Randy_Manning Loc: Alton, Illinois

About once a week I shoot an event for my local "online" newspaper. I'm shooting somewhere between 1600 to 4000 shots. So, I'm loading all those shots into a file on my computer....then culling out 100-400 shots, cropping, tweaking, etc (in Lightroom), then exporting those into a new file(s) on my computer. All this storage is beginning to add up. If I delete the original file...then Lightroom can't find the original. If I have to "retweak" one those pics....does it matter if I don't have the original? ...or...is there a better way for me to handle these files. I'm open to suggestions. Thanks. -Agonizing in Alton

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

By file, I am assuming you mean Catalog since you are working in Lightroom? It is perfectly acceptable to only keep the culled files, rather than the entire shoot, and delete the rejects. Or, keep the rejects in a separate catalog and delete after a few months, since chances are you are never going to need these rejects again.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Do Not Delete The Originals.

Or more specifically: do not delete the edited images that pass through your culling process.

Everything deemed unneeded, no possible purpose, delete those files. Mark them as rejected in the LR catalog when you make the "reject" decision, and in a separate processing step, filter your images by the attribute of REJECTED and delete them from the LR catalog and from disk. Back-up only the culled images.

You need to have confidence and skills in your "editorial" skills, your ability to pick the keepers and to kick the rejects.

Regarding the export files, these should be "resized" to the purpose of the image. If you're just sharing them for online posting, they should be resized to the appropriate pixel resolution, and possibly, JPEG quality. This post recommends 2048-pixels wide with a lengthy description of why 2048px is the best size, still in 2023. Recommended resizing parameters for digital images Create LR User Export Presets that standardize and automate your export processing.

Don't bother backing-up these JPEG exports. You can always recreate (re-export) from the LR catalog, if they're needed again. Just assure your back-up strategy includes copies of the original culled image files and regular copies of the entire folder structure and files that includes your LRCAT file.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

Have you considered using an external drive to store images? Many, if not most, photographers who shoot a lot of images use external hard drives to store their images. I have several hard drives and never keep my photographs on the computer.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Good Point. I use a 4TB WD USB-connected drive for all my images, about 75% full. My 1TB local drive on my desktop is 85% full and that's with none of the image files.

magnetoman Loc: Purbeck, Dorset, UK

CHG-CANON has given the definitive answer - to which I would add DONT FORGET the Lr file is only a data file that references the original image file, it does not copy the image file. If you create a second Lr thumbnail it still references the original file (hence the reference to ‘Virtual Copy). When you back-up your catalogue you DO NOT back-up your image file, you need to do that separately. Lr is a data-base of the changes you make when editing.

Randy_Manning Loc: Alton, Illinois

Thank you for your well organized response. Several good solutions but....if I have taken (say) 2000 shots, my culling process is "importing into LR" my choices from the original file, (say...300), and working with those. I still have the 1700 (culled) and the 300 (working with in LR) all in that same original file. How can I go back and delete only the culled ones?

Randy_Manning Loc: Alton, Illinois

Thank you for your good idea, but it does raise another question for me. I do have external drive(s) but I've found that (due to the large volume of shots I'm working with) it's best to load all of them onto my computer drive (solid state) and when editing them I get no "hiccups" from my computer. If (when I'm done) I move the edited pic originals to my external drive is there an easy way to tell LR where to look for them in their new location?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Easy and multiple methods.

You can go to the import folder so you're only seeing that 2000 set of images. You can sort by edit time, and just inspect there the 'break' occurs between the edited and unedited.

You can experiment, maybe the edit count (?) is a better sort order if you didn't add other attributes (ratings or keywords). It seems the number of history rows for an image drives this sort, where import might be 1 record and edited images will be two or more (history + next step(s)).

As mentioned earlier, if you 'mark' images with a X for reject, you can filter by rejected attribute. Or the opposite, you 'flagged' the images you planned to edit / keep. Those unflagged images would be those to delete.

You might have used colors or star-rating for those images you kept / edited. The images without this rating attribute could be used as a filter to identify the images to delete as unused.

If you put the kept / edited images into their own collection, you could view that collection and add an filtering attribute (a keyword or rating / color) and come back to the folder and filter for the images that don't have that keeper attribute. Delete those images.

epd1947

The original 2000 are in a folder on your desktop. As you select the keepers move those files into another folder. Once you are done you would then have a folder with the 300 keepers and the non keepers (1700) would be in the original folder. You can just then trash the original folder.

Flyerace Loc: Mt Pleasant, WI

I don't have one single photo on my computer 1TB SSD Hard drive. Only programs are loaded on the computer. ALL photos are loaded on one of 3 - 8TB hard drives. I cull and process from the main external. Afterward, I copy them all to the other two external hard drives.

I know this sounds a bit paranoid (lot paranoid), but I had an incident where someone tried to delete all my programs and photos. They didn't have enough time to get to the third hard drive before I killed the power. I didn't lose any photos. I took the opportunity to upgrade from 4TB to 8TB hard drives. Security is tighter now and I don't link into anyone's computer anymore. I also purchased a new computer to make sure all was clean.

delder Loc: Maryland

This is discussed every week on UHH. Next week we get posts about pictures missing in LR!

KEEP your images!
Storage has NEVER been cheaper than it is now!

jhtall Loc: Gold Canyon, AZ

To save might you should delete the smart views, especially on the images you reject.

Hip Coyote

First of all, you are taking thousands of photos a week and keeping 100-400...for an on-line publication? I doubt, very seriously, that you have 400 keepers in all of that. No one has 400 photos a week that are worth keeping. Curate more than that and only save your best or most meaningful work.

If you have LR, then use it to its fullest. As mentioned, import the photos into LR and use LR to handle that mass of photos. To cull the non-keepers, use the X and P feature of LR. X marks a rejected photo and P "picks" the photo. I suggest you filter out (do not yet delete) the X photos, using LR. Process the P (picked photos) and then export them into a folder, using what ever parameters you need such as file size for the web or printing. After you use the exported photos, delete them. (The only ones I do not delete are ones my family might want after I am gone...they do not know how to process RAW pics via LR and are not going to learn.) But for a newsletter I would delete the exported pictures. Keep the selected originals in your LR cataloge which also has all the edits you did.

(As a side note, there are some journalism standards that may not allow for raw photos...and limited editing...if you are in a real publication businesses, suggest you look up the AP standards and at least be familiar with them.)

After that and you are satisfied that that week's batch of pics are no longer needed, delete the X photos from your drive, completely. If you do it right, you should be left with maybe 100 photos (which I argue is probably about 75 too many) from the week's shoot, all nicely packaged with your LR catalog and saved on your chosen drive. I use an SSD and keep no photos on my computer hard drive. It is backed up to from main SSD to another SSD and have an on-line cloud back up.

People argue that storage is cheap. It is not. It causes the user to clutter up their photography and hide their best work. No sane person is going to look thought that morass to find the good photos that you took. Its like some guy who keeps buying junk at swap meets and fills up his garage, yet there is one valuable painting in there worth millions. Family looks at the junk and trashes all of it. Keep the best and toss the rest.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

^^^^^ THIS!!