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11/02/2007 12:21:08 PM · #1 |
I've got 400 holiday snaps here. Probably 20 of them worth printing. Now, that leaves me with 380 including ones with focus/exposure issues, multiple shots of the same scene etc.
So, so I just hit the delete button, or do I instead clutter up my office a bit more with backup CDs? I keep thinking I might regret deleting them at some stage.
Are you ruthless, or do you keep everything? |
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11/02/2007 12:47:01 PM · #2 |
| I'm sorta curious what others here might do as well. I have my moments when I delete a lot and other moments when I see some old average looking pics and I'm thankful that I didn't delete them. I'd put them on CD if it's family. You might enjoy looking through them 10 years from now. |
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11/02/2007 01:01:58 PM · #3 |
| idea get it down to around 100 and keep them, Pictures that help you remember good times and memories are different than ones you consider to be aesthetically good :D |
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11/02/2007 01:04:58 PM · #4 |
I do basically a 1/2/3 sort of editing style
I go through a shoot, quickly, and mark stuff for deletion that is "bad"
Test shots, accidental but not good, blurry but not good etc. Then I just
delete those (even though they are archived somewhere else)
Then I go through the reminder and rate them 1 (great) 2 (interesting, worth seeing) 3 (duplicates)
I keep everything, maybe show the '2's to a few people, perhaps upload the 1's.
Most everything gets thrown onto a backup drive though.
The other option is to just slap them all together into one long movie
Message edited by author 2007-11-02 13:05:24.
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11/02/2007 06:06:23 PM · #5 |
For friends and family shots, I do basically what Gordon does, except I toss the 3's (duplicates).
For shots that don't have any sentimental value, I tend to delete the 2's, too. I started deleting the 2's after going through thousands of old family slides a couple of years ago, and realizing that after a few years, nobody is going to care about a mediocre picture that doesn't have any people, pets, etc, in it.
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11/02/2007 06:33:46 PM · #6 |
I try to delete all the obviously bad ones the first round. there's no point in even keeping them after you see them the first time.
After a few round of culling the best and the second-bests, I'll try to remove anything that is fully redundant. same pose/exposure kind of stuff.
after that comes the hard part. but there's no point in wasting space on trash and useless redundancy.
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11/02/2007 06:42:15 PM · #7 |
I delete all the obviously bad (out of focus, dark, failed exposure experiments), duplicates, and all that. Then I go through and find the interesting ones that are actually worth editing. Then edit those. Then find the best of those to post online or show people. I don't waste space on stuff I know is no good and I'll never come back to editing later.
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11/02/2007 07:34:57 PM · #8 |
I archive the ok to great photos for two years (the bad ones immediately), in folders by year then month and in the corresponding month go through them and delete what I think is not needed. I find that after that amount of time, you can clearly see what is worth keeping. Not so emotionally attached to the shot. Its fun to see how far you have come too.
Message edited by author 2007-11-02 19:35:43.
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11/02/2007 08:24:21 PM · #9 |
| I just burn them all to CD ... I figure if I don't delete any there is less chance of deleting the "wrong one" by mistake. I figure I can back up about 500 photos on a fifty-cent CD -- for 1/5 of a cent I think I'll keep even the "bad" photos ... it may become an abstract background or album cover someday. |
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11/02/2007 08:29:16 PM · #10 |
| i delete the duplicates, but try to keep any shot that's kinda decent. The cream of the crop ends up on Flickr. |
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11/02/2007 08:36:39 PM · #11 |
| Just upgraded my storage and now have 1.5tb, my problem now is finding stuff! need a good secretary to file things properly. |
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11/02/2007 08:38:49 PM · #12 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
I just burn them all to CD ... I figure if I don't delete any there is less chance of deleting the "wrong one" by mistake. I figure I can back up about 500 photos on a fifty-cent CD -- for 1/5 of a cent I think I'll keep even the "bad" photos ... it may become an abstract background or album cover someday. |
you must not have had a CD go bad on you then. I've lost a few pics trusting those things.
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11/02/2007 08:42:49 PM · #13 |
Originally posted by wavelength:
you must not have had a CD go bad on you then. I've lost a few pics trusting those things. |
Well, I actually try to keep them all on a hard drive too, with the CDs as backups; one of these days I'm going to gang the CDs together (like a month's worth) ont DVDs. I try to always have two copies of the file somewhere -- I don't delete them from the camera card until I've both copied them to a hard drive and then backed them up to CD. |
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11/04/2007 02:17:22 PM · #14 |
Thanks for the replies and ideas. What I ended up doing was this (remember, these were holiday snapshots)
1) Go through the whole batch deleting test/oof/unrecoverable shots
2) Split them into 'family' and 'art' categories (any shots which contain a family member are put into 'family', the rest go into 'art')
3) Backup all the 'family' shots
4) Rate the family shots for processing+printing
5) Be ruthless on the 'art' shots. Most of them are pretty boring, just keep the ones which are worth processing to show to people and delete the rest |
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11/05/2007 07:54:14 AM · #15 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by wavelength:
you must not have had a CD go bad on you then. I've lost a few pics trusting those things. |
Well, I actually try to keep them all on a hard drive too, with the CDs as backups; one of these days I'm going to gang the CDs together (like a month's worth) ont DVDs. I try to always have two copies of the file somewhere -- I don't delete them from the camera card until I've both copied them to a hard drive and then backed them up to CD. |
My problem is that I'll shoot a DVDs worth in a day, 3 or 4 worth on a good day. I can't keep up with a disc based storage strategy.
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11/05/2007 08:35:09 AM · #16 |
This is an interesting thread, to see how everyone is dealing with the overload of image files that you collect, and to share ideas about how to make that facet of digital photography better.
I only shoot jpg 12meg fine. Each compressed file is usually between 4 and 5 meg.
I upload to a monthly file from the camera directly to the second HD in my Mac, then use "preview" to look thru each card upload, and delete the worst of them, and send a few that have potential to iPhoto on the main HD for later use. I then go thru the ones in iPhoto, and cull to the keepers and edit some and rate the rest.
At weekly intervals, I backup to a remote harddrive. At the end of the month, I then backup to one or two DVD's. The DVD's have a better track record for archiving data than CD's, and will usually hold a month of my shooting on one disc.
When I do the end of the month backup, I keep 2 years on the second HD, and then go thru the 25th month one more time and move the 'oldie keepers" to one file on the second HD.
It is a good idea to store the discs in a different location from your main computer too, and I usually make a second DVD copy of the "keepers" of any importance.
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11/05/2007 08:41:23 AM · #17 |
I always believed this picture was completely unusable, before deleting it I decided to have one go at it.. It's not amazing but I liked the result.. I would suggest going through the pictures with more scrutiny and deleting the really horrible ones, where u've got insanely bad composition or just boring stuff.. keep the rest.. |
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