[Zafar Iqbal]

This is annoying me a bit. It's not that I'm completely confused about which on my photos are better than others, but I find it hard to get there at a decent speed.

My main problem is that I often emphasize too much on the technical side of things - this leads me to coming back at a later date and realize a different (but very similar - from same series) photo was actually better.

I recently read a (so far it seems) very good tip by Scott Kelby - exclude the bad ones and you're left with the good photo.

I tried this with a bunch of series - one where I shot a number or portrait photos of a friend. I had already picked the good one from earlier but wanted to see how I would end up with this method. I ended up with a photo that was marked to be deleted in Lightroom.

Why it was marked to be deleted? Because my flash power was very low and I used higher ISO to compensate and this resulted in heavy grain in the photo. It was also soft and dull looking in general.

Why the original pick no longer was the best one? It was tack sharp. Light was much brighter and better. Shadow was in better position. It was all in all a very good exposure, but my friends posture and expression wasn't as good as the new good photo.

What goes through your mind? How do you rate - or what criteria do you rate by? It's easy enough if I have 2-3 to chose from but gets tricky when the amount of the rather similar images increases.

[SpecialK]

I try to choose the ones that best represent what I was trying to capture.

[vonBaloney]

I'd give up on the whole "objectively" bit...photos are not legal documents or mathematical equations.

[Zafar Iqbal]

SpecialK - I don't think I can do that. Not yet at least. I often forget how the location actually was, once I'm at my desk. Also, I don't think I'm too interested in always representing what I shot in exact possible way. Small grading, and you are already deviating from what you saw.

vonBaloney: I understand it's a highly subjective matter, but at the end of the day we still narrow down shots down to a smaller number to share, sell or other.

[vonBaloney]

Yeah, but pick the good shots first, and then pick among those that have the best technical qualities. You can usually take almost any source and make a decent final product out of it in post-processing (with enough work). The one thing you can never fake is focus (you can take something sharp and make it fuzzy, but not vice-versa).

[reeftool]

A funny thing about photos. Often, the shots I really like get a ho-hum response from other folks and shots I'm ho-hum about, others love. Even stuff that is out of focus or has motion blur can sometimes have good artistic qualities. While there are obvious deletes, the "good photo" is often very subjective. This is especially true of lighting and noise or grain.

[vonBaloney]

Digital noise I don't like, but when printing almost always add grain. Trained in the darkroom...

[Zafar Iqbal]

vonBaloney: True. I mostly delete the clearly out of focus shots and keep the always there shots. I may rate these almost there shots or mark them for deletion in Lightroom. I'd rather keep one too many photos than delete too much.

reeftool: I have one particular photo printed in 15x10cm. It's small, but still. I've mostly looked at it on the monitor and although I like it, I didn't feel it was "there" when it comes to technicalities. I looked at the photo after a while and was a bit stunned how well it looked on photopaper - and this just adds to the complexity of rating well.

This photo - as said, it's not *bad*, but if you enlarge it, some horrible lens characteristics will show.

This, along with my new profile pic are some of the few photos that really made me think twice about how I rate. I did more self-portraits and my previous favorite was very similar but with better. Both from flash and a nice touch of ambient as well. But I didn't like it when I chose it as my avatar on various sites. Had a look at all of exposures again using the exclude-all-bad-ones-first technique and landed with this new one, and now I also have a much much better feeling about it.

I've read mood can affect how you rate and this doesn't surprise me. Mood has been affecting my music and movies taste for a long time so why not images - I'd just like a better method of rating so I can avoid or reduce the number of times I keep finding new favorites.

[Ron Boggs]

I use a 2 step edit:

1--first is quick, delete everything that isn't tack sharp where it needs to be sharp and delete everything that isn't nicely lit (varies by subject). If it isn't sharp where it needs to be sharp, that can't be fixed. Lighting issues can sometimes be fixed but at a cost of sitting at a computer monitor...sorry, there isn't enough money to pay me to sit at a monitor when I don't want to. If you enjoy post processing then you may tolerate less well lit images and more computer time.
2--This is the subjective edit...if I can't imagine printing it to hang on my wall or don't see it as competitive for the magazine market then I delete it. Storage is cheap nowadays, but my time to waste looking at it is not! So I'm after art value and market value. If it fits neither, then "poof" it's gone! Family pictures would be an exception, but I try not to take any of those (kids with phones and ma with p&s digi take plenty of the family images so I don't have to!)


There's nothing wrong with keeping "similars" as long as you can foresee a use for each. Odds are you will have to send just one of those similar images when submitting for publication, and if it's just for personal fun, you already know which one you prefer regardless of technical merit.

Sometimes the "right" similar pops up at strange times. I just sold an image to the state of Montana for use as the cover photo for their 2012 Fishing Regulations. I wouldn't have even submitted it, but they got it through a magazine editor who had already published one of the similars that I like better. The Fishing Regs. editor liked the already rejected similar that he got from the other editor. Had they contacted me directly first, I would never have submitted that image. Funny, it's a very cluttered pic, with mediocre view of the subject...but it included a child in a lifejacket in a boat holding a large fish...so they chose it! Go figure.

