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DPChallenge Forums >> General Discussion >> do you keep everything that you shoot?
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 04/15/2013 10:33:00 AM · #1
I was reading an article this morning about the same Link to the article

What do you do?

As far me, I have kept everything good or bad and now I have many many photographs stored in external drive!
 04/15/2013 10:38:30 AM · #2
I copy the contents of my cards to a 100Gb partition, sort out the ones with potential and move those to a permanent location on the main HD. I delete them off the temporary drive periodically when I need to free up space.

I usually end up keeping 1/4 to 1/3 of what I shoot and editing a smaller portion of those.

Message edited by author 2013-04-15 10:39:33.
 04/15/2013 10:44:29 AM · #3
I try to toss everything but the keepers immediately. Otherwise they eat up space in a hurry. I deleted another 300GB of photos this weekend (barely a dent) in preparation for a much faster RAID arriving today.
 04/15/2013 10:59:23 AM · #4
I think I am a e-hoarder. I keep everything! I've been trying to break myself of that habit but it hasn't yet extended to my pictures.

If you need a blurry, "what the heck is it" pic? I have thousands! Oh wait ... that was just from yesterday's macro shoot.

I have an external raided hard drive that holds all. I keep the keepers on my D drive for easier access.
 04/15/2013 11:22:32 AM · #5
I've been an Everything Keeper in the past. With the new camera and it's much larger file sizes, I'm quickly turning into a Junk Chunker.
 04/15/2013 11:27:02 AM · #6
I chuck about 80% of what I take,even then I will never use masses of it.
 04/15/2013 11:35:46 AM · #7
Originally posted by ciaeagle:
I think I am a e-hoarder. I keep everything! I've been trying to break myself of that habit but it hasn't yet extended to my pictures.

If you need a blurry, "what the heck is it" pic? I have thousands! Oh wait ... that was just from yesterday's macro shoot.

I have an external raided hard drive that holds all. I keep the keepers on my D drive for easier access.


I am much the same. I have practically every shot I've taken under the sun, not to mention backed up as well, twice even!
 04/15/2013 11:38:13 AM · #8
Great question. Just recently started deleting anything that was not intrinsically "good" to begin with. Also, earlier stuff seemed to have many more duplicates than current shoots do. So most of those are gone as well. Still in the process. Very interesting experience.
 04/15/2013 11:47:01 AM · #9
Every weekend I go through and delete pictures from the previous week. Photos I delete are non-keepers, test shots, duplicates/triplicates/etc(Sometimes I keep high speed shutter on and pop about 7 or 8 frames). Unless I am doing HDR, I delete bracket shots.

If you are shooting RAW, HD space goes away fast. Always good to keep on top of it.
 04/15/2013 11:47:15 AM · #10
I've gone to a rating system, which sounds like a lot of maintenance, but really it's not. I use Windows Live Photo Gallery to review photos. Like voting, I assign each photo a number one to five (just press the key) and then use the left and right arrow to navigate through photos. This forces me to consider everything. The rating stays on the JPG file (EXIF), so it's totally portable.

The benefit of this approach is that when it comes time to delete photos, I only look at the ones and twos. I'm not wasting time looking at the same photos I know I want to keep. Likewise, if I want to find photos to submit to a challenge or call for entry, I only look at the fours and fives.
04/15/2013 11:48:40 AM · #11
No, about twice a year I go through and do some spring cleaning, getting rid of duplicates and shots that are not worth caulking up storage space.

