Do you save your "rejected" photos?

<p>So let's say you shoot a hundred photos and get 10 real "keepers". Do you delete the other 90, or keep them on your hard drive? It seems like it should be a no-brainer to delete them, but I find myself saving pretty much everything I shoot except for completely ruined pictures (like completely out of focus, etc.)</p>

<p>Personally, I delete them. But I understand the argument that storage is cheap and you might want to go back. For me, the images I delete are obviously unusable for me (out of focus etc). But there are those who never throw anything away (even their old newspapers). To each his own. </p>

<p>I tend too keep all the pictures except the really bad ones. georg</p>

<p>"but I find myself saving pretty much everything I shoot except for completely ruined pictures (like completely out of focus, etc.)"</p>

<p>I'm more-or-less the same: most of my deletions are in-camera. Once I've copied them over to my computer, the only thing I'll delete is total screw-ups: shots of feet, etc. Or once in a while if there's two shots of one subject and one's totally blurred, out-of-focus. Even then often I won't bother, just keep them all.</p>

<p>That said, I'm very low volume, and these are just personal.</p>

<p>I keep most everything except obvious screwups (lens cap on, left camera on "manual", forgot to change ISO, etc). But even with those, I only delete them if I think about it. All things considered, hard drive space is cheap.</p>

<p>And you never know when a photo you thought was junk might turn out to be important later. The most obvious example of this is Dirck Halstead's photo of Clinton hugging Monica Lewinsky:</p>

<p>http://digitaljournalist.org/issue9807/editorial.htm</p>

<p>While we aren't all likely to be in the position Dirck was, on some level it does apply to all of us.</p>

<p>As already mentioned storage is cheap so I keep everything except the obvious screw ups such as totally out of focus or whatever.</p>

<p>Shots that are only a bit OOF can still be used to mess around with in PS but for the most part I keep pretty much all (99%?) of my shots. Of course only the top 1% I'll post to my site. If the shot I posted isnt all that great its because I only got one or two shots of that subject/time and even though not the best, it was the only shots I got.<br>

I also shoot RAW+jpg so I'm saving two copies per photo I guess. I suppose I could start shooting RAW only....? Awww, storage is cheap...</p>

<p>I tend to delete all my pictures! :)</p>

<p>ALL??</p>

<p>Why take any then!?!</p>

<p>i rarely delete any thing, except as others indicated those that are of the ceiling.<br>

sometimes i will get an idea about how to process an image that i wasn't wild about, and also with time, interest and appreciation changes.<br>

that doesn't mean i use or work on everything taken, but since i only shoot in raw , i only convert an image i may use.<br>

i also keep 4 copies of everything which means separate external hard drives, but that is my decision. I recommend to my students that they have at least two copies but don't expect them to do 4.</p>

<p>The only RAW files I delete are the truly unusable ones - really bad exposure, focus, or other issues.</p>

<p>At the end of the year I revisit my shots from the previous months and I often find several that I overlooked or didn't "see" in the right way earlier. Disk storage space is cheap - I'd rather err on the side of caution.</p>

<p>Dan</p>

<p>I find it's more trouble to delete any "original" images than just pay the price in a bit more backup space and time. I copy the initial "keepers" to a working directory and process them. Often I'll send a set of every shot to an editor/client for them to pick the ones they like.</p>

<p>Max, if you don't, your kids will, sooner or later: know what you mean ;)</p>

<p>Storage may be cheap but time is money and finite. Unless there's an actual chance that a redundant image will be needed at some point, it goes. Sorting through needless and redundant rejects, even for a short time is just not worthwhile. At least to me.</p>

<p>If I cannot tell if something might be needed I'll let it stay in hard drive storage then revisit like Dan does. Then I decide if they go on the needless and/or redundant list again. Picture with people in them are less likely to make the list for various reasons.</p>

<p>I save rejected photos for about six month and then review again. I edit them down and look at them again in another few months before deleting for good.</p>

