old and new shots what do you do with yours?

[spudhead]

Since it is so quite on here, I was looking through some old shots for the last few days, I re-edited some and dumped some, I have tended to keep them at least since the Sony days, some of the reason is to judge if the newer shots are better and also with the idea of re- editing at some point, and it is nice to look back and see how the tech and hopefully I have learned from mistakes I previously made, because after all it must have cost me a small fortune to take the few thousand shot I have kept.
So what do you do with your shots old and new, is it all about the next shot or do you keep old shots? all welcome

 

[Brownie]

If you mean editing only, and the new one looks better, I keep it and dump the old one. I almost always keep the RAW, but not every time. I tend to clean things out and get rid of stuff that won't have any impact if gone.

 

[iain clyne]

I keep old and new as I sometimes go back and redo some when the software gets updated. I have been surprised how improvements in the software have changed the finished image.

 

[spudhead]

If you mean editing only, and the new one looks better, I keep it and dump the old one. I almost always keep the RAW, but not every time. I tend to clean things out and get rid of stuff that won't have any impact if gone.

I did not mean just re-editing, just asking generally, like you I keep all the raw shots that look ok, and sometimes a couple of edits of the shots, but it became apparent to me the other day that I should clear out some shots that are beyond help

 

[iamdlewis]

I generally only keep RAWs of what I have edited when new. Some of those I will go back and redo an edit from time to time keeping the newer JPG unless I have done something very different with it.

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

Sometimes I look back at the old pictures and cringe

 

[Brownie]

Sometimes I look back at the old pictures and cringe

As do we all, or at least those who will admit it!

 

[Ralph]

I use to keep every shot I took. So now I am going through my early day shots and deleting them.
The shot of today are looked and deleted right away and I also have a bad habit of getting the back of birds.
So I delete all but one back shot as I think I need one shot at least.
I have gain back so much space doing this.

 

[Merlinator]

I often go back in my catalog and delete old images if I have a better shot. I have a hard time deleting a sharp shot and that practice has led to a lot of re-edits of images. I am probably in the minority but I like editnig photos. Lightroom and photoshop just keep getting better and better as do I

 

[liggy]

I buy more backup drives.

Seriously though I've been running some of my old images through Topaz and have been pleased.

 

[Uncle Kevriano]

I have jpegs of every digital image I have processed, and for the last 5 years have kept the Raw and PSD files for them too. Everything I don't process gets trashed. I have several external hard drives.

 

[Deleted Member 5045]

My photos that end up being worthy of a full edit, I keep those raws on a separate drive. All the rest I delete within a day or two.

 

[Landshark99]

I have kept most every thing to a fault, keep promising my self that one day I will go through all the file drawers transparencies, and negs, as well as the multiple hds of digital files and cull most of them, some day. With new images I keep all the raws unless they are hopeless

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

I need to go through and delete duplicates and bad shots. I reckon I could cut my storage in half if I were thorough...

 

[Brownie]

I have kept most every thing to a fault, keep promising my self that one day I will go through all the file drawers transparencies, and negs, as well as the multiple hds of digital files and cull most of them, some day. With new images I keep all the raws unless they are hopeless

I scanned all my negatives, slides, photos and 8mm movies and tossed out the originals. I also digitized my video tapes. Everything went in the trash. If you think it wasn't difficult tossing my family's old 8mm movies in the garbage, you'd be wrong. It was gut wrenching. All of that stuff is saved in many places in my house as well as across the country in family member's homes.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

I buy more backup drives

Me too.

Most of my photography is local carntatic (South-Indian classical) music concerts. As such, good bad and indifferent, it does form something of a historical record. There's heaps of music here, and only two or three of us regular amateur photographers covering. At some time, we ought to talk about making sure our pics do survive us, rather than falling into the digital-deceased grave. Hmm, I'm the eldest by at least 20 years. (but the junior as a photographer)

But as to ever going through it and sorting out those good, bad, indifferent: there are tens of thousands of snaps and it isn't going to get done.

I have jpegs of every digital image I have processed, and for the last 5 years have kept the Raw and PSD files for them too.

Of late I've been shooting raw+jpeg and not getting around to deleting the camera jpegs. I should house-keep this.