Note that editors "sharing" images is not particularly normal but this editor that shares has been a real ally for me. Last week an ad agency paid me for a photo to use in 3 national publications...they got the image from that same editor sharing my stuff around! Plus he just published one of my macro shots as 3/4 page in the magazine he edits last week as well. Wish I had a dozen editors like him on my side!

[D4rknezz]

Similar to ron, i start by:
1. Removing all out of focus ones. If they are out of focus from where I wanted the focus to be, no amount of work will put that back together.
2. Remove the ones with awkward pose or expressions. No matter how good the shot is, if the person in question looks awkward, that shot is gone. Because viewers often are very good judge of awkward pose..or expression. Something just looks wrong.
3. Now, you are left with good pictures that are either good, grainy, noisy, overexposed, or underexposed. Here, I try and put them in the same playing field.
To do this, I first pick a picture that represents the batch of overexposed, and fix it in camera raw. Then, I select all other similar picture, and batch repeat the process. Then, I do the same for underexposed pictures.
Now i am left with pictures that i like, all are properly (kind of) exposed.
4. Now i go back and nitpick again, and now that everything is properly exposed, i can see that some pictures are worse than others...they go away again.
5. With this method, I am pretty consistent, and usually are left with about 10-15 pictures per hour of shot.

[Macario]

This is a very dificult one. I personally do not really delete pictures. Just really moved or really out of focus ones. If a photo is just a little out of focus, it can still look good enough for the web, or even for a small album print.
Another reason why I do not delete too much is, I might not like a photo, but someone else might love it for some reason. Therefore, when shooting for someone, I will give all the photo´s and let them choose (maybe with my help). To say that as I am the photographer I know which shots are good and which aren´t is just plain arrogance.

When shooting just for me and I have to choose this is what I do. First of all I do delete all moved and out of focus shot.
Second, I put the the ones I think I will print or publish in a folder. The rest I will file.
The ones I want to print, I do process. But also there is some selection again. As one day a photo might look good to you, the next day it might and vica versa. This has also to do with your mood. So even when there is photo that doesn´t look to excellent, I will still leave it there, as it might be the mood I am in that makes me see it that way.
Then the photo´s I filed which I didn´t want to print. Also those I do not delete, as one day I might be working on a series. And in those filed photo´s might be one that on it´s own is´t that great, but might complement a series (has happend to me more than ones), and also here the mood factor comes into play.

[Macario]

vonBaloney: True. I mostly delete the clearly out of focus shots and keep the always there shots. I may rate these almost there shots or mark them for deletion in Lightroom. I'd rather keep one too many photos than delete too much.

reeftool: I have one particular photo printed in 15x10cm. It's small, but still. I've mostly looked at it on the monitor and although I like it, I didn't feel it was "there" when it comes to technicalities. I looked at the photo after a while and was a bit stunned how well it looked on photopaper - and this just adds to the complexity of rating well.

This photo - as said, it's not *bad*, but if you enlarge it, some horrible lens characteristics will show.

This, along with my new profile pic are some of the few photos that really made me think twice about how I rate. I did more self-portraits and my previous favorite was very similar but with better. Both from flash and a nice touch of ambient as well. But I didn't like it when I chose it as my avatar on various sites. Had a look at all of exposures again using the exclude-all-bad-ones-first technique and landed with this new one, and now I also have a much much better feeling about it.

I've read mood can affect how you rate and this doesn't surprise me. Mood has been affecting my music and movies taste for a long time so why not images - I'd just like a better method of rating so I can avoid or reduce the number of times I keep finding new favorites.

Always just enlarge as much as you can, so if it good for 20x30, don´t go 45x30.

[Zafar Iqbal]

I think I have a good and solid workflow - I'm also very careful not to delete too much, however what gets deleted in Lightroom isn't lost forever as I keep backups of the initial import.

Macario: My confusion is revolved around the same thing - I might like something but someone else might no, or vice versa.

As my gallery pages are getting more and more populated I'm thinking more and more about being critical about what to upload. But this gets tricky especially when it comes to event related shootings. Such images could have memories attached to them and therefor have meaning to someone - but not me.

That's the really fuzzy area though, and I'm not sure it really relates to rating photos although they are being picked for a purpose.

I suppose one of the problems is for me to figure about what I really want. I want to display what I like doing but I also want others to enjoy them - those two doesn't necessarily go hand in hand, or I haven't found the solution yet of how to do that.

[Bruce]

I suppose one of the problems is for me to figure about what I really want. I want to display what I like doing but I also want others to enjoy them - those two doesn't necessarily go hand in hand, or I haven't found the solution yet of how to do that.

You have answered your own question (in a round about kind of way) you can try and please yourself, or you can try and please others. The first approach is easy, you know what you like in a photo (and some, but not usually all, will like this as well). However, if you try and please others, well this approach is frought with danger because you then have to think about lots of different perspectives all at the same time. Yes, rules of composition and lighting will get you some of the way, but you can't see inside another persons head and 'know' what they like.

My advice, for what it is worth, use your technical knowledge to create the art that you like and let others sit back and admire your work!

[dadipentak]

I'd like to help you out but I don't have any wisdom on this. I just bite the bullet and do the best I can. I delete about half of what I shoot, process about a third of the remainder and post/print about half of what I process.