How many of you do this? Or is it just me?

[DieselGirl]

Ok, here goes...

I go out and shoot a ton of shots of whatever the case may be: family, landscape, pets, etc.

As I am flipping through my pictures, I sort out which ones I find are worthy of keeping and get rid of those I find not worthy of keeping.

I edit/manipulate/modify as needed via Photoshop. After looking at the picture after it is done, I am pretty much satisfied with it. BUT...it seems that as days go by, I start to get really critical of myself and my work, and start to question "Is this picture any good?". Well it was yesterday, but today I just get a different feel from it? Is it me? Or is this common among just "artists" in general. Or is it the girlie emotional side of me? :?:

[msvadi]

Don't edit any pictures in evenings after shooting. Wait until the morning to sort them ;)

Seriously, I think it happens to everybody. May be not as much to pros: they are doing their job.

Since I got into photography a year ago, I printed and framed many picture I took. They all still hang on the walls in our apartment, but I don't like most of them anymore.

[Rob Larsen]

I'm guilty of that too. What's worse is looking at a picture taken several years prior and trying to be as happy with it as the day I took it. But, I find that I am becoming relatively less critical of my past photos with time. I'd like to think this is because my technical/artistic learning curve is less vertical now.

It may also have something to do with being able to look at your own work more objectively once you are more distant from the emotions experienced while taking the photograph.

[roanjohn]

No this doesn't happens to me.

Ro1

[rick barclay]

I don't see anything wrong with editing a pic two or three times to try to
improve it. As long as you're having fun.

[Scottes]

I generally go through 3 "weeding" sessions:

1) The "complete junk" weeding - out of focus, glare, whatever. Instantly noticable trash gets deleted. (This often involves "Oh Cool I've just GOT to post this one NOW!")

2) The "comparison/keeper" weeding - Is this one any good? Can I save it? Is it worth saving? These two are almost identical but which one do I keep? I thought that was good but there's a bug on the flower... (This often involves "Hey, that's not bad. I think I'll post it.")

3) The "very critical" weeding - sometimes days or even weeks later. Is this picture *really* any good? Really? I mean, look at it! C'Mon, I've got 156 red-winged blackbirds already - what's so good about this one? (This sometimes involves - but rarely - "Did I take that picture? Why don't I remember it?? I should post it.")

4) Some time in the future I go through the "what was I thinking?" weeding out. Often this involves the fact that I have gotten 30 better pictures of a red-winged blackbird, so this one is no longer in my "Top 100" shots, so it gets deleted. Or I've just gotten much better, and I finally realize that this picture stinks. (This has not yet involved "Can you believe I took this picture? I should post it! They'll laugh their butts off!")

[The Photo Tuell]

...get rid of those I find not worthy of keeping.

What do you mean by that?

To answer your original question...yeah, I do it sometimes. Mostly with older pictures though.

Hopefully I've become better at choosing which ones to put in my gallery. I still find myself worrying more about sharpness than emotion, though. So I do second guess myself when I put up a sharp shot instead of one that has more action or emotion to it.

[DieselGirl]

[quote=DieselGirl]...get rid of those I find not worthy of keeping.

What do you mean by that?

quote]

I get rid of those I know I will never use because of bad lighting, out of focus, etc.

[MT]

I figure that I'll end up without any pictures.

I think everyone does it.

[WestFalcon]

I edit wedding pictures and look at them the next day. Sometimes I wonder why I thought the color looked good the day before. Now, i try to look at them the day after editing to see if I'm still pleased with them. I'm always amazed at how many I change. Sometimes, I wonder whether I was asleep the first time I edited them. I'm not sure why this phenomenom occurs but it does with me. I then send them into my lab online for proofing.

[angrybunny]

I am a packrat, or packbunny, when it comes to data. I keep all photos regardless of quality (poor lighting, out of focus, uninteresting composition). Space on a hard drive, CDR or DVDR is pretty cheap these days. I make copies of the original files for the photos that I wish to post process and possibly print or post online. I place those copies in a separate folder/directory.

I keep my originals separate because I hope to improve my remedial skills in Photoshop.

[Longwatcher]

I am pretty close to Scottes;

Short answer me too.

Long Answer:
After doing a photo shoot. I have three runs through to eliminate pictures.

The first run is just to eliminate the junk (out of fucus, bad light, makes model look real bad, etc..) I will occasionally find one or two really great shots at this point and edit them in PS for printing (but I don't print yet).
In the first run, each picture gets about 4 seconds. (for example I will run a total of 829 images down to 133)

The second run is the "is this a good shot" run. I eliminate anything that is not as good as the whole of the set. In the second Run each picture gets about 8 seconds. Unless I have to, I never do the second run on the same day as the first run. I am also very vicsious in getting rid of pictures (or at least I try to be). I almost never edit a picture during this run. (at this point those 133 go down to 55 images left)

The thrid run is the ugly run, at this point I try to choose the best 24-30 shots for doing a portfolio print book up. (on the example shoot I ended up with 12 I printed with about 29 total I spent time editing), three of which I used artistic filters on. The rest were just crop, contrast and sharpen. In the third run I take as long as it takes to get to the desired number.