<p>I never delete the original...and yes, I also back up all originals. I just figure, I never "deleted" any film originals, why should I want to delete a digital original? It don't take up that much room, especially at today's Hard Disk and DVD prices. Plus, I've had way too many that I come back later and find to be much better than I originally thought.</p>

<p>As far as it being too hard to sift thru a mass of digital files that are not that good to get to the truely good ones................try doing it with film/contact sheets.........digital is way easier in that respect.</p>

<p>I happily delete about 50%-70% of the images I take. My personal opinion is, that cheaply stored and cheaply backuped junk still ist junk.</p>

<p>Rejects are rejects - gone forever! Junk is junk! Too much data, too much confusion, it drags down the quality of your work, it keeps you back from raising your standards, it creates unnecessary extra work, makes archiving, organizing, renaming more time-consuming and difficult.</p>

<p>I always seem to find it difficult to delete an original but i do have storage problems particularly when i'm traveling (which is 80% of the time). <br>

But this raises another question how do you store your raw files? what system do you use to find and retrieve the photos more easily? i find keep filing them by date of shoots but that becomes very difficult to find if i dont remember exactly when i took the shot i'm looking for. There must be a better system, and /or software to file and retrieve photos</p>

<p>Brett: Absolutely agree!</p>

<p>I'm not an insanely organized person. I try, but it's too much time and effort to deal with the rejects if I leave them hanging around. The thing with digital is that it encourages you to press the button because it's just data, not some irreversible chemical reaction taking place on some tangible substrate. It's so much easier to record vast quantities of information that the flip side is you actually end up taking a lot more photos than you would have if you were using film. There's nothing wrong with culling some of those shots. That doesn't necessarily mean you only keep the best few images, but it does mean you make a decision right away whether or not you're going to deal with it, rather than leave it lying around only to confuse you later--as in, which of the 50 different versions of this one subject did I like the most? Maybe that's what photo organizing software is for, but I've never really felt like checking a box or giving a picture a five-star rating does much for my perceptual sanity--I still have to wade through all the other junk shots somewhere. It's just better to be done with them.</p>

<p>Don't look back. Look forward. That thing you're holding in your hands is a camera, not a time machine.</p>

<p>One of the joys of digital photography for me is it encourages me to shoot away without worrying about what the outcome will be. If I don't like the image, it's deleted. Of course, I'm not shooting a presidential event either.</p>

I don't delete nearly enough. Occasionally I go on a rampage and cull, but the task has become so daunting that I am shoveling sand against the tide.

<p>I delete when I'm running low on disk space. With storage getting cheaper, it is more expensive to take the time to cull than to leave the files on the drive--unless they are obviously worthless.</p>

<p>It is probably more rational to take the time to "clean house" from time to time, but I find myself doing that less and less.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>I usually keep all except the obviously out-of-focus ones, mainly because I've been too lazy to go through all my image folders to review and delete all the non-keeper images.</p>

<p>Well, if I determine a photo as "rejected".... :)<br>

Seriously, if you're stuck, you could keep a seperate library of the rejected or iffy stuff, so they won't get in the way of your daily tasks, and keep you working library light, fast and useable.</p>

<p>I keep everything on DVD and hard drive backup. I might do some deletions in camera of shots that are completely bad, other than that I keep everything. I hoard every other type of film/photo so why not digital as well? :) If the photos are project related I will tend to delete more. If they are family related then I keep them no matter what. Anything that is very important to me gets printed on glossy paper as well. I suppose I'll drown in prints before I run out of hard drive space. </p>

<p>You never know if you might find something useful in your rejects at a later date. I have gone back through old stuff and found shots that I like, but rejected because they didn't fit what I was looking for at that time. Sometimes a shot doesn't stand up on it's own as a photo but is a good intergration into another piece of art work. Also, when ever I am feeling down about the work that I am doing, I'll go back and look at photos that I took 6 months to 1 year in the past and compare. That usually recenters my attitude. </p>

<p>Katherine</p>