the hiker Loc: San Diego

When I was shooting film ;I gave away a lot of pictures to the people I was shooting but I always kept the neg. I still have all the neg, from all of those pictures I took.They are labeled and stored in neg sleves and storge boxes made for that purpose.There have been times when people have passed away that there family or friends have asked to have pictures made from those neg.Those neg go back to the 70s.With digital I will keep all the pictures until I get a chance to take a close look look at them and then deleate the ones I don't like. I guess you can say I'm waiting for a raining day to do this but since I live in Southern Calif that could be awhile.However I have only been shooting digital for 3 or for years so only have about 5 to 7000 to go though.

Tracyv Loc: Del Mar, Ca

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Tracyv Loc: Del Mar, Ca

I feel better knowing I'm not alone :-)

Photoninny Loc: Monterey Bay Area

I confess I am a pray&spray hoarder. My system is at the end of the year, all but 4&5 star images are exported with a catalog to a thumb drive. (Trash is eliminated on a regular basis as new images are imported from the camera.) They are then imported to the "attic" catalog on an external drive. That leaves only 4 & 5 star images in my working catalog on the computer and everything else stored away but accessible in the attic. But I haven't lost any.
All I need to do now is figure out how to do this!!!

wj cody Loc: springfield illinois

i keep only what turns out to be the best. everything else goes away. this allows me, when printing, to efficiently go to what i want.

Tracyv Loc: Del Mar, Ca

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

GrandmaG Loc: Flat Rock, MI

I used to keep every shot and, in fact, had several versions of the same shot; saved in different ways to indicate what I had done. For instance: 2014-01-01_New-Year.crop. I also had RAW and JPEG versions of everything with the RAW images in a separate folder. And, of course, they were backed up in several places (gold CDs way back, then flash drives, and external drives more recently).

However, since I started using Lightroom last year, I got rid of the obvious bad shots (blurry or otherwise) and all the almost identical shots, only keeping the one best of the bunch. With digital, I have a "bad" habit of hitting the shutter button several times...BUT this technique has saved the day many times...especially since I shoot a lot of moving children!!

Since I primarily shoot family photos to scrapbook, I try to narrow down each event to 50 shots or less, and star the VERY best 16 or so with 3 stars (that's 2 2-page spreads!). Of course, pictures for Christmas, Prom, or Weddings will net a lot more than 50 keepers. I know I could probably delete more photos and not miss them but I keep them for others. A photo that I don't like may be liked by someone else! Also, I only shoot in RAW now and if I need to send JPEGS to a folder on my drive for any reason; then I eventually delete those to save room on my drives.

I find it interesting that Ansel Adams said his BEST shots totaled about 10/year!

So...to answer your question...YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!! :lol:

Dogberry

I've also been a hoarder, who never deleted anything. But today I made a breakthrough: I went through all the images from a recent nature shoot, and deleted all the ones that were simply not focused well (mostly birds in flight, or otherwise moving) and also all the ones that were essentially duplicates from shooting in high-speed release mode, keeping only the best one or two from each burst-shot "set" that were all nearly the same shot.

Hitting that delete key was difficult at first, but it got easier as I went on and I realized the sky wasn't falling in, I was really only getting rid of definite rubbish, while keeping really good ones and also still keeping many that were questionable but worthy of a second or third look. I'll go back through for that second and third pass another day. But for today, I took an important step toward breaking the image-hoarding addiction!

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: that is what I have been doing

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: that is what I have been doing

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

:lol: :lol: that's pretty darned funny!!!!!! LoL
Hiker, you've been shooting digital for a few years and have ONLY 5-7K pics and you're already in over your head and behind the 8 ball!!
In another few years it could rain for 40 days and 40 nights and the task will be too daunting to take on!!!!
I think for most, if you don't delete as you get home and put them on the computer, it's just NEVER gonna happen and storage is just to cheap, so we keep hoarding useless snapshots. Don't worry, your next of kin won't be quite so picky!!!! :lol:
SS

chefdz Loc: Az

What do you guys do with the photo that is really not very good BUT for some reason gives you that warm feeling? I have just moved into a new, much smaller house. In the garage I have 4 or 5 very large storage bins with photos and slides. Some of them go back to high school. That was a long time ago. I really need to go through and throw away the bad or meaningless shots. I really need to do this!

Soul Dr. Loc: Beautiful Shenandoah Valley

I have no problem with deleting images I have taken. Bad lighting, not well focused, don't like composition, into the trash bin they go.
One of the first things I do when I download my images to my PC, is to go thru and weed out what I don't like. No sense having images on your PC taking up space if they are not going to be processed or printed. That's just my take on it.

will

canon Lee

I do commercial photography and have to keep all of my shots for 2 yrs.

MtnMan Loc: ID

Nope.