After the third run I go into photo shop and take them one at a time, I will usually eliminate 4-6 images at this point because the full resolution shot shows something I missed in the previous three runs and just don't like.

When done the best 9-12 shots go on my web site and up to 30 get printed if we did a TFP session. (in the example I printed about 6 (since it was a me paying shoot and 9 went on the web site, but only 3 images did I both print and post.)

Later (like months later) I go back and start critizing some of my work I did earlier. (in my example done in March, so far, I can't fault any of my final prints or images I posted. They may not be perfect, but they are some of my best wrok SO FAR.

Bit long, but that explains my way of thinking.

[cgratti]

After editing them, wait 2-3 days and go back and look at them again. You need a break from them to really get your ideas moving in the direction you want them to go.

[xxlt]

DieselGirl ~~Hello.

I always save just about all the photo's I take. Unless they are really out of focus. My thinking runs along this theory. I burn them all to a Cd for my kids or my grandkids to look at. Just maybe it will be something of interest to them many years from now. Plus the software 20 years from now may make that terrible "now" photo look like a masterpiece. Many days I use my stock photo's of Sky's and animals to photo shop onto another photo, and I find little bits and pieces of a old photo that I might crop print and frame. Great question and I have enjoyed reading everyones thoughts. :D

[arumdevil]

I think most creative people experience this phenomenon. i get it with music too. I work on a tune until the small hours of the morning trying to get it to sound good. eventually I get something I'm pleased with and go to bed :D

I listen to it the next day and find that it sounds crap (well, not always, but at least very different to how I thought it was).

I don't think this has much to do with time of day etc, it has more do do with the fact that the longer you spend working on something without a break the more familiar it becomes. in the case of music this is known as ear fatigue and your ear compensates for any changes you make and it becomes very difficult to hear what you are really doing. come back to it the next day with fresh ears and it's amazing how different it sounds.

similar thing with photos and your eyes.

of course this is just my personal experience, but many seem to have the same experience.

[ron chappel]

It's a really good idea to wait several days or so before doing your final edit otherwise you'll be stuck with a colour cast that might be off.At least this is the biggest mistake i make when editing. :oops: :P

And going over them all again later IS a good thing,no matter how many mistakes you find! It means you are making the most of -and practicing-your editing talent.It's a great way of accellerating the learning curve!!

[ron chappel]

Found it!
Here's a great article by mike johnson on editing
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/sm-10-06.shtml

[aam1234]

Noticed that if i view the photos after taking them i have no feeling/reaction to them at all. But when viewed days later i can tell which is decent and which is bad. It's as if to erase memory of them then taking a fresh look.

[chris.bailey]

I put all my photos in a folder under a month (04Jan, 04Feb etc) heading called INBOX. I normally have two JPG INBOX and RAW INBOX. I weed out any of the duff shots (too dark, out of focus, bad composition) but keep everying else in the INBOX's. As I process them I then save the processed file (as a TIFF) in seperate folder (FORPRINT, FORWEB) or in a WORKINPROG folder under the month directory. That way as I learn more PS tips I can always go back to the originals (which I archive to CD/DVD) and hopefully get a better result. After the initial clean out though I tend to keep pretty much everything.

[Canuck]

I will have (if time allows) someone else look thru the pics on the FlashTrax Drive and see what they think. I too look at them on it afterwoods as I scrutinise the pics more. I'd rather have their input then I will possibly say what I think. I usually don't say much about them. It comes down to sometimes you are your own worst enemy. Failing that when I get home, I will organise them in the "RAW Stuff" folder by what event it and make that the folder name, like "Scotland Trip 19-27 May 04" or "Irish Pub Tour 15-23 Mar 04" or "Heathrow Plane Pics 10 May 03" and so on. D:\RAW Stuff\dcim\xxxcanon\CRWxxxx_.CRW From there, I download it to the computer and will look at them further at my leisure. I haven't had much time to sit down and look at the pics of late. I have over 6800 total...like 6818 total pics now including deleted ones. This is what the last file, CRW_6818.CRW was. From there, I try to tweek it and see if it is woth my while. If it isn't, I delete it on the spot; if it is keeper, or think I can salvage it, I will tweek it. I will save the finished/inwork in the "Improved" folder under whatever event it was, like the RAW Stuff folder so it will be D:\Improved\Irish Pub Tour 15-23 Mar 04.

I will usually wait a few days after even looking at the batch I took most recent. I will however, look at older stuff then.

