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03-25-2019, 07:56 AM - 3 Likes   #16
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I usually do a quick cull of photos before importing them from my card, using Faststone. Once I get them into Lightroom, I try to identify the best one or two shots of a given series and delete the rest.

I still keep all of my old RAW images, just on the off chance that I might go back and re-edit them, but honestly, I never do. I enjoy shooting new photos a lot more than I do firing up an old hard drive to work on images from four or five years ago.

Overall, the issue isn't the cost of memory -- you can get 8 TB hard drives that will just soak up the images -- the issue is one of clutter. It's like having a room with a million objects in it of varying quality. You can never find the image you want later, if you don't delete some as you go.

03-25-2019, 08:03 AM   #17
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My process:

Take photos in RAW.

Cull obvious rejects.

Process with Capture One,with further culling inevitable.

Post finished folder of pics on Flickr.

Save jpegs and RAW files on separate hard drives.
03-25-2019, 08:33 AM   #18
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QuoteOriginally posted by 3by2 Quote
focus adjustment shots of the back fence. Now why am I keeping them!
Ahem. Yes. There are those

QuoteOriginally posted by normhead Quote
I'll shoot 300-800 in an hour
Ok, that's one major difference between the two of us. I don't shoot much more than that in a week - on safari. And when not travelling I rarely shoot more than 500 in a month.
03-25-2019, 09:22 AM   #19
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Keep 100%, Tag the file names of maybe 10%, Really Like maybe 1%

Disk space is less than 5 cents a GB these days. It's easier to copy and save everything. Adding a bit of text to the file name both identifies the better shots and reminds myself of the context and subject matter. Just like Pentax, I add a "*" to the name of the best of the best.

03-25-2019, 09:41 AM   #20
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QuoteOriginally posted by photoptimist Quote
Keep 100%, Tag the file names of maybe 10%, Really Like maybe 1%

Disk space is less than 5 cents a GB these days. It's easier to copy and save everything. Adding a bit of text to the file name both identifies the better shots and reminds myself of the context and subject matter. Just like Pentax, I add a "*" to the name of the best of the best.
Until you are looking for a specific shot, which wasn't all that good but you need it for historical purposes. Hint, I'm looking for one right now. Even with my culling, what pain. It would help if I could remember even what year it was taken.
03-25-2019, 09:42 AM   #21
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If you shoot RAW there is a really great app called Fast Raw Viewer that can really help you cull the non-keepers. its fast and doesn't modify your RAW files in any way. Its especially helpful when you have shot multiple shots of the same scene
03-25-2019, 09:43 AM - 2 Likes   #22
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I agree with the "keep it all; hard drives are cheap" crowd (i.e. photoptimist and savoche). Part of this comes from my scientist background, I guess, where one learns to basically never throw any data away. You never know when some overlooked fact might be crucial (so far, though, I've not won any Nobel prizes!!).

I have quadruple backups (and not just for photos, but all my other files, too) of just about everything, with at least one SSD out in the garage in a fire-proof safe (hope I never have to test it). As noted somewhere above, off-site would be even better.

My PC has two swapable drive slots for SSDs. A 1 TB is around $125 - $135 these days, and the (SATA) data transfer speed is very fast, so copying many gigabytes goes quickly.

03-25-2019, 09:50 AM   #23
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QuoteOriginally posted by AstroDave Quote
I agree with the "keep it all; hard drives are cheap" crowd (i.e. photoptimist and savoche). Part of this comes from my scientist background, I guess, where one learns to basically never throw any data away. You never know when some overlooked fact might be crucial (so far, though, I've not won any Nobel prizes!!).

I have quadruple backups (and not just for photos, but all my other files, too) of just about everything, with at least one SSD out in the garage in a fire-proof safe (hope I never have to test it). As noted somewhere above, off-site would be even better.

My PC has two swapable drive slots for SSDs. A 1 TB is around $125 - $135 these days, and the (SATA) data transfer speed is very fast, so copying many gigabytes goes quickly.
The danger with hoarding!

03-25-2019, 09:53 AM   #24
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QuoteOriginally posted by normhead Quote
Until you are looking for a specific shot, which wasn't all that good but you need it for historical purposes. Hint, I'm looking for one right now. Even with my culling, what pain. It would help if I could remember even what year it was taken.
Yep! This is the curse of a long life of active photography.

