Ever Regret the DELETE key?

I'm getting overwhelmed with PP after sports shoots, so I've started to just delete RAW files which aren't going to make any cut, square one, no backups.

Is that nuts, or normal? Have you ever regretted using the big DELETE key?

Not really. If you don't know what is missing then how can you miss it?

Why waste HD space on shots that will never be used because of poor quality. I deleted non keepers all the time.

I delete bad shots all the time. However in my workflow, Once I download from my cards; I immediately burn a DVD backup, then I start to PP.

Many other times I have regretted the delete key, but I am ever grateful for the Undo command or better yet the history palette.

Tip number 2. "don't sort or re-organise your photos after a few glasses of wine".
I just found a load of photos taken in London in my Manchester folders from some late night sorting I did the other day.... Doh... I guess you should also not get happy with that 'delete' key after some wine tasting either.

I have saved GBs by deleting photos that don't cut the mustard. I have not regretted it either.

If you are still unsure about deleting some of the shots, and if HDD space is not an issue for you, you could start using 'ratings' in the image browser that you use (e.g. DPP or ZoomBroswer has nuber ratings etc), to select the good shots so that you can easily filter out the bad ones, instead of deleting the bad ones. In that way, the bad shots will be available for you by turning off your 'good photo' filter.

Another process I will start doing is converting some less important photos to JPG and then deleting the RAW to save some space, but that is HDD space is becoming an issue to me these days

^^ Interesting.

To create the surviving RAWs, I'm cropping/adjusting, rating the file I just touched, then sorting by rating, and, now, just deleting all RAWs that don't make the grade.

On conserving disk space, I'm going the other direction; create JPGs from survivors-in-RAW, batch sharpen/contrast the JPGs, post the final JPGs to smugmug, then deleting all JPGs.

I'm basically betting that smugmug never goes away so quickly that I can't get the JPGs from them, I suppose.

<<history pallette>> Used daily!

That is usually one of my first steps in my workflow. Unload the photos from the card, then go through and get rid of pictures I am not going to keep. I only keep the photos I think are already good, or have potential with a little editing to be really good. No need to take up HD space for a picture that is just going to sit there.