What To Do With Good and Bad Photos

stidrvr

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I just got my first DSLR, and Im also going to start get serious about Digital Photography. With that, a lot of my pictures are complete garbage, like objects blurred, or out of focus etc.

So to make my life easier right away, Im going to use Light Room for now (trial). Heres my question:

Do you keep all of your photos no mater what, for reference or do you throw the bad ones away?
 
I enjoy editing/post processing the bad ones just to sharpen my post processing skills. Normally the better ones need minimum edit. I enjoy both photo-taking and post processing. That's how I define "digital photography". I've also cross processed, heavy edit but stop short of digital manipulation, (have not attained that skill level).



I just got my first DSLR, and Im also going to start get serious about Digital Photography. With that, a lot of my pictures are complete garbage, like objects blurred, or out of focus etc.

So to make my life easier right away, Im going to use Light Room for now (trial). Heres my question:

Do you keep all of your photos no mater what, for reference or do you throw the bad ones away?
 
If a picture is bad from a composition standpoint, but good from a technical standpoint, I'll try a few different crops. If nothing works, it gets deleted. If it's bad technically (blurred, OOF, under or overexposed beyond reasonable recovery), I don't hesitate to delete it. No point keeping pics you can't save. Don't get sentimental over bad pics. As far as storing, after I get a final edit I'm happy with, I archive a psd and tiff file on DVD. I used to have an external drive, but I kind of like discs better, one less piece of equipment on or near my computer desk.
 
Okay here is what I do with LR. Import all photos into the collection. Once that's done, delete everything off the flash card. Then in LR I quickly go through all the photos and delete those that are complete garbage. Others that are not, I work with.

Bad photos I just delete off the drive, no need to keep something I'll never use.
 
After I go shooting for the day and have about 200 shots or more I go through all of em and delete ones right off the bat that look bad, just not the way I wanted them to turn out. I then narrow my best pictures and put them on flickr for the most part. :)
 
Generally speaking this his my approach/policy:

1) NEVER delete in camera. The LCD screen is very poor to review shots on and its often the case that some will look poor when they are good and good when they are poor. Furthermore whilst it might free up space, memory card are dirt cheap nowadays (esp if you get them online) so just arm yourself with more memory than you generally need in a single day and you will be fine.
If I were pushed for space I would only ever delete total disasters in camera - even then I try to avoid it (delete and delete all are right next to each other in the camera menu - I don't want to accidentally hit the latter on a cold day when myfingers are a little numb and such)

2) Download all the shots from the card to the computer. I then keep the shots on the card (I don't delete) until before I next go out shooting. This way I have a backup of my shots should something on the computer end go wrong.

3) I review, pick good shots and edit on the day but I don't delete anything right after I've taken it. I find that most of us (including myself) are the most critical of our work right after we take it. I've had days when I've come back and thought that nothing had worked - leave it a week or two and come back and suddenly I can see shots that did work. Its just that right after your mind is still fresh with all the "I should haves".

4) I generally dislike deleting shots overall even when they are poor - this is where you have to make your own judgement calls as to what you will and won't delete. I think its a move that is easier as one becomes more understanding of editing and you know more of what you can pull out of a shot and what you can't. Whilst youre learning editing its better to hold onto the marginal shots- sometimes you learn a trick that might let you save that shot - might not be poster size but might make a nice little shot to have.
 
Step 1: If I have the time I review each shot onsite and delete any that are OOF or suffer any other obvious screwup and reshoot if I can.

Step2: Upload all images from card/s into Adobe Bridge and ctrl+b to go into review mode, I flick through them all so I have an idea of what I have, then flick through again and rate those for the trash with a 1 star rating, obvious keepers get 5 stars for immediate PP and finishing.

Step 3: Review the leftovers that I have not rated and they are either deleted or selected for finishing, simple post, cropping etc.

All keepers are then saved in a sub folder labeled Best shots, anything I may print at some point is kept as a RAW file along with the finished JPEG, you just never know.

Step 4: Backup to external drive(s) (not as often as I should) monthly.
 

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