Saving or deleting ugly photos

Joseph Meehan wrote:
....
What do you tend to do? Why?

I review them as time permits. I dump everything I don't like. I
have to please only myself, I don't really care if anyone else hates
them or loves them. In the end, I'll bet most people who see my
photos, would say I am a much better photographer than if I saved
them all.

After reading some of the other replies I have to add something. It is
not storage space that is the primary reason for dumping duds, rather it is
my time. I just don't want to bother looking through all the duds to fine
the few really good images. I will often make several cuts, getting rid of
the real problems the first time, then the marginal ones and after a couple
of more cuts I get down to just the really good ones I am proud of or that I
must keep for other reasons.

--
Joseph Meehan

26 + 6 = 1 It's Irish Math

"paul" wrote in message
...
I'm running out of hard drive space quickly but up till now I've been
saving almost everything.

I just bought a 250 GB hard drive at Best Buy for $99 after rebate.

Alan Meyer wrote:
I heard a very experienced professional National Geographic
photographer interviewed on TV talking about some of the
differences between film and digital. One difference he noted
was that, with digital, he tended to review his shots in camera
and delete those that he thought were no good. With film, he
sent his exposed film back to headquarters where his editor
looked at it before he did - sometimes choosing an image to
publish that the photographer would have thrown away. Only
later, after the photo editor singled it out for him, did he
realize that it was a great shot. He thought that some photos
were only recognized later for being as good as they were.

So, my question is, how selective are you in keeping photos? Do
you:

1. Review a shot immediately after taking it and delete it if it
doesn't impress you?

I'll only delete shots that are severely screwed up (lens cap on,
pointing at feet, flash didn't go off in a dark room), and even then, I
can rarely be bothered... with a paif of 512MB CF cards, I can get
150-200 RAW shots out of my DRebel before I have to start worrying about
running out of space, even more on various JPG settings, so space is
rarely a consideration.

2. Review all your shots in the camera when time permits,
deleting those that don't impress you?

See above. The on-camera LCD is generally too small to tell whether a
shot is all that good or not, unless you KNOW it's messed up royally anyway.

3. Save everything to your computer and review it there -
deleting shots that don't impress you?

4. Save everything, impressive or not?

I tend to keep just about everything, except as noted, the ones that are
obviously useless. You just never know what you may have captured that
might be useful later.

It seems the closer we get to number 1 above, the more likely we
are to delete good photos by accident.

But the closer we get to number 4, the more likely we are to hang
on to reams of useless, embarrassing dross.

True, but at least in the digital realm, it's not much of a problem.
Storage space is cheap: big hard drives can be had for under a dollar
per gigabyte - that's less than half a cent each to store a RAW 6.3MP
image. DVD+/-R discs can be found for 30 cents each, or just over 6
cents per gigabyte (not counting the cost of the drive, but at $100 you
make up the difference quickly).
What do you tend to do? Why?

Cynicor wrote:

"paul" wrote in message
...

I'm running out of hard drive space quickly but up till now I've been
saving almost everything.


I just bought a 250 GB hard drive at Best Buy for $99 after rebate.

That ought to last a while, I got a new laptop as a desktop replacement
& you can't get bigger than 80 GB. I do have my old 120GB for backup on USB.

Alan Meyer wrote:
....
What do you tend to do? Why?

I don't know what kind of answers I was expecting, but I got some
really useful ones that gave me some new ways to think about this
problem.

I've been saving most good and bad photos together in the same
directories. The result is that 1) I wind up flipping through lots of
dross to find the photos I really like, and 2) I get depressed seeing
what a poor photographer I am.

I think I'm going to work up some kind of scheme like others have done
here to put better and worse photos in separate locations, or name them
separately, or something like that. I'll study what you folks have
suggested and think about it.
Meanwhile, I'd love to hear any more ideas.

Thanks.

Alan

Alan Meyer wrote:

Meanwhile, I'd love to hear any more ideas.

I save all my raw images in a hard drive
folder with a folder name that starts with
the date, then includes some info, like this:
- 2004-12-25_ChristmasDinner

I use the filenames straight from the camera:
- 2004-12-25_ChristmasDinner
|- DSCN0001.NEF
|- DSCN0002.NEF

I do go through these initial photos and remove
those which are lousy. Even in the archives,
there isn't a need to save the crappy stuff.

Then I pull out into a Working directory
the images I intend to work on. All my
manipulation is done here. This folder
contains all the current work I'm dealing with.

