Deletin Photos?

Igor39 · Jan 21, 2008

Whats your policy on deleting digital photos that you aren't happy with? Ideally it would be nice to keep everything but with limited disk space it makes it a little difficult, especially when you're taking 5,000 plus every month or two.

plentygood · Jan 21, 2008

If it became a problem with me, I'd probably just burn them to CD-Rs. They are like $15 for 50 of them at Walmart and they hold 700MB.

As for now though (especially now that someone's stolen my only camera) I just keep all the ones that are decent and delete the ones that are just terrible.

Sw1tchFX · Jan 21, 2008

hard disks are cheap, just get another one.

BradUF · Jan 21, 2008

lol burn it to a DVD if you really want to keep them.

sabbath999 · Jan 21, 2008

I trash anything that isn't good, and archive my "good" but not "keeper" ones onto external hard disks... occasionally I want a different angle and I go back and pull one off. Most non-keepers are deleted.

JerryPH · Jan 22, 2008

I used to keep everything, but that faded real fast after the first 30 DVDs. Now I am more selective and delete the ones that are lower than a certain quality level. No use in keeping the ones that are blurred, or way under or over exposed, or have no special meaning.

After a quick look, I am back up to 25GB of pics to back up again (pics taken from Christmas to last night... excluding the 30 or so that I took last night playing), and thats being somewhat selective.

Some people take more pics than others (I know someone that takes a MINIMUM of 200/day, 7 days a week, and their flickr photostream shows it... they are up to 10,000+ "keepers", but then again, they are near pro and run around with a Nikon D3).

It all depends. Do whatever floats your boat, there are no set rules in photography... except the ones you want to make and break... lol.

Atropine · Jan 22, 2008

Buy an external HD for backing up and save all the photos. Last month I bought a LaCie 1TB USB HD for appr $230. Not much money imho. Think I will buy another soon for my movie collection. :lol:

mrodgers · Jan 22, 2008

Atropine said:
Buy an external HD for backing up and save all the photos. Last month I bought a LaCie 1TB USB HD for appr $230. Not much money imho. Think I will buy another soon for my movie collection.

Ton of money IMHO. :hail:

Igor39 · Jan 22, 2008

Thanks for the help, I was wondering because everytime I delete a big batch of photos I get a feeling of remorse because who knows there may have been some hidden gems in there and I just didn't see it at the time, but I guess it would be a pain to save so many, oh and at my current budget 230 is a bit much, I just spent 500+ on a Nikon D40 which took about a month of working at Cafe Insomnia, and I think another "big" photography related purchase won't be made for a couple months.

Drake · Jan 22, 2008

After downloading photos from my camera to a pc, I check them all and delete the ones that represent no value at all. I don't like storing my photos on DVD's since they are quite fragile. HDDs are cheap now. I've got a 250 gig hard disc and my old 80 gig one to keep backups on it. I've been into photography for about a year or so and 80gig is enough for now. I plan on buying an external HDD soon tho.

table1349 · Jan 22, 2008

I guess I am a bit old school. I have never willingly gotten rid of a negative. (The fire got rid of a lot that I didn't plan on) I keep everything that I shoot, good, bad or otherwise. I have a second dedicated interanal hard drive for all my photos, plus an external hard drive that does nightly backups of my photos. I also will burn them to archive quality DVD's and store them off site (bank box) just to be safe. It may sound a little paranoid, but all I have to do is look at that pretty lump of celuloid that I kept as a reminder and it is worth it to me.

probe1957 · Jan 22, 2008

Igor39 said:
I was wondering because everytime I delete a big batch of photos I get a feeling of remorse because who knows there may have been some hidden gems in there and I just didn't see it at the time,

I don't think it is a lot unlike the darkroom days, when we used to print a contact sheet, select what we were going to print, the file the negatives away, never to be thought of again.

MACollum · Jan 22, 2008

I delete only the really bad ones that cannot be fixed (especially out of focus ones). I've got lots that I kept when I first started with my DSLR and post-processing that I could make better now that I've got more experience with PP. I just need to get around to doing it...

Happy Hour · Jan 22, 2008

I have a hard time throwing any pic out mainly because most my pics are of people. but I would never compromise a once in a life time picture over a cheap HD I have 3 on my cpu and 2 backups in the safe. @ less than $100 for 250gig drive why would you bother

Atropine · Jan 23, 2008

mrodgers said:
Ton of money IMHO. :hail:

It's all a matter of priority. :wink:

When using a dslr, a decent way of storing the files should be considered a natural part of your photo equipment. The reason I advocate the use of a HD is because it is so simple to use. Ease of use often means things get done, immediately. If there are elements of hassle involved it often gets postponed or "forgotten". At least that's how I work.

And well, 1TB might be a little bit overkill, but smaller disks are a lot cheaper. :thumbup: