[nichpr]

Are you the "Photo Editor from hell" for your own portfolio or do you take the easy way out and just "keep everything"?

Do you think that keeping shots that are less than your best dilutes the overall quality of your portfolio?

I ran across a very insightful and interesting discussion of this topic on a photographer's web site recently. On this site she provides her definition of the differences between:
Snapshots
Decorative Art
Fine Art
Commercial Art and
Journalistic Photography

She also talks about "Shooting from the right side of the brain" - getting past the technical aspects of photography and focusing on the creative.

Her lessons are loaded with photo examples of good vs bad composition and how to tell if a photo is "artistic".

Cindy Chadwick's Art of Photography Free Online Lessons

Take a look and you may find that you see and edit your shots differently afterwards.

[Dabhand16]

I think I do both. I don't delete anything, on the grounds that in the future you never know what you can use a shot for. However, I do keep a seperate potfolio of the better stuff.

I only ever show the selected stuff to anyone, so I don't think by keeping the originals on a CD somewhere it is diluting the quality of my portfolio. To the contrary, I think that on occasion, I can resurrect something from what I considered to be a failure into something that is really worthwhile, either by using a new or different processing technique, a mono conversion or just with a different crop, and that actually enhances the quality of my portfolio.

[Dave Canon]

I would consider a portfolio to be a selection of better pics often used by a model to help get work. Whereas I would only put a limited number of my photographs forward for competitions etc. I assume that you are asking about what we do with the rest.

I select at various stages. I only delete on Camera if I have obviously done something wrong and I am not pressed to take the next shot. So this might be 1 shot in 200. After transferring pics from my Camera to the hard drive, I initially quickly look at them in the Raw Viewer and delete an average of 1/3. It is not ususally because there is a technical problem but I purposely take several shots/angles and there is little point in keeping those that are clearly inferior. I then more carefully assess the remaining and mark 1, 2 or 3. Those I mark 1, I expect to get a potential competition picture from them and those I mark 2, are just short of this but OK. The rest are marked 3. Less than 5% are marked 1 and another 15% marked 2 so the majority are 3's. I rarely even covert RAW files maked 3 let alone any editing. I convert and edit all the 1's and about half of the 2's.

So I do retain just over half of my original RAW files and I could be more ruthless but storgae is cheap.

[Highgord]

I delete very little in camera, then download to the PC (I shoot in Raw). Later I review what I've taken and weed out the obvious rubbish and then leave it for a day or so and then have a more critical look and decide to keep everything until my HDD is full and then delete what I really should have got rid of in the first place! I save some unto an SD card and then use a digital photoframe to display my work at home until my family beg me to change contents of the card!

[Dave]

Now download all shots to PC & then use Lightroom to flick through & delete the chaff. Apart from family shots I delete anything that I don't feel I would share on here.

[Markulous]

Never delete in-camera. Rarely delete on PC.

Have an exceedingly low quality threshold, so display a good number of my shots. But if I had a penny for every shot to which I returned months, or even years, later and managed to get something halfway decent..........

[stepheno]

Save all RAW (except the obvious - OOF, lens cap on etc) then convert most to JPG for viewing by all and sundry. As Dabhand said - you never know when you want a particular shot.

[P-E]

Delete the odd few in camera but nearly always keep everything downloaded even though a good percentage aren't worth keeping.

[Charlotte]

I'm a natural born hoarder As Graham says, you never know what use you could make out of any shot anyway well that's my excuse + I'm sticking to it

Of course, I do delete any off the camera which are obvious 'whoopses' (camera slipped etc. ) i.e. not in focus.

[nichpr]

Would be interested to see your thoughts on her "the Art of Editing" comments. And whether or not you think her elements of a good picture are valid.

Cindy Chadwick's Art of Photography Free Online Lessons

- Paul

[Charlotte]

The link is already in your 1st post Paul I've had it open in another window, to have a look at + will report back

[BeanPod]

I am trying to find a balance. I toss the crap. When I am in the mood, I toss duplicates or ones that just don't do it for me. I need to figure out a better organizational method for storing the good ones and the mediocre ones. (which in my case would take a whole lot more than PS etc to get something great ) I also keep a folder of 'learning' images. For example the other day I was down at the beach, took a bunch of shots of the same things with different white balance settings. Not great shots at all, just keep as a reference for the differences.

I have yet to find the perfect photo organzing software...I use folders.

[dogdots]

I keep, keep, keep till I can't keep anymore . Then I go thru my discs on a rainy day or slow day and re-do them. I find doing that my perceptions have changed and I am able to really weed out. I have a set of originals--set of edited--and a set of ones I have used for something. My problem is my filing system---its a mess. Everytime I look at everything I come up with a new way to file--not good

[Markulous]

Just a word on organising photos - I keep my pics in shot number order (tend to keep each card I filled seperately and folder has 1st shot number and a description). Don't think this part of organisation's that important (and different methods work better for others)!

Then the 'best of the rest' get processed and converted to JPGs as if for uploading to Pixalo (in seperate folder structure that echoes main photo folders). The better ones make it, but I keep them all as it's very quick and easy to then find a processed shot on a particular subject or timeline (and they take up very little space)

3rd stage is to catalogue them and create tags (but this is, again, of lesser importance to finding a shot - it's the 2nd stage that's all important)