Do you throw out slides?

[Rod Sorensen]

<p>As I reread the responses, it seems to me that people are answering this question from two different perspectives. In that light I'd like to clarify my earlier response. I toss a lot of my slides because they basically don't make my cut for being high enough quality to keep. I don't want to have to sort through mediocre quality slides a second time, nor do I want to have to catalog or store them. But I would NOT destroy a slide that was a keeper just because I had scanned it and stored it digitally. My keepers get kept forever. My losers go in the trash early.</p>

[Edwin Barkdoll]

Somewhere I have a slide of a trash can overflowing with slides that I finally culled. (I hope THAT slide made the cut because I can't find the scanned image).

[keith__richard_terry]

<p>I only throw out low quality ones i.e. out of focus, extreme over exposure etc. I still have several hundred to sort and archive, even quite a few to process. Maybe this winter ---<br>

What pains me most though, is not the ones I have to sort out, but the photos I NEVER TOOK ! Looking back over the years there are countless numbers of places I visited , vehicles I owned, and most importantly people, who I don't have photos of.<br>

Anyone can discard old slides, one can never go back to recapture the past.</p>

[peter_kervarec]

<p>Hi Chris, dont throw anything out yet. You have the benefit of all the digital convenience whereas I went through my slides about ten years ago and discarded a lot of them only to realise years later that scanners were much cheaper, software a lot smarter and therefore some slides could be turned into winners and those slides that didnt quite make it at the time could now be recropped, cloned etc and become very useful images. Even parts of images can be used. So be hesitant.</p>

[pmind]

<p>Thunk!! (That was the sound of my jaw hitting the ground). I doubt that I'll live long enough to see the day that I throw out my slides. I scan ALL of them, good and bad (well, okay, not the back of the lens cap shots). I just read that Steve McCurry has some 800,000 <em>Kodachrome</em> (alone) slides in his personal archive; although I suspect his keeper rate is somewhat higher than mine. In case anybody cares, that like 555 rolls a year for 40 years--or, one roll a day for 60.88 years.</p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>Sorry to tell you guys, but 99.9% of your pictures just aren't that important. If you don't throw them out before you die, you wife's next husband will. Including the so-called keepers.</p>

[steve m smith]

<blockquote>

<p>Sorry to tell you guys, but 99.9% of your pictures just aren't that important.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>An extra 0.1% on that figure is how many of mine are not important. They may be of some interest to others but definitely of no real importance.</p>

[Robin Smith]

<p>I agree with Alan and Steve: our slides are not important to anyone really other than to ourselves and I think it is a fantasy to assume they need to be treasured like works of art.</p>

<p>Steve McCurry's collection is the result of 40 years of professional assignments so they represent his livelihood and his source of income - he has more of a reason to keep his than most of us. Even if he does have 800,000 Kodachromes I still cannot imagine that more than 10% ever see the light of day or are sold as stock images.</p>

[User_4136860]

<p>I throw them out, otherwise after shooting them for more than fifty years I wouldn't be able to get in my house for them.</p>

[brendan_hohls]

<p>I find that what works for me is to already do a quality control step when I decide what to mount. Anything that I find interesting or potentially useful down the road gets mounted. I have a slight catalogue on a spreadsheet (that is currently not up to date) where I categorise the slides acording to general and specific categories and I also have some quality codes for images that I may want to use for specific purposes. Of the slides that I have mounted - about 18 500 - I don't plan on throwing any out.<br>

Regards</p>

<p>Brendan</p>

[deborah_hooper]

<p>Hi, I am student from Kingston University, London and I am doing a project on the photos that people discard. If by any chance you still have the slides you wanted to discard would it be possible for me to have them, the project is solely for the university and will not be seen outside the facilities. My email is debshooper@hotmail.co.uk. <br>

I hope to hear from you. </p>

<p>Thanks Debs</p>