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04/16/2006 11:08:54 AM · #1 |
| Seems I keep almost every photograph I take, no matter what it looks like. I just got a D200, and shooting raw, that's 15MB per picture. I was just wondering what others' workflow is like. Do you keep most of your shots, do you delete the ones you know you won't be using? Is there a general ratio of kept to discarded that people find they have? |
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04/16/2006 11:28:14 AM · #2 |
I find that I toss about half my shots in the first runthrough on the computer, as they're OOF, wrong exposure, just lousy, whatever. After that, I tend to edit about 10-20 that I really like and save in a subfolder, "Edited", but I keep the other decent ones as well, in case I should want to go back sometime.
I burn everything to DVD and move it to my external HD. As that starts to fill up, I plan to go back and remove the unused pics from the oldest years, and work forward to preserve space.
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04/16/2006 11:36:02 AM · #3 |
Originally posted by OdysseyF22:
I find that I toss about half my shots in the first runthrough on the computer, as they're OOF, wrong exposure, just lousy, whatever. |
Yeah, that sounds about right... thanks. Now to go through those DVDs from years ago. :-/
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04/16/2006 11:43:09 AM · #4 |
Lets see
Paintball tournament:
Took:521
Deleted:71
Edited for the teams:310
Ratio took/edited=60%
I still have the ones I didn't edit, just in case I feel like tackling them another time.
Co-worker and son on dirtbike:
Took:110
Edited/kept:67
Ratio:61%
This time I didnt even keep the ones that were soso. Probably could have used some good editing. But, I'm still learning, so to the recycle bin they went this time.
Those are MY numbers. I wonder if this about average?
P.S. I dont shoot in RAW. But, I set my settings to the max (3008x2000, extra fine)I need to get a new PC with a good monitor. Right now I'm using a 1/2 decent laptop.
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04/16/2006 11:59:42 AM · #5 |
I don't delete anything either and I also shoot RAW. I probably should delete the bad pictures though because they sure as heck take up a lot of space!
June
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04/16/2006 12:03:23 PM · #6 |
shoot in raw
i delete all bad ones,
convert the raws to jpeg
look again in jpegs and keep just few in raw worth
editing again
thats it ...
and it takes up 16GB :>
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04/16/2006 12:28:49 PM · #7 |
Take all in RAW. Put them in a folder and then Picasa2 imports them automatically so I can have a proper look, and there I throw a lot out right away, over 50%. OOF, lousy shots, underexposed, overexposed ... whatever.
Open up in Nikon Capture and do som work on them and then in Photoshop, or just open up in Photoshop right away. Always keep the unedited originals in raw. Edited pictures are in a special folder.
Test show that dvd's are just not good enough yet, and I know that all my cd's that are 5 years or older show signs of age (the pictures that is :-) ) so I keep copies of everything on my second HD. My oldest on dvd's are only 3 years old, so I have to rely on tests made by others.
I have a folder for every year, in that folder a folder for every month and "under that" for every shooting day during the month and I name those so I know whats in there when browsing. I very seldom have problems finding pictures.
At the end of every month when I put them in that months folder, I take a fast browse through that month and throw even more photos out. I used to think ... I'll keep these and edit them later ... never happens, or almost never, just a waste of space.
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04/16/2006 12:29:45 PM · #8 |
If at all possible keep all images, if not in RAW then in .jpg versions. Disk space is a lot cheaper than it used to be and once deleted images are gone forever. If nothing else, keep them in your achival backups.
You just never know, you may later want an imperfect image for some purpose you'd never think of. It also maintains a certain continuity to your collections, you never have gaps in picture numbers that are unaccounted for.
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04/16/2006 12:43:52 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by GuGi:
I have a folder for every year, in that folder a folder for every month and "under that" for every shooting day during the month and I name those so I know whats in there when browsing. |
Hey! That's exactly what I do. It really helps to organize things. I do agree with stdavidson about keeping everything just in case, and I'm very conflicted about that vs. deleting the obvious throw-aways. There are so many, though, that I think it's at the point that the obvious ones have to go. |
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04/16/2006 12:53:21 PM · #10 |
I keep 99% of everything I shoot. If nothing else a picture could be blurred and cropped to make an abstract background in an illustration. Plus you never know what you may find in some of those pictures - an unusual object, a good tree, whatever - that you could possibly use in a composite image later on.
HD space is CHEAP and with a good filing system all those shots become assets. |
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04/16/2006 12:58:00 PM · #11 |
Originally posted by Megatherian:
with a good filing system all those shots become assets. |
A lot of us need a good filing system.
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04/16/2006 01:07:00 PM · #12 |
I am sure that there is a big difference in what we all bring home after a shoot, both in quality and amount. If I take 5 ore more very similar, I see no reason to keep them all. I might be experimenting, trying to learn more and when I come home I can see what I shot and learn from it, I don't have to keep all the shots, at least not 5 that are almost identical.
I have discussed this with other photofriends, and they all say that they have found out that "maybe one day" never happens. True, HD's cost almost nothing, so it can't be the cost. But be sure to have a good filing-system, you have to be able to find it all if that you-never-know moment comes along.
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04/16/2006 01:36:12 PM · #13 |
Blank DVDs are cheap, I keep everything.
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04/16/2006 01:46:10 PM · #14 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by GuGi:
I have a folder for every year, in that folder a folder for every month and "under that" for every shooting day during the month and I name those so I know whats in there when browsing. |
Hey! That's exactly what I do. It really helps to organize things. |
I have problems remembering when I took a picture but not so much what I took pictures of. Organizing images by date does nothing for my limited ability to remember when I want to find something. I have a different approach that works better for the way my mind works.
