How many pics do you keep?

I try judge a shot like - is this shot good enough to be printed and framed and put on the wall? Can't really tell how many I keep, but the number is decreasing, I think, since I'm saturated with all sorts of images and want something that stands out, after all, I'm not doing tourist like sightseeing to-be-reminisced-years-later snapshots...

Download all the images into a new folder. Check each one out and delete the ones that don't standout. These get transferred to a backup drive. A couple of days later, i'll check these out again and further delete the ones that were close but no cigar. The real keepers go on another backup drive and then burned to CD.
Maybe 5% get CD'd but almost 90% of family/BBQ type shots get burned.

the realy bad ones are deleted right away, and the ones i'm not sure of are put in a special folder.
sometimes i look at the folder and decide wich one to keep and wich to delete

i've made about 6500 pictures and only kept 2500 of them.

and printed maybe 20

All that is in focus and good composition, maybe I'll need them one day for class or stock. Yes I have plenty cd's

I keep virtually everything I shoot ... you just can't tell, as was mentioned earlier in the post, when part of a frame will be useful ... I've had my 10D for just under a year and have shot about 6,000 frames ... my wife has had her DRebel since last September and has about the same number ... everything is backed up (two copies) on CD and DVD ... I also make contacts and file those, although some of the earlier stuff still needs printing and filing ...

I keep them all....don't know exactly how many but I have filled 3 160 gb external drives and am half way through my fourth.

I keep almost all the RAW files (except the really useless one, around a 10%), but convert to TIFF only the possible candidates (50-80%) and finally process about half of them. So I keep around a 25-40% of "processed" shots also in JPEG format.
Regarding printing, the number is really low. I probably printed less than 100 shots from near 8000 between my 2 cameras. Almost all of them ends in my gallery instead of in a printed format (except the really good ones usually at 8x10 size)

I keep way more than I should. I've finally started to use the 80 gig external HD, but I have taken to purging quite a bit before I copy to CD and then transfer the saved images to the external. I suspect that this will prove inadequate in a few months.

After deleting OOPS, duplicates(several of virtually the same and pic the best 1 or 2), off composure, etc. Ive narrowed it down to 11,252 as of this post. After this weekend of soccer and hockey games and a motorcycle hare scramble, add 200+.

I only delete the total disasters. That seems to leave at least 98% on CD and/or DVD.

Download them all, delete the really bad ones right away. Sort by location, subject, date - then every couple of weeks I run through them again and delete more. As my shots get better (well, I think so!), I go back and delete more. I end up with 5-20 per 100 as keepers.

My plan is, when/if I learn PhotoShop, to run through again and see if they really are keepers. Then maybe, I'll print something seeing I have a new never used printer waiting.

I read once that if 10% of your shots are keepers, you're going damn good. Of course, my idea of a keeper and a professional's idea are worlds apart! But then again, you never know whan a duck shot wil come in handy so you can't delete them all.

Wow,some of you guys have a SERIOUS number of images
i'd hate to be the one to have to edit them...
I actually like editing and do it really well but doing hundreds is nothing but hard frustrating work.

I too used to keep pics just because i could see that part of the shot was very good and may be useable if merged into something,but definitely not anymore as i can never remember it when it might be usefull.Man i have trouble keeping track of several hundred images! Some of yous' msut have no idea what's in that hard drive,lol
Mind you,i bet you get some nice surprises going through them,finding good ones you forgot about

Yeah, your kids are gonna be left with a lot of stuff to look over when you buy the farm. Either that, or they just slick the hard drive and sell the comp on ebay along with your photo gear for pennies on the dollar.

Sorry 'bout that...

I keep more than half of what I shoot, and I know I shouldn't. I have a feeling I'm not alone when I say, "I need to go through everything, delete a bunch of it, and re-organize it into a filing system that makes sense to someone other than me."