We need a good AI that can automagically tag images with their subject matter to enable better search such as the image of the "sunset behind a snowy forest with a tent on the left side."
03-25-2019, 09:57 AM - 1 Like   #25
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QuoteOriginally posted by normhead Quote
Until you are looking for a specific shot, which wasn't all that good but you need it for historical purposes. Hint, I'm looking for one right now. Even with my culling, what pain. It would help if I could remember even what year it was taken.
Have you ever tried Key-wording, Norm? Its not going to help your current problem but it might eliminate future problems
03-25-2019, 10:08 AM   #26
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QuoteOriginally posted by Larrymc Quote
Have you ever tried Key-wording, Norm? Its not going to help your current problem but it might eliminate future problems
I have. I don't have the particular part of my brain that allows me to do it. Suddenly my mind goes blank and I cannot find a single descriptive word and then I rapidly lose interest in trying to. In general dates work for me. It's a system I've always used so pictures tend to slot into date order. Need that picture of son1 I took for his passport, let's see that would have been just before so and so, so probably this folder....and generally I can find it. Obviously keywording would be better and for some pictures I have done it but the majority, not.
03-25-2019, 10:14 AM - 1 Like   #27
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QuoteOriginally posted by AstroDave Quote
I agree with the "keep it all; hard drives are cheap" crowd (i.e. photoptimist and savoche). Part of this comes from my scientist background, I guess, where one learns to basically never throw any data away. You never know when some overlooked fact might be crucial (so far, though, I've not won any Nobel prizes!!).

I have quadruple backups (and not just for photos, but all my other files, too) of just about everything, with at least one SSD out in the garage in a fire-proof safe (hope I never have to test it). As noted somewhere above, off-site would be even better.

My PC has two swapable drive slots for SSDs. A 1 TB is around $125 - $135 these days, and the (SATA) data transfer speed is very fast, so copying many gigabytes goes quickly.
Who in the heck is going to care about your loaded hard drives when you are gone? My kids don't give a hoot about photography and I don't think they will develop a sudden interest either. The only way for digital photos to survive is to instill a love of photography in your children. I was keeping every single digital photo I have taken but came to the realization that I might want to cull a good bit of them so I've been culling duplicates and near duplicates as well as uninteresting shots since last year
03-25-2019, 10:56 AM   #28
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QuoteOriginally posted by Larrymc Quote
Have you ever tried Key-wording, Norm? Its not going to help your current problem but it might eliminate future problems
The trouble is tagging also takes time. No matter how you dice it, you will spend (a lot of) time filing your images. It could be through self restraint
during capture, (which means you're spending time deciding what not to shoot). It could be in the tagging process, which can pay dividends later
for frequently accessed material but may be a waste for something you may never touch again. It could be the culling process, either immediately
on first review or sometime later. Or it could be when you're trying to find that elusive photo that you are ever so sure you captured in 2005 but
after looking through every folder from that year, three times over, you finally find it in a folder from 2007.
03-25-2019, 11:24 AM - 1 Like   #29
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QuoteOriginally posted by 3by2 Quote
I have. I don't have the particular part of my brain that allows me to do it. Suddenly my mind goes blank and I cannot find a single descriptive word and then I rapidly lose interest in trying to. In general dates work for me. It's a system I've always used so pictures tend to slot into date order. Need that picture of son1 I took for his passport, let's see that would have been just before so and so, so probably this folder....and generally I can find it. Obviously keywording would be better and for some pictures I have done it but the majority, not.
All my RAW files are stored by date taken using Fast Stone Image Viewer (I like the download interface) after downloading the files and distributing them to my RAW folders I then cull them with Fast RAW Viewer. I then use a program called PhotoMove to copy the RAW photos to my edit folders based on Date taken and Camera Model, quick and easy. I use Zoner Photo Studio X because of its DAM which gives me the ability to use Key Words easily and this allows me to find pretty much any photo I have Key Worded. Photo studio X uses the existing folder structure of the operating system and doesn't get in the way like some DAMs do. You can make the key wording as simple or as complicated as you wish but the simpler the better. Most of my RAW files lately are processed with DXO PhotoLab 2.2 it uses the existing operating system's file structure so finding photo files is simple in DXO PhotoLab.
03-25-2019, 11:26 AM   #30
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QuoteOriginally posted by tvdtvdtvd Quote
The trouble is tagging also takes time. No matter how you dice it, you will spend (a lot of) time filing your images.
True! I have learned to broaden my tags and apply in batches as I import so most everything has at least some added information. For example, if I went out photographing a bunch of frogs and toads at night, I'll slap on a 'wildlife', 'anuran', and 'nighttime' tags to the lot. When I have more time (typically winter) or if I get around to doing something with one of the photos, I'll slap on species tags or other more specific descriptive tags (breeding, eggs, tadpole, etc). This spreads out the tagging pain.

Lightroom's ability to search via metadata is also a godsend. I might have missed tagging a photo, but if I can remember that I took it with a 14mm lens and the shutter speed was longer than 1sec, and it was sometime in the spring, the searching time is greatly reduced.
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