I organize pictures by subject and date. That I can remember easier. I maintain a tree structure by subject that I navigate through to find pictures I'm looking for. My folder naming convention is "nameYYYYMMDD" where the year, month and day are appended to the folder name containing pictures. That keeps all shoots of the same subject organized by date over a period of years.
For example, if I want to find a flower picture I recall taking at the Desert Botanical Gardens then I look in:
Multimedia->Pictures->Flora->DesertBotanical
Inside the main DesertBotanical folder there are 11 folders, one for each visit to the Gardens where I took flower pictures. They are listed in order from first to most recent visit by date. Normally I can remember approximately when I took the picture so have little difficulty relocating it again.
When you have limited brain power like me you gotta do things different. :)
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04/16/2006 01:46:36 PM · #15 |
Originally posted by fotomann_forever:
Blank DVDs are cheap, I keep everything. |
... as your name suggests : )
I do the same, though I haven't yet had a camera yet which gobbles up space in such large quantities. |
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04/16/2006 02:04:21 PM · #16 |
I need to start deleting the bad shots and keeping the good...it's so pointless to keep 200 shots that suck ... all it does it end up cluttering everything up.
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04/16/2006 02:06:21 PM · #17 |
Originally posted by deapee:
I need to start deleting the bad shots and keeping the good...it's so pointless to keep 200 shots that suck ... all it does it end up cluttering everything up. |
Don't take sucky shots :-P LOL
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04/16/2006 02:11:25 PM · #18 |
if it were only that easy
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04/16/2006 02:18:55 PM · #19 |
I delete about a third to a half on the initial run-through. I, too, take lots of lousy shots. :-)
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04/16/2006 02:54:17 PM · #20 |
That's the joy of digital. Unlike film, you don't pay for the sucky shots, so it doesn't matter if you take some. You just delete them and learn what not to do again.
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04/16/2006 03:17:57 PM · #21 |
I used to keep everything, but after I started school learning photography I also learned what to keep and what to delete.. so I deleted 150.000 images and kept about 3000.
there are a few things to consider while deciding what to keep..
1. would you want the image printed and framed on your wall ?
2. is it the best image in the shoot, or is it the 2nd or 3rd best ?
3. is the image in any way flawed, bad focus, artifacts in the image that are hard to remove and so on ?
4. is the image properly lit, or are there parts of it burnt out or blacked out ?
5. is the image taken for you or a customer, does it fulfill the customers needs ?
if you answer no to 1, 2, 4 or 5, then throw it away, if you answer yes to 4, then throw it away.
nobody wants the 2nd or 3rd best shot or the other that follows, so just keep the best.
nobody wants flawed images, so if it's flawed then delete it.
nobody wants an image that's poorly lit, if it is delete it.
if it's an image for a customer and doesn't fulfil the customers need, delete it.
if it's for you and it's not one of the best shots in that photoshoot then delete it.
following this guideline makes your portfolio look very professional and comments on bad focus, bad lighting and such will fade out very soon.
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04/16/2006 03:27:36 PM · #22 |
I think there's a distinction to make between what I keep and what I print.
Just because a photo might not be good enough to print doesn't mean it might not have some purpose for existing; perhaps to prove you were in a certain place at a certain time should you need an alibi, or to provide a basis of comparison for succeeding generations of viewers of your work, so they can learn what you considered an image worth printing. Those blurry blotches of color which were supposed to be a flowerbed may turnout to be what someone wants to use for some wrapping paper. |
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04/16/2006 03:37:01 PM · #23 |
Just about any photo could be used to fix/enhance another photo and hence I keep everything except for the OOF shots. Just the other day I was needing some good cloud cover for a image and the shot didn't have any so I grabbed it from another image that would have otherwise been tossed. So every time I look at a photo in my RAW viewer I ask myself is there anything in this photo that could be useful down the road.
Message edited by author 2006-04-16 15:39:05.
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04/16/2006 03:55:02 PM · #24 |
I try to keep only the good, but end up keeping everything.
I transfer everything from the card to a folder named by date (yy-mm-dd) and then go thru them. This is the archive, everything that has gone into it has stayed. Any photos that I edit I copy into a folder with a discriptive name and folder structure as needed -- each picture (or set of pictures if similar enough) gets it's own folder for original, psd, snapshots, notes, etc.
As for deleting -- I try to keep the archive neat by removing the obviously worthless, but it just doesn't work out that way. Anytime I think of deleting all of the junk, I remember all the threads of images that had hidden gems and more importantly I remember the dull, flat uninspired originals for images that turned out great. I just can't remove them -- at least not until I know there is nothing in them worth bringing out.
So, while I want to keep only the good ones, I end up keeping most everything. I think my learning has progresses from one plateau to the next. There are images taken in the past, from when I was at a lower plateau, that I delete with no remorse -- but for now I need the record or my progress to the next plateau. When I get there I will find more junk that I recognize as truly being junk and can delete it as well.
I can see a plateau far, far above me at which I will know a good shot when I see it, keep it and delete the rest without a second thoguht. But I am no where near that confident in my knowledge yet.
David
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04/18/2006 01:34:36 PM · #25 |
As I am new here and also New to Photograpy. Can I get some advice on the advantages and Disadvantages of Shooting in RAW.
(pd) |
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