Sorting the Days Work . . .

I was out today working on geese and ducks for the most part, snapped a shot or too of an eagle, but nothing to write home about. My question is how hard do you guys grade your work? I use a firewire reader to get them on a HD and into the computer. From there I use PSCS's file browser to 'weed out' the losers.

My problem is me, I think my stuff is good . . . and most of it is not. If I take the time to compose a shot . . . even if it is a little blury/shakey/low ISO speed and etc. et all., I want to keep them. How do you teach yourself to hit the delete button on your own work. This kills me, I can spot out of focus work here on the forum in a heartbeat, but my own . . . I need one of you to sort my work and in return I will do yours plus take out the trash. Think over my offer, lol.

You have hit on a real problem I share. In my case, after I've weeded out the obvious junk, I start to think things like "This one, I can work on it, and even though it will only be good for smaller prints, and even though it has these other flaws, there are conceivably some ways it could be used, and it is a different pose (or moment) so I'll keep it, at least for a little while longer."

One thing that helps is coming back to the set and weeding again after a week or two. By that time, I am less attached to the images.

What also helps (as with most things photographic) is to make more pictures. The more pictures I make means I make more good pictures, and the less I am attached to the substandard stuff.

One of the great secrets of all good photographers is to never show your bad photographs. And if you are never going to show a bad photograph (or rarely), then there is little or no need to keep it. This is an overly broad statement, but the principle applies nonetheless.

Hello, my name is Moppie, Im a photo horder, I can not delete them from my HDD, no matter how bad they are.

Basically if they don't get trashed during chimping they generally survive. Some I keep thinking are rubbish, but with a little photoshop magic they end up OK. I also have a few technical failures, which i consider to be worthwhile becasue they capture a unique moment in time, and a few even provide a good laugh every now and then.

I delete a lot of stuff. I use a 3-pass system, where the totally bogus and out-of-focus stuff gets junked on the first round. I'll then go back, usually after a few hours or the next day in order to have a more open mind, and I delete some more. Finally on the 3rd pass I'll pick through the very close, like when I accidentally hold the shutter button down too long and get near-identical shots. Apparently I end up deleting about 3/4 of the images I take.

This feels a tad like a AA thing . . . I am glad I am not alone. I too horde and I need not. I have plenty, yet always take more. You can learn a lot by shooting and looking at your work and then going back to try to make some more 'good' ones. My thanks to you all.

I go through them a few times too. 1st to clean out the obvious bad ones 2nd to be a more ruthless, 3rd when processing I compare dupe shots or compostion and keep the better one. Then, weeks or a month later after the excitement of the shoot is well over I clean them again thinking is it unique, is it the best so far, or is it just sucking up disc space?

I have plenty of bad shots: grainy, out of focus, or bad exposures, etc. I still keep them because they docucmented something I wanted to preserve - like baby raptors or the eagle fight I just saw. Those are moments in time I want to be able to keep around. They're also good to show my progress in getting better or not.

Overall, at least 95% gets deleted eventually.

Thanks LP . . . it is good to know that others have this too.

I to go thru a few times. I delete the obviously bad ones, then I pick out the best 1/4 or so, then I pick however many I want or need from them. The ones I class as "good" and "great" are kept, and every few months I delete the "also rans".

I went to a support group for this after getting in trouble with my wife for spending all my earnings on hard disks every friday night

FlyingPete wrote:
I went to a support group for this .............

Do you still have thier contact details?
Im down to my last 1/2 gig

I keep most of the photos that I shoot in day, The ones that I delete are total crap. Even the ones that don't look that great I do keep.

What I do tho is copy any ones that I like in to another folder and then change them to what I think the photo should be. but like many around the world I do have the problem of keeping photos.

I also back up my photos on to DVD and another HDD. (including the crap ones)

I also seem to have this problem - I delete only the ones that came out really crappy, as completely OOF and OOE (out-of-exposure). Apart from that I do keep all my images - I don't know why, just can't delete them ...

Great... fellow holders...
I thought I was alone...

I too keep about 90% of my shots. The 10% I delete are mainly test-shots and out of focus. And from the out of focus I keep some because they're the only one's I've got of the subject. Better have a bad picture of a subject than not having a picture...

And I know that only about 0.1% of my pictures are real good... (my own judgment and what people around say to me). So that would mean that my 15 GB (last three years with my ixus300, G3 and now 20D) could be shrunk to about 15 MB

Ikinaa wrote:
Great... fellow holders...
I thought I was alone...

Hello Ikinaa welcome to the group