When I'm ready to save, I save to a subfolder
under the original, named for the type of
image I've created. So I end up with this folder
scheme:
- 2004-12-25_ChristmasDinner
|- Printer
|- Web
|- 1024x768
|- Slide Show
These images all have the original filename,
perhaps with a descriptive suffix:
- 2004-12-25_ChristmasDinner
|- Printer
- DSCN0001_5x7.TIF
- DSCN0001_8x10.TIF
- DSCN0001_cropped.TIF

Some of the shots might be copied out to a
higher-order folder with a specialized purpose,
like this:
- Photographs
|- Christmas Slide Show
|- Web_Samples
|- ScreenSaver
|- SlideShow_Family
These folders may hold an assortment of images
from many of the archive folders.

So I end up with something like this
(the "000" is used to alphabetize the
higher-order holding folders to the top
of the list):

- Photographs
|-000Printer
|-000ScreenSavers
|-Nature
|-Architecture
|-000SlideShows
|-Christmas
|-2004
-DSCN0001_Dinner.TIF
-DSCN0002_Tree.TIF
|-2003
|-000Working
-DSCN0001_Dinner.TIF
-DSCN0002_Tree.TIF
|-2004-12-20_Arboretum
|-2004-12-21_CarShow
|-2004-12-24_ChristmasDinner
|-Printer
|-Web
|-SlideShow
-DSCN0001.NEF
-DSCN0002.NEF

This way, I have some higher-order folders
with specialized types of images listed
first, and the archival dated folders that hold
the raw and worked images afterward.

Now all this said, I often rename images to
descriptive names, scatter them in junk folders
and have a heck of a time figuring out where
they came from!

"Alan Meyer" writes:
I think I'm going to work up some kind of scheme like others have done
here to put better and worse photos in separate locations, or name them
separately, or something like that. I'll study what you folks have
suggested and think about it.

There are a bunch of programs that put up thumbnails and let you
caption them. You could assign a rating (A=excellent, etc.) to each
photo as you caption it, recording the rating either as part of the
caption or in a separate field. Then when you browse, you could
look at just the A's, or only stuff higher than D, or whatever.

Alan Meyer wrote:

Meanwhile, I'd love to hear any more ideas.

I forgot to mention that sometimes I use
Lupas Rename to batch rename entire
directories. It's a very handy application
that attaches to the right-click menu,
allowing you to bring it up from the Windows
Explorer. You can select files by extension,
prefix, suffix and so on, and can renumber,
add prefixes, suffixes, substitute text and
so on. I use ACDSee and Lupas Rename
a LOT.

"Alan Meyer" wrote in message
ups.com...

snip
So, my question is, how selective are you in keeping photos?

snip
What do you tend to do? Why?


Keep in mind that this answer comes from a *complete* amateur. However,
here is what I do. I review pictures as soon as taking them as possible.
However, I only delete those where it is obvious that they are absolutely
unusable. Otherwise, I keep everything because I have often found that I
really can't see enough detail on the camera. Some shots that I thought
were inferior turned out to be much better than I expected after viewing
them on the computer screen (especially with some selective cropping and my
limited attempts at contrast control). I haven't even gotten into
histograms, but I am interested in this if I can learn enough to
"understand" it. More often, shots that I thought looked good on the camera
screen turn out to be unacceptable when viewed on the computer monitor.
Even so, I keep most pictures. I have a very large (and fast) hard disk, so
I don't mind the extra resources used in this way. I keep files labeled
"All 2004 pictures," "All 2003 pictures," etc. That is where I store the
originals. I never edit them in any way, and I keep the original filenames
generated by the camera. Then, I maintain folders by categories of pictures
that I want to view from time to time -- "family," "pets," "travel -
subcategorized by location," etc. There I store *copies* of the originals,
and these are the copies where I do some cropping and editing. I also
rename them by using descriptive filenames instead of the numerical sequence
assigned by the camera. And, of course, I greatly restrict the number
placed in these folders so that they won't get out of control.

MaryL

Alan Meyer wrote:


But the closer we get to number 4, the more likely we are to hang
on to reams of useless, embarrassing dross.
What do you tend to do? Why?

I prefer to view everything on the computer screen with one hand near
the delete button. If I am shooting in RAW, I am sure to trash both the
jpeg and the RAW file. If I can do this fairly soon after shooting, I
will learn more, and save fewer duds/duplicates/eyes closed.

If I'm in the field and have plenty of time, I am likely to trash images
in the camera.

The exceptions would seem to be if the subject is a loved one; there all
but the really horrible ones are saved.

--
John McWilliams