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culling photos
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Aug 10, 2018 14:40:01   #
Daryl New Loc: Wellington,New Zealand
 
You have to be brutal...

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Aug 10, 2018 15:32:43   #
DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA
 
burkphoto wrote:
...At the end of the year, I just back up the year folder to an external drive, and start a new structure and a new Lightroom Catalog...


While I use a LR catalog for each year, it's for convenience at postprocess time, not because I want to keep the catalog small. At the end of the year (in addition to updating all the archives) I append this years catalog to the master catalog (and write a new master catalog with the old year in the name so I know which is the last year in that catalog). I find that keeping the annual catalog small saves time when LR goes to back up the catalog.

I use a master catalog because (1) similar photos are all in one catalog from recurring events; and (2) I have essentially no memory of dates. Can't even tell you the year something happened without looking it up. So I wouldn't know which annual catalog to look in to find something; and (3) my catalogs are reasonable sizes so the master catalog is not ridiculously large.

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Aug 10, 2018 18:00:16   #
PAR4DCR Loc: A Sunny Place
 
Delete the ones with no hope of saving, out of focus, very poor composition, etc. That being said I probably should delete more from Lightroom!!

Don

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Aug 10, 2018 18:02:44   #
burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC
 
DirtFarmer wrote:
While I use a LR catalog for each year, it's for convenience at postprocess time, not because I want to keep the catalog small. At the end of the year (in addition to updating all the archives) I append this years catalog to the master catalog (and write a new master catalog with the old year in the name so I know which is the last year in that catalog). I find that keeping the annual catalog small saves time when LR goes to back up the catalog.

I use a master catalog because (1) similar photos are all in one catalog from recurring events; and (2) I have essentially no memory of dates. Can't even tell you the year something happened without looking it up. So I wouldn't know which annual catalog to look in to find something; and (3) my catalogs are reasonable sizes so the master catalog is not ridiculously large.
While I use a LR catalog for each year, it's for c... (show quote)


To each his own. I have a very GOOD memory for dates. I can tell you what AV shows I was producing at Delmar Studios and Delmar Yearbooks in just about any year from 1979 to 1987... It probably has something to do with collecting coins, early in life, and studying US history to find out what sorts of things happened in each year. Habit...

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Aug 10, 2018 19:50:31   #
Murray Loc: New Westminster
 
mizzee wrote:
Once I bring my photos into LR, I page through them, flag the obvious losers and then delete them permanently. I see no point in keeping out of focus, poorly composed, or just “meh” images. I know I’ll never try to salvage them.


I do the same.

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Aug 10, 2018 20:45:53   #
pecohen Loc: Central Maine
 
steve49 wrote:
What does everyone do when it comes to thinning out the photos that they shoot?
Do you save everything cause storage is cheap or
do you delete photos for good once you have sorted the " keepers"?

It is so easy to build a huge library with the ease of shooting digitally and I guess I wonder
how often I will revisit old material.

I travel a lot and generally sort by trip but do have a hard time picking what to save and what to chop.
Lately I find myself keeping the best and deleting the rest...

Anyone else wrestle with this?
What does everyone do when it comes to thinning ou... (show quote)
Mostly it depends on how bad the shot is. If it's badly out of focus or hopelessly mis-exposed then I delete it. If it is just a bad composition I probably would keep it unless I have a similar shot.

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Aug 10, 2018 22:26:57   #
grberg
 
I shoot mostly grandkids sports, so the system I’ve developed may not work for everyone, but it might be helpful to grandpas with lots of grandkids photos. I come home with 400 or more soccer or baseball photos from a game. Over time I’ve come up with a fairly quick and easy way to process this large number of photos. I create a Windows desktop folder titled with the date shot and copy the photos from my xqd card into this Windows folder. That folder is immediately copied into my backup portable hard drive (these two steps take less than a minute). The xqd card goes back into my d500 and will be reformatted at the next game. Then I drag the desktop file into PhotoMechanic and save the 10-20 that I think are unique or interesting and save them in a new folder on my computer’s hard drive. I email a couple of good shots to my IPad and to the grandkids, delete the desktop file, and keep the original copy of all the pics on my backup hard drive (this take no more than about 10-15 minutes). At the end of the year I go back to those iPad photos that are saved automatically on my iCloud account and use some of them to make an annual grandkids “Wide World of Sports” Shutterfly album. The four of them enjoy looking at the album (ok, maybe once at least), and I like to look at them every now and then. One day when I’m gone, I hope they’ll look at these albums and have some nice memories thanks to this simple ten minute system.

