I download my pictures, my wife reviews them and codes them for me. Her eye is really good and it is especially helpful when I take several pictures of the same thing with different settings or at a slightly different angle. Purple (her favorite color) is "keep". Within that she rates them 3 - 5 stars. Red is "delete". Blue is "maybe". I scan through them after she finishes and make any adjustments to the ratings, moving some pictures she rated lower to purple status and a few she colored purple to blue or red. Then I edit the purple 5 stars and usually the purple 4 stars. Usually, only some of the purple 3 stars get edited. The reds definitely get deleted and usually the blues do too.
Nov 15, 2017 02:58:24 #
Pablo8
Loc: Nottingham UK.
Leitz wrote:
Well, that's one question ChrisT hadn't got to yet!! 
Don't worry.................. He will................. He'll just wrap it up in another string of words.
Are you sure 'Chris T' hasn't asked this before, and you blanked it from your memory?Lol.
Nov 15, 2017 05:57:23 #
SharpShooter wrote:
Iggy, after I shoot, say I shoot 500 shots, I'll g... (show quote)
Same here. I shoot jpeg + raw. I'll go through them when I download the jpegs and cull the out of focus and repetitive shots, since I shoot a lot of sports in burst mode. Only one or two raw files might go into Lightroom. The cards then go back into camera and get re-formatted and that's that.
Nov 15, 2017 06:16:57 #
Yup, same as when I shot film.
--Bob
--Bob
iggy wrote:
Way back when I purchased my first digital camera,... (show quote)
Nov 15, 2017 06:22:08 #
iggy wrote:
Way back when I purchased my first digital camera,... (show quote)
I process and save about 20% of what I capture. Periodically I review the saved files and delete about 30% of what is saved. I find that my preferences, skills and standards evolve with experience over time.
Nov 15, 2017 06:23:46 #
billnikon
Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont
iggy wrote:
Way back when I purchased my first digital camera,... (show quote)
I make daily garbage runs with my shots. Then once a week I take a critical look at them. Try to load my best 5 to a flash drive. Then every month will narrow it down again.
Nov 15, 2017 06:37:06 #
I keep most but not crummy shots that our obviously not worth keeping. I’m pretty organized so I save my files each year and frankly even each month and sometimes each location during the month. And I also use LR
Nov 15, 2017 07:05:25 #
I delete right from camera any blurry, or what i consider not worth keeping. I spend a lot of time in hotel rooms when I travel and it is time well spent. When I get home from my travels my LR work is cut down considerably. I pick and export the best as keepers for slide shows and the rest are kept in LR as "one star". But I don't know why i keep thousands of "one star" photos because I never go back and use them. I have started looking at old trips and deleting most if not all "one star". Good for computer too. Storing is cheap but I don't care, I hate using storage for "junk". I do backup the good photos externally. Hope that helps.
Nov 15, 2017 07:35:04 #
Leitz
Loc: Solms
Pablo8 wrote:
Are you sure 'Chris T' hasn't asked this before, and you blanked it from your memory?Lol.
It's very probable. I used to read the title first before opening a thread, but lately have been checking who's the OP first!
Nov 15, 2017 07:36:50 #
mas24
Loc: Southern CA
I read an article on this last year, and the author said it was not necessary to keep everything. And that you should clean out your photographic files upwards to 30% annually. He said that while everything may seem sentimental to you, sometimes you have to part ways with them. However, I do feel pain when someone says their hard drive failed on them, and they lost all their photos. That hasn't happened to me, yet. Backup is necessary though.
Nov 15, 2017 07:40:31 #
Like several others here, I shoot 100% RAW. Unlike many, however, I store all of those RAW images on DVDs. Every time I return home, I put all those images from the memory card directly to DVDs. Then I work off the DVDs, pick what I want, and let all of them become my archived images.
Before anyone jumps on me to say that "DVDs and CDs fail", I began doing this back in 2005 when I bought my Canon 20D, and I've returned twice last month to two of those DVDs (from 2005) and all images are there, still, and load up just fine.
Continue saving your DVDs, you never know when something will be desired down the road.
Before anyone jumps on me to say that "DVDs and CDs fail", I began doing this back in 2005 when I bought my Canon 20D, and I've returned twice last month to two of those DVDs (from 2005) and all images are there, still, and load up just fine.
Continue saving your DVDs, you never know when something will be desired down the road.
Nov 15, 2017 07:56:17 #
LarryFitz
Loc: Beacon NY
I keep all pictures of my daughters and granddaughters. The other I rate and keep 3 stars and above. Two stars are normal good pictures but relatively the same scene that a higher rated photo. 1 Stars are either experiments that already got the information from or a screwed up image.
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