User ID

Not just a guess ... reliable, soundly based prediction.

delder Loc: Maryland

Well, every picture tells a story, and many pictures can be edited into several DIFFERENT usable images.
You never know when you might need even a part of one of your photos.

jcboy3

No. I save very few of the pictures I take. But that's because I can come back from a days shooting with a thousand pictures (burst shooting wildlife). Or I bracket and decide I don't need to do HDR but just pick the one with the proper exposure.

On top of that, I tossed out all of my slides and negatives (over 10,000) after digitizing them. And that's after having done my initial culling (back when I shot them in the 70s through 90s). There was no way I was ever going to go back to them; I got the good stuff previously.

bdk Loc: Sanibel Fl.

I was taught to save everything and I pretty much do. unfortunately they are not cataloged so I can never find the one I want.

Judy795

NO. Only photos that bring me joy or are competition worthy.

pj81156 Loc: St. Petersburg, FL

24 year old Scotch! I envy you

ronpier Loc: Poland Ohio

Great idea. That has been my plan for several years. I have my 17,000 digital photos since 2005 labeled and saved in albums but the thousands of prints and negatives from the 70s, 80s,90s up to 2005 have not been touched. God help me to get this started!!

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

Only occasionally, bottle lasts a long time

RodeoMan Loc: St Joseph, Missouri

I like the poodle you're holding and I think this is a great picture of you and your sister. Did someone else take this or was it a self timer? I have more than my share of those.

RodeoMan Loc: St Joseph, Missouri

Museums, which are in the business of preserving their collections and passing them along to the future, curate these collections. This sounds like a reasonable plan for the rest of us.

RodeoMan Loc: St Joseph, Missouri

Just a thought, but maybe the local Audubon organization or some other ornithological based group would appreciate and could use your bird photographs.

RodeoMan Loc: St Joseph, Missouri

For those who have images of people in their family in their catalogue of images, consider putting some of these in your genealogical tree or sharing them with one of your relatives who is working on the family tree. What may be commonplace to you could be very informative to someone else. Here, as elsewhere, editing is important. Washed out color images of a kid's birthday party might be a fond memory for you, but not very helpful in a family history project. Unless of course, the kid happened to pass away and there are a very few images of him. This is something that everyone who does it will figure out for themselves. I know there are those on this site who have a sense of the importance of images in helping to preserve the history of their family. Architect 1776 is one such person and I know there are others. I can go to various pedigrees of my ancestors in Ancestry and view their media gallery and see photographs of people in my family from as early as my great great grandparents up through distant cousins. If your family's story doesn't matter for you, this might not be for you, but if it does, you could be doing a real service for them.

ClarkJohnson Loc: Fort Myers, FL and Cohasset, MA

Most of my photography involves birds and wildlife. I used to save almost everything, but then I got a Z9. At 20 fps, you generate a LOT of images very quickly, and I had alter my workflow. I can easily accumulate 3,000 captures in a morning. Now I use Photo Mechanic to pull out the best images from a burst and leave the rest on the card to be recycled (reformatted). I also bypass the common shots (Herring Gulls flying, etc.). From that initial 3,000, maybe 30 will be worth a second look. However, if I have something special (an Anhinga swallowing a fish; a rare bird in a swamp), I will save the whole burst.

My RAW folders use date and place in their name. Each processed photo goes into a different folder and includes Subject, Place, Date, and File number (from the camera). Very easy to locate the original raw to rework, resizing for competitions, etc.

junglejim1949 Loc: Sacramento,CA

Those memories are special and worth saving. Your review process is the best, "Cheers!"

cascom Loc: Redmond

I do have negatives that I took with I was eleven. It is interesting to see what I photographed - I am not sure why. I have negatives that are from when my grandfather photographed my mother as a baby in 1917 with his Signature Kodak. Most of my travel shots are in some trash dump but I saved MacArthur giving his Duty Honor Speech, Nikon in Vietnam, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles. I even have a photo of Mickey Mantle batting at West Point but the negative has disappeared. My 5-terabyte external drive is nearly full. I have notebooks full of negatives that refresh my memories of the last eighty years but I didn't save everything. Interesting that the White House photographer does save everything for history.