[Rondec]

I have been voting on photos on PPG and it strikes me how bad most of us are at self-editing. So many of the photos I take are just snaps, nothing more or less. They are OK for my own photo albums, but I certainly don't feel that they merit showing to others.

It seems as though some people will go on a trip and up load nine or ten photos to PPG to be voted on. It would seem like it would be better if they could choose one or maybe two photos that they thought were their best work and upload those.

So the question I have is do you self-edit and if so how? How do you choose between three similar photos -- all of which you like? How do you make certain that you don't like your photos just because they are your own work?

[Digitalis]

I throw out a lot of images, Mainly because from a compositional/technical point of view..they just don't work.

I always ask myself "am I going to print this?..is it WORTH it?"...if I say yes, it's off to being converted into a tiff...if not, I can keep it or delete it.

[Canada_Rockies]

The first stage in my editing process is to chuck anything where the focus and exposure are not perfect, unless the image for some reason is one I want to keep despite the errors, such as my (in)famous whale shot. I don't show it to others, though, except to a group of friends, such as you who are reading this.

The second stage in my process is to go through the images in Lighrroom and use the [X] key to mark all but the best in a group of images of the same thing. I often shoot several (or many) versions of the same image. I may bracket exposure, try slightly different angles, whatever. One or two will be keepers. The rest get X'd. [Ctrl][BackSpace] takes care of them.

[ryan s]

I agree with the other guys who already posted...I delete a lot...

As far as choosing...I think I can usually find something about one that stands out above the others. Like the other day...I took about 5 pics of the same bird in rapid succession. The one that's best actually has a bush right in the (cropped) frame since the light was right, it was looking at me, the sharpest, etc.

[OregonJim]

Yeah, I struggle with self-editing too.

My wife will tell you I'm a packrat. I don't like to get rid of things - including photos. There are many that I *should* delete, but don't. About the only things I delete immediately are white balance calibration shots, accidental snaps from hitting the shutter release as I'm picking up the camera, and unsalvageable focus/exposure errors.

The "winners" get printed, and everything else gets stored for a later look. Somehow I tell myself that maybe I'll see a better way to crop or otherwise improve a shot if I put it away and look at it later. That rarely happens. I wish I could be more decisive.

[Cosmo]

I don't think the thread starter asked how do you choose which to keep/edit. I think he/she ment how do you choose one photo from 5-10 final edited photos. If you do a shoot with a model, how do you choose the final image you use out of the 10 other potential images you could use.

For me, I'm not sure. Some just feel right, they may not be technically perfect, but they just capture exactly the mood/scene I wanted, or it showed someones personality perfectly.

I am horrible at the edit... I shoot so many shots that I should not even shoot... that is where I could imediatly improve the 'edit' process...

I have got to get better at it as it takes too long to go thru them all... that is the most frustrating point in the hobby for me... down loading 400 pics and slowly going thru each of them to end up with 10!

-SELF EDIT - You are right Cosmo, I think I read it wrong... but even here I could not edit my original comment... you can see how bad I am at it!

[Canada_Rockies]

I am horrible at the edit... I shoot so many shots that I should not even shoot... that is where I could imediatly improve the 'edit' process...

I have got to get better at it as it takes too long to go thru them all... that is the most frustrating point in the hobby for me... down loading 400 pics and slowly going thru each of them to end up with 10!

-SELF EDIT - You are right Cosmo, I think I read it wrong... but even here I could not edit my original comment... you can see how bad I am at it!

All though I am not as anal about taking only the perfect shots as I was with film, I still try to edit in the viewfinder. I also have to be very careful with exposure and focusing to avoid going through a huge number of images when a dozen would have covered it.

For those who want to cut down on the editing, turn the drive mode to single. Start going for the peak moment rather than relying on the camera to take 3 frames a second for 10 seconds in the hopes that one of the shots will be good.

[mutedphotos]

My first two years or so of shooting I was the typical "shoot everything" sort of guy. Now I'm much more apt to "pre-edit" in the sense that I'm better able to see that the shot I'm about to take isn't going to be that good. So I take much fewer images these days than I used to, but I like to think I'm getting a higher percentage of "keepers"

That said, I keep almost every shot I take, but I'm a pretty brutal self-editor in terms of what I think is worth putting online/printing/submitting somewhere. Of the ~11,000 images I have in my LR catalogue, I only like maybe 0.5% of them (yikes, saying that makes me feel like a terrible photographer!)

[mickeyobe]

I shot film for about 60 years - mostly slides. To me it was always expensive and I was very careful with each shot. I checked aperture, shutter speed, focus, composition and lighting.

Now that I am a digital shooter I find that unless I make a special effort my photos are not as well thought out as previously and, usually, not as good.

Yes. I self edit but I would have precious little to show if I were half as critical as I should be.

So, I resolve .........

Mickey

[code4code5]

I wrestle with the decision to "click away" every time I pick up the camera. I often end up with too many photos that don't mean anything and ending up taking 11mb of precious space on the hard drive. I constantly remind myself, when I want something more than a snap shot, to slow myself down and take it step by step. For that reason, I really should pick up my K1000 every now and again and remember how to think about things.

One thing that I've done to help slow me down is to use manual lenses more. AF is nice, but having to take the time to focus and thinking about the depth of field of the given f-stop gives me pause.

[OregonJim]

I don't think the thread starter asked how do you choose which to keep/edit. I think he/she ment how do you choose one photo from 5-10 final edited photos[...]

You're right Cosmo - somehow I got sidetracked...

The answer the OP's question, if I have trouble selecting, I usually ask one of a few trusted friends to give me an opinion. Then I try to go with their pick rather than second guess. Usually works well.

[Rondec]

It is some of both. I think that I am a little bipolar when it comes to photography. Some days I think that all of my photos are killer and I'd like to set up a gallery to show everyone else and other days, I could just format my hard drive, because they all look the same and there is nothing particularly special about them.

It is hard to be objective about "art." And I am not even certain that it is art, but whatever it is, choosing which files to delete at the end of the day, whether it is choosing between five similar photos or, fifty different photos is hard.

I have started deleting more and more over time. I start by throwing out any photos that are poorly shot, blurry, etc Then, I ask myself the question "Will I want to look at this photo again in 6 months?" If the answer is no, then out it goes.