For example: I have a great set from Xmas with a coworker opening his gift from me. The various expressions that his face goes through are priceless. If I were to choose one to print though, it would just be the final shot where he's holding up his present with a big smile.
The other shots are kept only so I can re-experience the situation in the future. Are they great shots? No. Am I keeping them to show other people? No. Will I be deleting them? Definitely not.
Right, but I specifically explained that there are exceptions, and your exaple is one of them:
"There are exceptions to this rule of course - often times, especially with photos of human/animal subjects shot in rapid succession, you can capture spontaneous moments and the entire series of photos tells the story."
I'm thinking more of the examples that I mentioned in my article: 20 photos of the beach, 10 photos of palm trees, 30 photos of the family dog sitting in different positions but that are all basically the same...that sort of thing. ;-)
As far as future generations go, I hate to say it, but I'm really not shooting for them. I'm primarily shooting for me. I don't expect future generations to sort through 50 pictures of my cat, even if I've culled them down from 500. :lol:
Well, tell ya' what, email me in 50 years and tell me if you're happy you kept the 500 photos of your cat because when in your retirement you decide to organize your 185,098 total photos. :lol:
I guess the real reason I keep the old, unedited files is because:
"You never know"
Guess I'm just a packrat. I also have all too-many memories of deleting data because space was at a premium. Now that that's not an issue, I guess I just can't get myself to delete anything, especially not 'for my own good'. :P
I guess the real reason I keep the old, unedited files is because: "You never know"
Cool with me. My goal with this article wasn't to change anyone's mind or MAKE people delete their images, I just wanted to encourage people to think about their digital photography collections more. 8)
I see what you are saying. We just got a paperbox full of pictures from the inlaws a few months back and I've been having a heck of a time organizing them. I found myself saying, "Why did they keep these?" for some of the shots (there are literally solid black photos). It never occured to me that I do the exact same thing, just digitally.
Still, I want to keep everything, but think of that as an archive of source material. My actually gallaries, etc should be made up of culled materials and I should never be going back to the source stuff. Also, I really need to invest in something like photoshop elements so I can clean up the pictures I do have (nice job on the one you did).
So what I will probably start doing is this. Make two copies of everything (I can already hear Jason screaming in agony). One copy is just an archive of everything that ideally never needs to be touched again, but this is the source material and should be kept. The second set gets culled, cleaned-up, etc. and this is what I show and is the shiny end product and is what most people will be intested in seeing..
We just got a paperbox full of pictures from the inlaws a few months back and I've been having a heck of a time organizing them. I found myself saying, "Why did they keep these?" for some of the shots (there are literally solid black photos). It never occured to me that I do the exact same thing, just digitally.
Wow - I couldn't have asked for a better example! ;-) Yeah, that's exactly what I was saying. Moreso, the question becomes, will you look back 20 years from now and wonder what YOU were thinking with keeping photos that should have been culled? ;-)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Gohlke
Also, I really need to invest in something like photoshop elements so I can clean up the pictures I do have (nice job on the one you did).
Thanks. Photoshop Elements 4.0, Auto Fix at 15% or so, resized to fit our forums.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Gohlke
Make two copies of everything (I can already hear Jason screaming in agony). One copy is just an archive of everything that ideally never needs to be touched again, but this is the source material and should be kept. The second set gets culled, cleaned-up, etc. and this is what I show and is the shiny end product and is what most people will be intested in seeing..
Nope, no screaming in agony here. ;-) I personally don't want to keep a second copy of unedited photos, but I can understand where you're coming from, and ultimately this article has gotten you think more about how you keep your photos, which is a good thing!
Personally, I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that MS's promises of a 'fuzzy' search engine will actually pan out.
One of the reasons I keep a lot of my photos is because I never know when I might need a picture of the sun or a rose to use as clipart. Sometimes that's not what I'm photographing: The subject is out of focus, but that rose right next to them came out perfect; I was trying to shoot the moon, but instead the branches in the foreground came out perfect. I was actually shooting the subject, so technically it's not a good photo, but I'm still not going to discard it.
I can't wait until I can search for any photo of a rose and have the search engine find it without relying on me putting the word 'rose' in the filename.
One of the reasons I keep a lot of my photos is because I never know when I might need a picture of the sun or a rose to use as clipart.
Hmm. Interesting, that's not something I've ever considered (seems like a longshot at best). Still, wouldn't you want to crop the photo and save it as "branches" or something? If there's a good element in the photo that you want to keep, don't you want to "extract" it somehow?
I think Jason makes a great point here, and I fully agree with him. Having shot a lot of photos for quite a few years (this is with trannies and not digital), I find that holding on to photos that aren't particularly good or extra shots a waste of time and space.
Myself, I don't cull as much now since I only shoot what I think might come out well. I still keep a few imperfect shots, particularly those I want to remember. This is especially true for photos taken during a nice holiday.
For more serious work I am big in editing. I personally don't like sitting in front of the computer editing my photos, so I try to keep only the nice photos, and down to a manageable size that says what I want to say.
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Baka. Soku. Zan. - The justice behind the dysORDer.
I thought of another one of my own personal motivations for culling: since I have all my photos on all my PCs, and the Xbox 360 is connected to my PC, it's really important for me to be able to fire up Picasa on any PC, or the photo viewer on the Xbox 360, and be able to show someone photos from my trip and not have to say "Oh, uh, ignore that blurry one, and pretend there aren't four photos of the same thing here". I did that once with some photos from Europe and it was painful having to present an un-organized group of photos. It was equally painful for the people I was showing the photos to. Ideally I like to take the time to create a customized photo presentation for the occasion, but since I don't always have the time to do that, it's important for me to have my photos organized.
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