 

[spudhead]

Ok so how many images do you lot have stored? what is your best guess on what you have stored mine is possibly 5-6 terabytes and a good few of those are the same images with different crops and editing applied

 

[Uncle Kevriano]

Ok so how many images do you lot have stored? what is your best guess on what you have stored mine is possibly 5-6 terabytes and a good few of those are the same images with different crops and editing applied

Around 6 TB in total at the moment.

 

[Brownie]

I have less than 1/2T because I purge whatever isn't going to get processed.

 

[spudhead]

I have less than 1/2T because I purge whatever isn't going to get processed.

 

[Brownie]

It would set you free Spud!

I was poking around last night looking for some old high-ISO shots to play with DxO. As I went through the drive I deleted entire folders of stuff that I thought I wanted to keep at the time, but now realize they haven't been viewed again since I processed them. OUT THEY GO! I cleared a couple more gigs off the drive.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Ok so how many images do you lot have stored?

Only a couple of TB. You are way ahead of me, but I suspect you are also way ahead of me in years of serious photography.

I used to delete the raws when I was happy with my edited jpegs. Now I have gone raw-based I haven't decided the policy.

I resize to 1920*1280 for sharing. I think I should keep all those + raw and delete the full size JPGs (two sets, recently). They can always be recreated if anyone wants. 1920*1280 is fine for me viewing.

 

[iain clyne]

I've got about 10-15tb, I haven't counted them but a lot is from when I was a working pro.

 

[AlphaWorld]

I lost all of the images I ever took on film. That incident made me determined not to lose my digital images. Probably a bit of an over-reaction.

I think I still have most, if not all, of the images I shot on DSLR and Sony, and it is terabytes (have not counted how many). Should probably toss a lot of it. Funny part is that the older stuff occupies so much less space, having being shot on cameras with 8Mp or 12Mp or even (wow!) 21Mp.

 

[Slug]

I'm pretty savage on the delete button but keep all of what I like in jpeg format with a few specials in RAW.
My protocol now is to shoot RAW to slot 1 and Jpeg slot 2 do almost all of my sorting with the Jpegs and just select a few of the better ones to save from the RAW card. The saved folders are named in a way that can be searched easily and I have records on hard drives going back to when I started digital photography.
Prior to digital I shot all 35 mm slides which were a nightmare to sort as I produced audio visual presentations to various clubs and organisations of a mix of underwater and topside shots.
Once in order in a pair of cassettes, (I used twin projectors and fader control), I tried to keep them in order but invariably I pulled a few sets apart to build different slide shows. My slides now are all over a number of albums and cassette sets! (In a bit of a mess)

 

[spudhead]

It would set you free Spud!

I was poking around last night looking for some old high-ISO shots to play with DxO. As I went through the drive I deleted entire folders of stuff that I thought I wanted to keep at the time, but now realize they haven't been viewed again since I processed them. OUT THEY GO! I cleared a couple more gigs off the drive.

Big news Tim I deleted a couple of hundred saved images, still feeling dizzy

 

[Brownie]

Big news Tim I deleted a couple of hundred saved images, still feelings dizzy

Easy there...one step at a time. It's like drinking, you have to build up a tolerance!

I realized my initial post isn't accurate. I was citing the amount of space taken up on my drives, then realized I never transferred a handful of folders to them, plus all of my racing stuff. That would make the amount of space I have used a little over 1T. And this thread is a reminder that I need to get those images backed up before something bad happens.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

On another forum, I asked for advice on how to be better at culling. One member told me: Connect to your inner axe murderer.

Wise words

 

[JimsZ]

Well, having come from the old film and print days, I have a few suitcases full of old family prints mixed, assorted along with some a fully indexed, dated and descriptive albums. Love gettthem out to look at! To now having digitally saved thousands of pictures on my old lap top and backed up to CD, DVD etc. laptops not been fired up in the last year probably 3 !!.
Last check on my iPhone I hade over 10,000 pictures… memory was running low so I culled it down to a meagre 7,000…
I blame the fact I grew up having very few family photos from my younger years, so tend to like taking pictures of the family to share and keep…

Looking through them this week, it’s apparent I don’t have a digital system of saving the best, I tend to hold on to too many too long and don’t save the best to a storage platform.

It is just a hobby for me though…

Something to improve on in 2024

 

[RogerSmith]

I keep RAW for all my "keeper" images. Lately I have pulled a few that had higher ISOs to run through the Lightroom AI denoise, and really like the results.