deleting photos or keeping them forever?

I have been taking lots of pictures lately, and right now my pictures folder is larger than I can afford to keep backed up constantly (and takes longer than I would like).

Seeing how a majority of the photos are duplicate shots, and etc. I was just wondering what the general consensus was here - do you keep every single photo that makes it to your computer, or do you just keep the best, or do you go through during a spring cleaning to clear up space once in a while?

I delete during editing.

I keep RAW only of shots I think might be the best ever, otherwise JPG is all I have.

I delete 90%+ of the RAWs. Only the best survive. If I didn't flag it as a keeper the first few times I looked at it, I probably won't want to see it again in the future. (Family photos are different, of course.)

I weed regularly...

producerism,
I keep them all, but luckily jpegs take less space
Mostly on CD's and external HD

What TheHoff said...

I burn from card to cd/dvd first before anything then edit and do PP. If I really need to see the rest in the future I have a copy.

I have an external 250GB drive. They all go there first, and then get moved to the internal drive, as I need them. Then, I'll clean out the ones I know are just useless (blurry, too dark, etc). All RAW's stay on the external drive, though.

I just keep adding hard drives. I think I'm up to 250GB of photos which is getting a bit unsettling.

However, even with those figures, I always try to delete as much as I can on the camera. It's only getting easier with this standard 3" LCD. It's really advantageous to become efficient in deleting on the camera, makes the work you have to do on the computer much easier.

Whatever makes it to the computer usually stays there. It's been a good decision for me.

Lightroom has made sorting through my RAWs so infinitely simpler.

I just make a quick first pass through them, flagging the bad ones (poorly composed, blurry, etc..). Only the truly unusable ones get flagged. Once I'm done, I delete the flagged images from the hard drive.

I then make a second pass, this time scrutinizing the photos and flagging the ones I don't like. Those images are then removed from the library (but kept on-disc just in case).

After the two passes, I'm usually left with just the images I like.

I delete images that don't meet muster freely. However, I do keep a backup of the original RAWs if I ever need them.

I only toss the real clinkers if they are from a shoot with a client. You never know what the client will desire. If they are from my own pursuits, I delete mercilessly.

thanks guys.. you've helped me decide to just go ahead and clear some of these photos out to make backing up a little easier.

Any blurry or bad photos I delete.
Also Any duplicates... say I snapped off 4 photos "just in case"
I pick the sharpest or best and delete the rest.

I will keep mediocre photos if one of them is good.
Just so I have a set. For example... if I shoot a really great shot of an osprey.
During my attempts I get 5 OK shots of him. I will keep all 6 shots just because the one is good.
Just to keep the set together.

I do this with Lightroom.
I flag them as I review... then sort and delete.
5 star = delete 1-4 are my rating system low to high.
I have yet to shoot a 4 star photo.

I keep about 99% forever. I'll delete the occasional photo of absolutely nothing (e.g. the floor, a completely out of focus blur that walked right in front of me, etc.). The rest I keep. Hard drives are cheap, and constantly increasing in size (much like my photo collection). It'd take me more time to figure out which photos I was actually comfortable with deleting than it would be worth.