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How do you determine to keep or delete a photo?


9 years 5 months ago #409564 by Mason Katz
I've noticed I take a ton of photos, but I never delete any.  My new computers hard drive is nearly full and I have only owned in for about 8 months.  Granted storage is pretty cheap, but looking over photos, and looking through all the bad and semi good ones, only to find the good ones (my standards) is a chore.  

I need to find a way to start organizing and deleting some of these.  What is your method?  
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9 years 5 months ago #409565 by garyrhook
The question in your thread title isn't the same as the last part of your post. I'll answer the post.

Everything goes into Lightroom, sorted by year/activity/date or category/specific/date.

Then I cull. Lightroom has a tool to help you do that, where you can compare mulitple versions of the same shot. You decide which one is worth saving, and which are not, then you mark them for deletion. I use the "x" key to flag (or 'pick') images I don't want to keep.

Then I sort the library by pick, and permanently delete the images that didn't make the cut.

And you know what? I haven't regretted that for a moment yet. I finally purposed earlier this year to get rid of crappy shots because I'm never going to need them. And I have not looked back.

Ask yourself: why are you saving the bad shots? What do you intend to do with them?

As for your title question, I keep the bar high. I don't have time to keep crappy images; I'm too far behind as it is.
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9 years 5 months ago #409583 by icepics
I usually just delete ones with obvious movement blur etc. and save my originals otherwise. I'm also a film photographer and keep/organize my negatives.

Usually I go thru a set or series of photos and save and label/date/organize them. I might delete anything else I find that isn't good enough to keep.

I'd suggest you think about how much you're shooting and be selective when you're taking pictures. No need to shoot an excessive amount of photos - what would you ever do with them all anyway?
Sharon
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9 years 5 months ago #409629 by effron
I do a couple culls before I move the keepers to a portable HD. I only cull the oof stuff at first, sometimes my tired eyes and mind need refreshing before I make the final culling. Another question for me would be the capacity of your computer. I've been using my current computer six and a half years, over eighteen months with a D800, shoot daily, haven't moved a file in ages and my computer's HD is still nearly half free. Storage is relatively cheap, no?
Why so serious?
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9 years 5 months ago #409650 by Scott Innes
I rank my photos from 1 to 4, with 1 being the best.  3 and 4's I delete. 
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9 years 5 months ago #409651 by Don Fischer
First thing I do is look on the back of the camera. If I don't like it there, I'm surely not gonna like the bigger version. Still I have a lot of photo's I don't really care for but some of them do create a memory. I have a nephew that is very very good and he keeps every frame he shoot's. Usually I take several photo's of a subject them later dump all but the one I like best. Mine need to be pretty good right out of the camera because I don't PP worth a darn!
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9 years 5 months ago #409685 by Damon
I practice Pareto's principle.  Keep top 20% and toss the remaining 80%.
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9 years 5 months ago #409702 by Conner
I keep only about 5%, and store the rest on my cloud storage.  I use the ranking tool in Lightroom. 
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9 years 5 months ago #409739 by ThatNikonGuy
I only toss the ones that are not sharp, well composed or have people with goofy expressions.
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9 years 5 months ago #409811 by MYoung

Geospiri wrote:

garyrhook wrote: The question in your thread title isn't the same as the last part of your post. I'll answer the post.

Everything goes into Lightroom, sorted by year/activity/date or category/specific/date.

Then I cull. Lightroom has a tool to help you do that, where you can compare mulitple versions of the same shot. You decide which one is worth saving, and which are not, then you mark them for deletion. I use the "x" key to flag (or 'pick') images I don't want to keep.

Then I sort the library by pick, and permanently delete the images that didn't make the cut.

And you know what? I haven't regretted that for a moment yet. I finally purposed earlier this year to get rid of crappy shots because I'm never going to need them. And I have not looked back.

Ask yourself: why are you saving the bad shots? What do you intend to do with them?

As for your title question, I keep the bar high. I don't have time to keep crappy images; I'm too far behind as it is.


I Agree,  life's too short to sort crap, if a happy snap doesn't grab your eye CUT



+1 it really is that simple.  
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