Bad Images

[veritus]

What do you guys do with pictures that you took that weren't that great?. For example, I took some pictures during a road trip from Houston to Dallas and shot roughly 200 pictures. Of the 200, 50 are great pictures. Should I delete the other 150 or keep them? I've got plenty of HD space but it's getting to be a lot to sort through. Any suggestions on file management would be appreciated.

*Not sure if this is the right forum or not, so feel free to move mods.*

[Daniel Bates]

If they're unacceptable, I delete them. I'm not running out of HD space or anything, but why keep something that is OOF?

But if it's close to good, just not quite there, I'll usually hang onto it.

[Ahh!]

In those cases where the image is the only capture of something, yet not "picture perfect) I tend to get a little "artsie" with it and save it in a low res. That way the memory is preserved. But if the image is too much a dupe or total failure...the recylce bin gets filled up. Just because I took it, doesn't mean I will keep it.

If on assignment, I keep them all except the technically bad ones, and let the client sort them out after I do the first sort, time permitting. Sometimes the shot I would not have chosen was the chosen shot.

[veritus]

Originally Posted by Daniel Bates

If they're unacceptable, I delete them. I'm not running out of HD space or anything, but why keep something that is OOF?

But if it's close to good, just not quite there, I'll usually hang onto it.

I delete the OOF ones. I'm wondering what to do with the acceptable ones! lol I think I'm going to create a sub folder in each event folder called "seconds" or something like that to put them in. Right now it's hard to find the good ones amongst the average ones.

[Daniel Bates]

My folder management is as follows:

Main directory > year directory > event folder > "best" and "all" folders

So, My Pictures / 2007 / 2007-06-27 Garden Macro / Best / Processed / Web woud be the path for the web-sized versions of the processed files, which are the best of the Garden Macro set. The second best ones go in "All" for archiving purposes.

[veritus]

Originally Posted by Daniel Bates

My folder management is as follows:

Main directory > year directory > event folder > "best" and "all" folders

So, My Pictures / 2007 / 2007-06-27 Garden Macro / Best / Processed / Web woud be the path for the web-sized versions of the processed files, which are the best of the Garden Macro set. The second best ones go in "All" for archiving purposes.

Great idea! My structure is similar, but laking the best folder.

[Dokk]

First I save ALL of my shots to CD/DVD then edit them on the HD. The ones I don't think I can use get deleted off the HD but I still have archives that I can go back to if I find some technique that I can use on a culled shot or want to use it later for whatever reason.

[veritus]

Thanks for all the replies! I've adopted Daniel's method of file/folder management. Next question... what image viewer are you guys using? I was using Picasa, but the new folder structure has casused havoc within Picasa. (it's ultra confusing having multiple sub-folders within an event) Any other suggestions? Thanks again for all the pointers.

[loana0320]

I am starting to delete stuff LOL

[veritus]

Originally Posted by loana0320

I am starting to delete stuff LOL

I just bought a new 500GB drive so I wouldn't have to delete stuff. lol

[shutterdrone]

I save everything =)

I have an entire box of negatives that I didn't think worth the time to scan in when I saw them at the time. Every year I dip back in there and find one or two that I've learned a way to 'save' or suddenly 'suits my mood'. Digital is pretty much the same - the hard drives actually cost less per image than my archival negative boxes and sheet holders do... Imagine that - I have no excuse! =)

You may need a drop-in for something artsy, maybe your website needs a little OOF farm-house or something for a backdrop five years from now, or you find out that blown image can be recovered with a brand new RAW software. Never know - but you do know that you'll never be able to get it back if you destroy it!

!c