Do you keep everything?

[d2creative]

Example...

I shot a concert and ended up with over 340 pics. Then i went thru them all in Photo Mechanic and tagged my keepers. Then I processed about 2/3rds of those keepers, saving them into seperate folders of psd and jpg. My question is what would you do with all those original raw files that never got tagged as keepers? Do you still keep them? Delete them? What?

[photosbymorgan2]

I keep all my raw files even if I have not tagged them to be printed. I have found that when I go back thru the old files that I find some I decide I want to work on and have printed even though I didn't initially. Plus with new processes I learn over time with Photoshop, I have found ways to salvage some photos I thought were loosers or at least make them into more artistic type of photos that I can print and try to sell.

[Tim Gray]

I'm the opposite - if it doesn't pass the "invest time to work on it" test it get trashed. I'm generating new material in enough volume that I don't think keeping the loosers is worth the storage or time for me...

Having said that - there are circumstances - eg when I've been on a special trip that my standards of what to work up are lower than for the 10th time I've shot in a local location and so I end up keeping a much higher %...

BTW I shoot raw, and archive the raw and ultimate jpg - not tif - but that's a different story.

[Alice Morrison]

Originally Posted by d2creative

Example...

I shot a concert and ended up with over 340 pics. Then i went thru them all in Photo Mechanic and tagged my keepers. Then I processed about 2/3rds of those keepers, saving them into seperate folders of psd and jpg. My question is what would you do with all those original raw files that never got tagged as keepers? Do you still keep them? Delete them? What?

I keep far too much, and it's just because I'm so short of time. That's one reason I can't find a program robust enough to handle the number of files I have.

New hard drive every month...

[bevilaquafoto]

I wouldn't suggest keeping absolutely everything, but I do archive my raw files. Just because it's like saving negatives. I can go back and "print" something a number of different ways. Also, as my skills get better and better, and as the software gets better you might get something out of the raw file that you did not before. I do NOT keep everything on my hard drive, or external drive. I burn everything to DVD, label them carefully, and store them in books. After a point, however, I am going to need Extensis Portfolio to track everything. I need to keep track for stock purposes, and for clients who have a tendency to lose stuff.

[Mark Thomas]

I shoot concerts as well and know how you feel. I always keep everything - even the ones I don't feel are keepers. I have often put my keepers to one side and the band/performer looked at the other pics and chose some of them. I don't ever throw away pics because the clients don't think like us and choose pics we don't think are any good.

Cheers

[Oikku]

I also tend to keep far too much! But it is just like someone earlier said, customers see pics different way. When you throw something away it is sure that then someone wants to buy just that pic I try to burn all raw files into DVD:s and keep them like negatives but still there are too many pics in my computer. ACDSees ability to list DVD:s and show the images of pics in them is btw really nice! At the moment I have 1,5 terabytes hard disk space and it keeps growing :-\. Luckily there are Lacies BigDisks ... but still... now I start to be short of usb-plugs... endless story.

Oikku
www.oikkus.com

[georgek]

One of my pet projects is to create an unlimited archive exhibition process-no names no pack drill otherwise i will probably be booted off but I'm curious would that be a popular feature.

[scoundrel1728]

I keep all of my originals EXCEPT those in which I have a near-duplicate with better technical quality, e.g., freer or camera motion or defocus blur, or which are too messed up with blur to be salvageable.

[Michele]

After I come back from out shooting the first thing I do is make a copy of all the images I shot in raw onto a CD labeled originals for that day. *Then I go through them and pick out the keepers and edit them and then i save them to a CD that is labeled edited for that day. However, since I have edited and kept just about every photo that I like, I have a ton of edited photos and I think that is why i get so far behind on editing (only throwing out bad ones and or ones I don't like). *Well now I will just be making my keepers ones that I want to print and i think I might do something with/use, but will always have all the originals. *I need to tight down on my keepers. *

[Neil V]

I keep pretty much everything except for the total garbage. Hard drive space is cheap! Everything I capture is in RAW, the top 10% get immediately converted to 16-bit TIFF's for futher consideration, ie; printing and online display.

The reason I like to keep some of the not-so-great captures is that they can be fantastic for photo-art projects where slightly out of focus doesn't matter and actually helps!

[JDArt]

Originally Posted by Neil Vanderwolf

Hard drive space is cheap!

This may be true, but it's not been easy for me to find housings for 5-10 hard drives. Where do you *put* them?

[Neil V]

Originally Posted by JDArt

This may be true, but it's not been easy for me to find housings for 5-10 hard drives. Where do you *put* them?

Four internal, two external, gives me what I need thus far.

SATA is hot swappable so when I need to I will just swap drives on the fly but by then I will probably just build a simple server for my network with LOTS o'space.

[JDArt]

Originally Posted by Neil Vanderwolf

Four internal, two external, gives me what I need thus far.

SATA is hot swappable so when I need to I will just swap drives on the fly but by then I will probably just build a simple server for my network with LOTS o'space.

Just don't get into digital video. Then you're really in trouble storage-wise.

[metalstorm]

Originally Posted by JDArt

This may be true, but it's not been easy for me to find housings for 5-10 hard drives. Where do you *put* them?

There are server cases out there that hold 20+ drives in 4U housings.* If you can afford 20 drives just to store photos, then the rest of the file server should come easy.

example http://www.aicipc.com/productDetail.asp?id=28 for your 5 to 10 drive example.* 2U 12 drive case.

[Paul Shields]

I always attempt to remove (i.e. delete) 80-90% of shots from a days shoot - it's too easy for me to get bogged down with loads of variations of the same shot, so some ruthlessness is a good habit to form.

[rsprouse]

I'm in the camp of "hard drives are cheap - I don't have time to cull and fret about what I might someday want back."

I have found that even crummy pictures of yesteryear can have value later.

-- Russ

[dmacgee]

I find I'm keeping all me RAW files from my 7D, although I tend to vet them on the camera the day I shoot and delete the obviously useless ones. For the most part these aren't very many, the blurred pans and out of focus birds that refuse to stay still I keep and file in my potential background folder. I'll sometimes use these in PS blend layers or when I'm going for some sort of effect.

Currently I'm archiving these to CD until I pick up a DVD burner. Once I have the burner I'm going to archive to gold disks and make a second set to keep off-site. I find with the KM MRW files I can normally fit 79 or 80 on a CD. After I've burned the CD I print low res contact (index) sheets and file them in a binder.

Dave