I find myself in the position of needing to go back and delete some photos (gasp!) in order to free up space on my computer. I have an external back-up drive too, and for simplicity, organization, and plain honesty I do not need to keep many of them.
I started with my deleting task at 2013 and find it easy to delete non-people pics, just keeping a few. I think the "problem" with my storage started in Feb 2016 when I started shooting in RAW.
Any words of wisdom or advice on this project? Are there digital "hoarders" out there? Maybe I should add more storage?
Storage is so inexpensive, so since starting 365, I change external drives each year. I use Lightroom to maintain a catalogue so it is easier to find the photo as I learned that no matter how organized I was by date or topic, I wouldn't remember from year to year what those topics were or when specifically a photograph was taken. Each portable external drive is backed up to a larger external drive when I back up my computer (except I just realized I haven't done this all summer -- eek!). There are far more sophisticated systems you can set up for auto-backup, but I am not current on what those would be. Think of the amount of time it would take you to delete photos, the danger of having all photos on one drive if something happened to it, and the ease of purchasing 1T or more of storage. That's what led me to not worry about deleting old files for storage purposes and just add a drive each year.
@tracys@taffy@newbank -- joining this conversation with a big question: Who uses and recommends an online cloud-based backup? Because I work off line a lot, it could not be my main system but I'm thinking of this as the ultra-secure possibility ?
I back up everything then look at my PC and delete those shots that I don't like or want to show anybody. Also I work on three stages, record shot, one for a book if I was to do one, then yes I would blow this up and use it
I use Amazon Cloud for Photos. It is unlimited storage. If you have Prime it is free, if not it is $12 a year. I don't think you can find that much storage space for less. I am not sure Google photos is your answer.
The problem for me is not the cost of storage, but the work it takes to find the picture I want / a good picture of X when it is surrounded by 100 bad pictures of X or 50 virtually identical pictures of X. So rather than spend the time deciding which one is the best EVERY time I look for one of those 50, I have got more and more ruthless at deleting the other 49 the first time I make that decision, and saving the effort of looking at them again next time.
If I look at a picture and can see that realistically I'll never want to use it - either because it's bad, or because there's another similar picture in my collection that is better in every way - then I delete it.
@taffy How do you link the LR catalog with the external drive? You can still find the photos using the tags once they are off of your comupter and on the external drive?
I go through photos when I take them and either edit them or delete them. I'm getting good at deleting now, and only keep the ones I really like, with good focus etc. I have several external hard drives, and once I'm ready to take them off my laptop they get backed up onto a second hard drive so I always have two copies of them incase a hard drive fails.
It may not be the best system but it works for me!
@tracys I have a single LR catalogue so it lists all the photos from any drive. If I do a search and the photo is on a different external drive, it will still show up and I can see the date/year. If I want to work on the photo (export it or edit in another program), I need to attach that year's drive so the photo is actually accessible. If I'm doing something with it in LR, then the catalogue will save my changes until I plug in the relevant drive.
I also really need to find a better way to back up my photos - all of which are kept on my main desktop with a few backed up on an external hard drive. Backing up is a chore that I always seems to get neglected. So, thank you for the info on external storage.
But saying that, I do have an excellent system of storing photos. I have created different folders where I put my photos as I download them from my card - and name the folders so I can find a photo easily.
For example, I have Family, Pets, Friends, Farm, Nature, and the list goes on. Makes filing, and finding, a breeze!
BTW - I have even created a 365 folder that I have made my screensaver so all my pictures are rotated through.
@rkc I do this too. The only time I'll keep more than one of a similar photo is if it is something particularly precious that I took particularly badly! I know that sounds like a bad idea - but it helps me delete the other 49!
I rarely delete photos. I keep them on my computer, which has a huge hard drive. And, I also back them up on DVD and external hard drive. I arrange them by year and subject, such as football, boy scouts, Christmas, local, trips, iPhone, photo-a-day and photo-a-day edits.
This discussion has been very helpful. It is something I have been pondering for awhile, as I don't think my system is working very well. The issue of the LR catalog was one of concerns I had. @taffy Thank you Taffy for your information about how to do this.
I try to keep the original file name (IMG_####) associated with the image whenever/wherever I use it (eg on Fb, 365, Flickr, etc). Sometimes the easiest way for me to find a specific photo is to refer to a place I posted it (memorable) and then do a search for the #### on my hard drive.
Deleting became much easier after I adopted a 3 step method. I import photos from a day or a session into its own date coded folder. First step is marking for deletion during initial viewing LR because the failures are obvious. Then I process the best, moving the keepers to the 'keepers only' folder. For example if I shoot at the harbor 9 days in a row, those are imported into 9 folders. The keepers are moved to the Harbor folder which holds all shots taken at the harbor since I've lived here. Lastly, months or years later, I return to a folder of leftover imports, review and rate each one again. Some become keepers. I delete the rest.
I don't print, so I save storage space by converting many of my keepers to 8-bit tifs, downsized to fit my current monitor. I ones I keep the raws for are: special to me, could benefit from better editing technology or after I've become a better editor, would be printed if I ever started printing, I never get bored seeing when they appear on my screensaver slide show, and are noticeably degraded by the tif conversion.
I'm a hoarder too! ESPECIALLY of the babies! Taffy's right - external storage is affordable now. A couple weeks ago my heart sunk to my toes when I thought I'd lost my 2TB external, which has all my shots from 2015 and 2016. They are backed up NOwhere else! And that external goes with me everywhere my laptop goes, so the risk is quite high. So I invested in an additional 5TB external and set it to back up both my laptop plus any externals, every night. Now, if something DOES unfortunately happen to my 2TB, the files are on my 5TB. And if you're using LR, the benefit of backing up the hard drive as opposed to simply making a 2nd copy of each photo is that you can restore the whole setup in the identical format, and LR will not notice the blip. Btw, you ARE backing up your catalogue and presets, RIGHT?????
@shesnapped I really have a tough time deleting baby pics, even when it's nothing great at all. We have an external hard drive that backs itself up daily and automatically gets my photos from my computer (my husband is good with technology thankfully). I worry about having them all in one place too. I'm going to look into a large external drive for my own use too. I'm actually not currently backing up my catalog (not even sure how to do it), and I guess I don't have presets. I also will ask hubby about backing up the drive instead of each photo. Thank you.
@shesnapped I wanted to let you know that you inspired me to get my LR catalog organized and backed-up. I didn't realize its importance when I first started using PSE (2013), so I haven't been consistent with tagging at all. For the past week and a half I have managed to go back through ALL of my photos, tag them all, get rid of ones that don't need to be kept, and back up everything. Phew! It was a huge task, but I am so happy that I did it. Thank you for responding to this thread. :-)
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Thanks for any words of wisdom!
If I look at a picture and can see that realistically I'll never want to use it - either because it's bad, or because there's another similar picture in my collection that is better in every way - then I delete it.
It may not be the best system but it works for me!
But saying that, I do have an excellent system of storing photos. I have created different folders where I put my photos as I download them from my card - and name the folders so I can find a photo easily.
For example, I have Family, Pets, Friends, Farm, Nature, and the list goes on. Makes filing, and finding, a breeze!
BTW - I have even created a 365 folder that I have made my screensaver so all my pictures are rotated through.
I don't print, so I save storage space by converting many of my keepers to 8-bit tifs, downsized to fit my current monitor. I ones I keep the raws for are: special to me, could benefit from better editing technology or after I've become a better editor, would be printed if I ever started printing, I never get bored seeing when they appear on my screensaver slide show, and are noticeably degraded by the tif conversion.