Getting rid of unwanted photos

Basically means, what is your best method of processing (i.e. of getting rid) of photos that don't pass your quality check?

Is it on the day or a few weeks later or even a few years later?

I got in a photographic funk when I lost my job 5 years ago, kept shooting, but the images would site on the cards in the camera until the next time I needed them, then i would just transfer them to the PC, and forget them unless there was a client expecting them. This took me 2-3 years to get over... in the last 4 months I have gone through just under 10,000 images, and deleted the out of focus, poorly exposed and duplicate images and the 10k is now down to around 6k.

So those took a few years to process.... since I got caught up, I tend to go through the images the evening of the shoot at latest 2-3 days later.

I never 'get rid of' a shot when it simply does not 'satisfy me' for aesthetic reasons....I only get rid of technically uncorrectable shots immediately. Like inadvertantly motion blurred or hopelessly misfocused or horridly mis-exposed shots. Why take up any storage space with literal junk?!

Sometimes a shot may look like it is not a keeper, but later you come up with some artisticly new interpretation that makes the shot a real keeper. If you get rid of it too soon, your creative juices will not have had an opportunity for reinterpretation.

If you offer your shots for sale, sometimes a shot which is not suitable for one client can be very useful for another client!

I use Lightroom. During import I untick the REALLY obvious duff shots. Then after import I run through all the images quickly and flag the technical failures (missed focus, subject moved/blinked etc) for deletion with the X key.

I delete the junk (poor focus, poor framing, stupid expression, lights didn't fire etc) as part of my import into lightroom (import, keyword, run through and use P and X to pick and reject images - delete the rejects, and go through the picks again with stars)


At work i stick them on the laptop HDD till i have 100gb or so - then spend a day sorting and culling.
basically i give everything i am keeping one star, and then delete anything without a star.
takes me maybe 10mins to go through 5-600 pics from a sporting match.

When importing into Lightroom, I'll uncheck images I can tell were "off", either missed focus, motion blur where I didn't want motion blur, etc. After the images are imported, I'll go through them again to remove any where I have multiple of the same shot.

I tend also to get rid of motion blur (though ones with "acceptable" motion are ok with me) and ones that have really missed the focusing, albeit, I do give the slightly under/overexposed ones a good old editing to see if I can get them to my liking of acceptability

RichSoansPhotos wrote in post #17489219
Basically means, what is your best method of processing (i.e. of getting rid) of photos that don't pass your quality check?

Is it on the day or a few weeks later or even a few years later?

I usually take several weeks to complete the final culling. I go through them in Lightroom Develop module once and black flag (X key) the ones that are out of focus (OOF) and those that just have no potential. On this first pass through, I also mark the ones that I want to edit first with 3 stars, and the lesser ones with 2 or 1 stars using the number keys. After the first pass through all the black flag shots get deleted from the computer. Then I start editting the 3-starred images. When I finish editing and exporting these, I mark these as 5-stars and highlight in red (number 6 on keyboard). Then I go back to the 2-star and 1-star images. Most of these lesser rated images ultimately get deleted but sometimes I find a winner among them. I don't worry about how long it takes me. I'm sure I have plenty that could be deleted, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
If I'm on the fence about an image, it absolutely does help to review it some days later.

I usually use a combination of the methods described above.

Mark favorites using the "Rate" feature in camera (Lightroom will usually import these star ratings)
Delete obvious duds from camera,
Un-check more obvious duds when importing into Lightroom
Do a first pass through, marking the ones that I like with one or two starts, and black-flagging any more obvious duds
Filter to show just the photos with stars, make sure the rated photos comprise adequate coverage*
Go back and add/remove stars to any more photos as necessary, to get to my expected level of coverage
Start at the beginning and do my Lightroom edits, marking with a white flag (Pick) when I'm done editing
Publish or deliver the Picks, make sure I get approval from the client
Permanently delete anything without any stars
Move everything that's left to my archive & backup drives
Don't wipe the memory card until I need it again


** adequate level of coverage varies depending on the shoot type. For stage performances, it's generally six to ten per routine/number - sometimes in my initial pass, I "star" way more or way less than I need and have to go back and give it another look. For quick portraits, it's two or three per person (one face/bust and one full-length); for simple headshots it's one per person; for event coverage it includes enough to show off the whole event.

RichSoansPhotos wrote in post #17489219
Basically means, what is your best method of processing (i.e. of getting rid) of photos that don't pass your quality check?

Is it on the day or a few weeks later or even a few years later?

Heya,

During and after a shoot, I just try to remove any obvious "nopes" right away to save me copying and looking through them later. Otherwise, when I get home and unload my photos, I quickly scan through them in DPP looking at the RAWs. Anything that has a rotten composition and no hope to salvage, or is obviously blurred out, or unrecoverably over/under-exposed, I go ahead and delete right away (I love that you can delete the RAWs just pressing the DEL key in DPP). I do this before I start converting my RAW to TIF/JPG. I try to thin the pile before I begin editing, as it helps me to eliminate the need to convert, process, etc, and then toss when I realize I had a better shot next to it. I will compare similar shots and keep the better one and delete the other immediately. I shoot quite a bit, so processing hundreds & thousands of photos a week/month, I don't like to waste any more time than I have to on the non-keepers. If it's questionable, I just keep it, since hard drive space is cheap.

Very best,