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Aug 11, 2018 00:16:34   #
stanperry Loc: Spring Hill, Florida
 
steve49 wrote:
What does everyone do when it comes to thinning out the photos that they shoot?
Do you save everything cause storage is cheap or
do you delete photos for good once you have sorted the " keepers"?

It is so easy to build a huge library with the ease of shooting digitally and I guess I wonder
how often I will revisit old material.

I travel a lot and generally sort by trip but do have a hard time picking what to save and what to chop.
Lately I find myself keeping the best and deleting the rest...

Anyone else wrestle with this?
What does everyone do when it comes to thinning ou... (show quote)


I hate sorting through computer files, and I’m unconventional about storing files of photos. I’ve also encountered a permanent catastrophic crash of a computer that lost all of my stored info and photos. I distrust the “cloud”
I have tons of external hard drives. They’re so cheap these days that it’s affordable to have hundreds of them if you wanted or needed to.
I have a drive for each category of photos: family, animals, beach, work (I do real estate and stock photography), etc. I’ve never had a mental problem (ok, go ahead you guys....I opened the door) with scrapping pics that were boring, poorly composed or shot, etc.) and I don’t keep the raw files of pics that I scrapped (I think one of the replies mentioned doing that)
More To the point of your dilemma...I find that I tend to stroll through each drive that I open just to remember what’s there...and as I do, I just naturally scrap things that have lost interest or have become irrelevant. For me, it’s a very natural thinning of the herd.

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Aug 11, 2018 00:20:44   #
stanperry Loc: Spring Hill, Florida
 
stanperry wrote:
I hate sorting through computer files, and I’m unconventional about storing files of photos. I’ve also encountered a permanent catastrophic crash of a computer that lost all of my stored info and photos. I distrust the “cloud”
I have tons of external hard drives. They’re so cheap these days that it’s affordable to have hundreds of them if you wanted or needed to.
I have a drive for each category of photos: family, animals, beach, work (I do real estate and stock photography), etc. I’ve never had a mental problem (ok, go ahead you guys....I opened the door) with scrapping pics that were boring, poorly composed or shot, etc.) and I don’t keep the raw files of pics that I scrapped (I think one of the replies mentioned doing that)
More To the point of your dilemma...I find that I tend to stroll through each drive that I open just to remember what’s there...and as I do, I just naturally scrap things that have lost interest or have become irrelevant. For me, it’s a very natural thinning of the herd.
I hate sorting through computer files, and I’m unc... (show quote)


BTW, it seems to me that, given the rapidity at which technology changes, all of my files will become obsolete over time, and that they will be unreadable before long anyway....like VHS, cassettes, etc.

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Aug 11, 2018 00:33:09   #
CathyAnn Loc: Apache Junction, AZ
 
mizzee wrote:
Once I bring my photos into LR, I page through them, flag the obvious losers and then delete them permanently. I see no point in keeping out of focus, poorly composed, or just “meh” images. I know I’ll never try to salvage them.


I do the same thing now, but didn't start out that way. I have to go back to delete photos I know I'll never process.

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Aug 11, 2018 08:01:38   #
DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA
 
stanperry wrote:
BTW, it seems to me that, given the rapidity at which technology changes, all of my files will become obsolete over time, and that they will be unreadable before long anyway....like VHS, cassettes, etc.


That's why maintenance is necessary for your archives.

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Aug 11, 2018 11:27:23   #
randave2001 Loc: Richmond
 
I initially use a program called Faststone Image Viewer to view all images full size from the card. I will cull out all the obvious losers there before I import into Lightroom. Once in Lightroom I will go through the entire shoot imported and cull out those I feel I will never prepare for later use. Having done this for years it is a pretty easy job to get down to the set I want to keep and therefore archive. I would love to have every click of the shutter produce a perfect image, but reality says to cull out those that are not up to par before doing the first bit of post. Especially if I am using high frame rates to capture action.

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Aug 12, 2018 17:40:29   #
jamesl Loc: Pennsylvania
 
steve49 wrote:
What does everyone do when it comes to thinning out the photos that they shoot?
Do you save everything cause storage is cheap or
do you delete photos for good once you have sorted the " keepers"?

It is so easy to build a huge library with the ease of shooting digitally and I guess I wonder
how often I will revisit old material.
I travel a lot and generally sort by trip but do have a hard time picking what to save and what to chop.
Lately I find myself keeping the best and deleting the rest...

Anyone else wrestle with this?
What does everyone do when it comes to thinning ou... (show quote)


I do keep outdoor and landscape shots where the focus is off. I have found that they can make pretty good replacement backgrounds, especially where you are wanting the background to be blurred.

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