[*MOMOFAIRFORCEBRATS*]

oh yes i do this but hey i am a newbie got a kodak easyshare a few monhts back and now my rebel is in the mail.

a lot of my pics a while back were crap!


i know i will continue to do this though thats how i am with my painting why would photography be different.

but i cant be too bad the pics i took for my friends with my kodak easy share got my hubby bombarded at work ( our friend works in same building) with emails. 5 people already want to pay me to shoot some for them when the rebel gets here! i am not supremely happy with my owkr yet but i will improve and at least while i leanr appaertly i can make a few people happy with the photos.

so i am trying not to be overly critical.

one woman said she payed a professional to shoot her wedding she hated the pics then she saw some i took and wants to pay me to redo them. :D

[DieselGirl]

Thanks everybody for your comments.

Now, I have some pictures to edit...

:lol:

[Jesper]

Even with my digital camera, where a shot costs nothing more than a little CF card space, I shoot sparingly. I probably seldom have more than 50 photos after a day of walking around with my camera.

Often when I see something interesting, I try several times before I'm satisfied with the photo, for example to get the exposure or composition that I want. I delete the photos I'm not satisfied with directly on the camera.

So my really bad photos most of the time even don't make it to my computer.

Still there's only a small percentage of my photos that I really like and that I find worth printing. Already when I'm busy making the photo, I'm thinking if it will be good enough that I'd want to print it and put it on the wall.

[DieselGirl]

Still there's only a small percentage of my photos that I really like and that I find worth printing. Already when I'm busy making the photo, I'm thinking if it will be good enough that I'd want to print it and put it on the wall.


That's exactly what I am talking about.

If that's the case, then I am a like "Man, all of these are worthless!".

SIGH

:lol:

[ron chappel]

You mean you're dissapointed at throwing away so many?
My 300d says nearly 6000 pis taken...and i only have several hundred at most :)

[IndyJeff]

There is nothing wrong with purging the bad stuff, nobody should see those but you, LOL.

Don't be so hard on yourselves, if you have an image that you think is good don't look at it later on and tear it down. Be proud of what you have done and see the good in that image. Lord knows there are enough critics to put your work down, build yourself up.

Sometimes editing the next day or even later will make you see things in a different way. Tomorrow I will shoot an extreme sports competition. That ends around 4pm and then I have a dinner to attend at 6pm. I wouldn't go except that I am the PR person and a board member of the alumni association. So when I get home, around midnight, I will edit and upload the images from earlier that day. I need to have them posted ASAP while the excitement is still there for the competitors so they will buy some of the images. Now if not for the dinner, the images would be uploaded and displayed by 7pm or so. It is not always practical to wait to edit. Learn to edit and pick the best shots ASAP. Don't second guess yourself, learn what to look for on the first preview and learn to choose quickly. The day may come when the ability to pick the right shot and get it out quickly may be the difference between selling an image or getting a nice "thank you, great shot but we already have a shot of that we are using" letter.

[Lunatique]

This is what my routine is like:

1)Take pictures and download them to PC. Make a main folder that's titled after the session. For example: "Elena Nudes."

2)Make a seperate folder inside the main folder call "selected" and put the images that I like in there.

3)In the "selected" folder I make another folder called "edited," and that's where I put another copy of the selected images after I've done post processing on them.

4)In the "edited" folder, I make another folder called "resized," and those are copies of the edited images resized for the web.

5)I upload the resized images to my website, and post them in photography forums to share with fellow photogs.

6)A few months go by, and I go back and look at the original shots again, and almost always, I find shots that didn't get picked the first time around that looks quite nice the second time around. I then take those shots and repeat step 2~5 again, except this time, I title these shots "Second Looks," because they are shots that looked good on second viewing. :D

[mpkirby]

Still there's only a small percentage of my photos that I really like and that I find worth printing. Already when I'm busy making the photo, I'm thinking if it will be good enough that I'd want to print it and put it on the wall.


That's exactly what I am talking about.

If that's the case, then I am a like "Man, all of these are worthless!".


Don't confuse "art" with "important" You may have many pictures that are important to you (family, events, so forth). They suck as "art" because they don't transcend your own personal experiences.

Then there is the "art" Things that are visually appealing, or universally affect people the same way. You might have 100 pictures for each picture you think qualifies as "art", and then 100 of those before you get something really good.

The real question is do you have fun taking pictures? If the answer is yes, then who cares? The art will come.

Mike

[Andy_T]

I normally do a first weeding session to delete the photos that are technically bad (out of focus, over/underexposed beyond salvage). Sometimes this can be seen in the RAW image, sometimes I weed some more after transferring to 50% JPG.

Out of the 50% JPG, I select the photos to transfer to TIFF and work upon in Photoshop. This are normally not that many. Those go to a 'selected' folder.

However, I burn all the CRW pictures to CD, because it happened to me that I was looking for a specific motive later or a specific crop. Or, one of the relatives I took a photo of, wants to have some and I look through all the photos of the venue to get all the photos that were taken of him. Then, I might add some photos to the 'selected' folder if I think that they are rather good ... or delete photos from it.

When I need space on my hard drive (especially on my laptop), I delete the CRW and the 50% jpgs.

Best regards,
Andy
Andy