I used to shoot tons (50 - 150) but I made a resolution with 2013 to shoot smarter not harder. I've gotten very picky before I take the shot; especially now that I'm shooting RAW+JPG. If after sizing up lighting, angle, and a 2-3 test shots (which I later delete off the card) if it doesn't work I stop and don't force it. I'll think or look into why it doesn't work and try later if I can. This is most easy to do with landscape, still life, or objects. Portrait shots take a bit more and I do spend more time in the pre-planning stage before I even set up the camera.
 04/15/2013 11:53:53 AM · #12
I review on import to lightroom, and do not import about 1/4 to 1/2- blank frames, missed focus, weakest of a burst or images, shots before I decided to do some compensation ect.
Then I rate (1-5) and flag keepers and rejects - another 1/4 to 1/2 get deleted here. Some days I will decide that the whole shoot was a wasted exercise and dump every shot. Most days I end up with 20 to 60 shots.
 04/15/2013 11:56:53 AM · #13
sadly yes...but I'm trying to break that habit of late...getting rid of things that I just won't use. Just had to buy a new external hard drive (2nd one this year...need one more...deep sigh)
 04/15/2013 11:59:20 AM · #14
i go through and trash what isn't worth keeping which is about 80% of my shoots.
 04/15/2013 12:11:31 PM · #15
I delete about 3/4 immediately when I upload. Longer term, in the process of trawling through my Lightroom catalog looking for something specific, I'll often delete more. Of the images that are over a year old, I probably still have about 10% of what I originally shot.

My current camera shoots 50MB images. That's a gigabyte per 20 images. Disk is cheap, but it ain't *that* cheap.
 04/15/2013 12:50:49 PM · #16
Even with all the storage and fail-safe storage backup in the world, I wouldn't want to keep everything. I would like to keep less than one photo per day. Usually I do a 2nd or 3rd review (including deletions) at the end of day, and then go about my evening ablutions during which it will become clear to me that nearly everything is crap. If I am lucky I may have one or two standouts. The idea is that then I will delete all but that one/those. But instead I just go to bed, and the following day is the usual chaos.
 04/15/2013 01:16:49 PM · #17
I keep everything, because "you never know" when you'll need it*, and I'm sure I've never discarded the "wrong" file by accident.

One of the advantages of having an older lower/grade camera is that I almost can't run out of space as drives keep getting bigger and optical media stays cheap. Last year's photos -- originals, edited files, and PDF "contact sheets" (in two sizes) -- all together take up less than 60GB.



I copy originals to daily folders, and back-up those (and the contact sheets) to a CD whenever I have enough data to fill one, usually 2 discs/month will do it.

*A few years ago my ability to locate a fifteen year old cancelled check led to a friend of mine being awarded a $5000 legal judgement.
 04/15/2013 01:22:05 PM · #18
Originally posted by GeneralE:






Am I the only one who looked at Paul's screenshot, then clicked on the cancel button in the image to try to dismiss it?
 04/15/2013 02:30:04 PM · #19
Originally posted by Ann:
Originally posted by GeneralE:






Am I the only one who looked at Paul's screenshot, then clicked on the cancel button in the image to try to dismiss it?

Yep. I clicked OK...
 04/15/2013 03:37:15 PM · #20
4.5 million raw files only delete the obviously bad ones. Over 13 years of Digital and over 27 years of Film scanned. Now I'm up to 4 hdd's that mirror to each other and then the 4th goes to the bank safty deposit box. Backup precious photos (my son and a few prized photos) to my online server host. Harddrive space is cheap. Next project is 24 TB e-sata storage array.
 04/15/2013 03:42:00 PM · #21
I always wonder what will happen to all these files when one dies.
 04/15/2013 04:15:46 PM · #22
Originally posted by tnun:
I always wonder what will happen to all these files when one dies.

The same thing that happens to those shoeboxes full of snapshots, only you can't look at the disk and see what's being discarded. What happens in a few years when the hardware and file formats all change, and you can't open the files even if the disk works? I try to print at least a couple of 4x6s of those I edit fully ...
 04/15/2013 04:31:16 PM · #23
Originally posted by tome:
Originally posted by Ann:
Originally posted by GeneralE:






Am I the only one who looked at Paul's screenshot, then clicked on the cancel button in the image to try to dismiss it?

Yep. I clicked OK...


AND I started worrying with windows took over my Mac ;)
 04/15/2013 04:36:08 PM · #24
Just like film even though we do not use it very often anymore you can still find ways to move it over to newer technology. As long as I am alive I have gone through multiple types of computers and HDD's. Even if the drives fail the data can be recovered. And always remember Backup Backup Backup!
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