steveo52 Loc: Rhode Island and Ocala Florida

+2

SteveR Loc: Michigan

Ok, y'all know that I'm the oddball out. I do delete photos that I feel would have no redeeming quality. I do feel an odd photo of an individual may have some inherent quality, but the really bad ones just have to go.

Jim Bob

That's because you have good sense...sometimes.

joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

If you know that none of these files will be used they serve no purpose. Why not just fill up your drives with gibberish, it serves the same purpose...totally useless.

SteveR Loc: Michigan

Like I said, Jim Bob....it's those odd occasions I worry about.

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

Well...if you compare yourself to me, then the answer is...maybe.

When I shot digital, I only "developed" (in Lightroom) those that I was keeping, and trashed the rest.

Now that I shoot film, I only print what makes sense, I don't waste time on ones that don't but I DO keep my negatives.

So I'm 50-50% on this :)

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

No, you are not. There are two issues here: taking lots of shots, and keeping lots of shots. The first is good, but the second isn't. Just about every instructional video recommends "working the shot" - shooting from various angles and with different settings. That's the easy part. What's not so easy is getting rid of all but one or two "keepers." Lately, I've been going through my library and deleting lots and lots.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I was a photo hoarder. I guess that to some extent I still am.

I started with digital about 1999. I just stuck all the pictures in my computer. There were maybe a thousand of them. That I could handle.

Around 2005 I got a DSLR and the rate of picture taking went up. By about 2007 I had about 10,,000 pictures in my computer. It was getting tough to find things, particularly since they all had such distinctive names, like PA120043 or DSC_4812.

First step: all new pictures get meaningful names. Christmas 2009; Suzie's Birthday Party 2010; Atlanta Trip 2011. That sometimes took some work since I was just downloading the card all at once and sometimes it had several different shoots on it. So I got Download Pro, which allowed me to select which files on the card to download and allowed me to specify what name to put on them. I could set up a template so that by just entering a subject, it would define the new file name and also the folder to place it in. It would add the date (from the EXIF data) and an index number.

Second step: got Lightroom. That did my postprocessing (by that time I had switched from shooting jpg to shooting raw). Allowed me to easily add keywords to the images, which made it easier to find them.

I tooled along, fat and happy, for a few more years. Last year, with about 55,000 images in my LR catalog, I recognized that I had gotten sloppy about adding keywords. Not so much in the recent pictures, but the older ones never got complete keywords. So I was having trouble finding things again, particularly since those 55,000 images included a lot of duds.

Being a farmer, winter is my slow season (not zero, but slow). So I took the opportunity to go through my catalog. I tossed the duds, the dupes, the images I figured I wouldn't need. Got my LR catalog down to about 18,000. Then I went through them all and completed the keywords where necessary. The whole process took about 6 weeks.

So now I'm fat and happy again and I can find things. I deleted all those junk pictures from my disk as well as my catalog so the disk is now down below a Terabyte again. When my 96 year old aunt died this year I was able to pick out about 75 good pictures of her for the memorial. Previously not all the pictures were keyworded so I probably would only have found about 20.

So now I'm not a photo hoarder. Well, almost not. All those pictures I deleted from my catalog and disk are still in all those backup files I keep.

So now my workflow will include:
1. Download and improve file name
2. Back up the downloaded files
3. Import into LR and do Triage. Color labels mark keepers.
4. Postprocessing in LR/PS. Color labels mark final versions and in-progress edits.
5. After completing PP, remove images without color labels from catalog and disk (they're still in the backup).

Jim Bob

I know exactly what you mean. Unfortunately for me "those odd occasions" happen all too often.

orrie smith Loc: Kansas

it is better to have and not need than to need and not have. over time my viewpoint changes on images that I probably should have deleted and now see them as usable.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Delete is a form of separating the wheat from the chaff. I'm a firm believer in shooting 'freely' in digital. I don't mean a spray & pray. But, why take just one snap and hope it's perfect or hope that you can edit it to perfect? Why do that (like film) when you can "freely" take another 2 or 3 or as many as needed to make sure you've got the best images that will need the minimal amount of PP needed.

"Delete" also stesses your editor skills. Can you identify the best and delete the rest? How often do you see people do a photo dump? Whether vacation photos in FB or Flicker: I don't want to look at all your pictures. Give me your best and only your best. Keep in mind: you are only as good as your weakest image.

All that said, I keep all my images [u]for those that were edited[/], both the RAW and a high quality JPEG. I use Lightroom to then manage differently sized output versions. But, there's a low ratio of what get shared vs what gets edited and therefore saved long-term.

steve_stoneblossom Loc: Rhode Island, USA

If I download from card to hard drive, I keep it. I import all to Lightroom and only edit some (10%?), then export edited versions back to hard drive.

I once thought it better to keep them all in the event I wanted to revisit and reconsider. That was some 100k-150k shots ago. Now I find the thought of doing that laughable.

Going forward, I may just try to get in the habit of using Lightroom's rating system to select all unrated images and delete them from the drive.

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

I delete as I go based on my own criteria. For one thing I rarely keep anything that isn't well-focused. I suppose if it had the potential to be historically significant as in the "Zapruder footage", I might keep it. No self-delusion here. And I will sometimes keep "the best I have" of a specific critter....

Occasionally, I'll go through the old stuff and "clean house." If I have improved; I don't need the old evidence....

And who will ever look at it? Or go through 500,000 files to find the gems. I don't hate my kids that much.

:lol:

Photocraig

I suspect mine will go directly to the dumpster.

steve_stoneblossom Loc: Rhode Island, USA

Yes, yes, and YES!

I will say this, though. 99.9% of my images are for business use, and as much as anything else fashion-related, styles change. I am now in the process of re-editing one of my old shoots to give it a fresher, more current look.