Katsmeow
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2009
- Messages
- 5,308
Someone convince me that it is OK to delete or throw away bad photos or even good photos where I have lots of similar photos.
I have made a major push in the last couple of years to organize photos. I took most of our paper photos and had them scanned in digitally (by a third party company). In general I was very happy with this. When I did that I did weed out the photos that were extremely blurred or really bad. Well, I generally did that -- I had a tendency to keep photos even if bad when there was something in the photo I liked and thought I might crop the photo to keep or where it was the only photo from a particular time period. I still have some paper photos to scan in.
I have a few issues here.
1. Paper photos (or the scans of such photos) that I don't like. For example, today I happened to find a school photo of my son (he is 17) from a few years ago. I seriously detest this photo. It doesn't look at all like he typically looks in real life, has a smile that looks awful and just overall is not appealing to me. It isn't blurred or anything like that...it is just a photo that I would never like to look at. I asked my son if he wanted me to scan it in and he doesn't like the photo either. I asked him if it would be OK if I threw it out and he was cool with it. I actually tossed the entire envelope of photos in the trash, then retrieved it. I just had this (irrational perhaps) feelings that I shouldn't throw it out. It is sort of like I want permission to do it (but I got his permission!).
Anyway -- is there any reason that I have to keep it even though I don't like it? I really only I can answer this but for some reason I agonize over throwing out photos when it doesn't bother me to throw away anything else.
Another example, but a harder choice than the one above. There is an old photo of me with my mother at the Renaissance Fair about 30 years or so ago. It is the only photo I have of the Fair. It is not particularly flattering photo of either of us. It is the only photo I have within a couple of years of the photo. It is the only photo I have of me with the particular hairstyle I have. However, it is a horrid hairstyle. Also, the clothes I am wearing don't look good and it is from a time when I didn't particularly like my weight. I have trouble throwing it out because I have so few photos within that time period.
2. The other issue is digital photos. The last several years I've use a very good digital camera. I don't have to pay for film developing and I'm not a great photographer so I will take lots and lots of photos with the idea that if only a few of them are great then that is fine and I can't get rid of those that are bad. I don't mind deleting those that are blurred. But, otherwise, I find it hard to delete them. Even the ones that are too dark I will keep with the idea that I can use software and make them look better (same thing with red eye or a lot of other defects). But I end up with huge numbers of photos of the same general thing which when I use my photo organizer software to find photos means I have to weed throw lots of similar photos.
To give an extreme example -- some years ago I had an opportunity to take a lot of photos of cheetahs. I took over 200 photos, most of which are good photos. But -- I don't really need 200 cheetah photos. Since they aren't "bad" photos I had trouble deleting them.
I use Photoshop Elements to organize my photos and right now I have roughly 18000 photos in it. When I want to find something -- even with categorizing and tagging photos -- it is tiresome to go throw lots and lots of photos that are very similar.
For these I could:
1. Keep all photos and keep them all organized in Photoshop Elements. -- That is essentially the status quo.
2. Delete those that are blurred or aren't good photos after editing them, then keep all the "good" photos and keep them all organized in Photoshop Elements -- Status quo less the ones I weed out. This would not decrease the volume all that much.
3. Go through and pick out the best few photos of each similar scene (knowing what is similar is difficult at times -- is cheetahs on such and such a day one "scene" or is cheetah eating meat a different scene from cheetah standing still?). So if I had 10 photos that were of the same "scene" - however I define it -- then keep only 2 or 3. Permanently delete the rest.
This is hard for me to do particularly where I like all the photos. We went to Stonehenge this summer and I have 194 photos. Now, there is a lot of variation - photos of the entire circle from the outside, photos inside the circle, close up photos of particular elements. I find it hard to delete any of them although clearly some are better photos than others.
4. Same as 3 in terms of selecting a few photos of each scene but instead of deleting the others just move them out of Photoshop Elements. I could still keep them in a separate folder but they wouldn't be organized with my main photos. I would only see them if I went to look specifically for them by going to that folder.
Anyone have any thoughts on any of this.
Someone -- please convince me it is OK to throw away old school photos or photos of me or other people that I just don't like....
I have made a major push in the last couple of years to organize photos. I took most of our paper photos and had them scanned in digitally (by a third party company). In general I was very happy with this. When I did that I did weed out the photos that were extremely blurred or really bad. Well, I generally did that -- I had a tendency to keep photos even if bad when there was something in the photo I liked and thought I might crop the photo to keep or where it was the only photo from a particular time period. I still have some paper photos to scan in.
I have a few issues here.
1. Paper photos (or the scans of such photos) that I don't like. For example, today I happened to find a school photo of my son (he is 17) from a few years ago. I seriously detest this photo. It doesn't look at all like he typically looks in real life, has a smile that looks awful and just overall is not appealing to me. It isn't blurred or anything like that...it is just a photo that I would never like to look at. I asked my son if he wanted me to scan it in and he doesn't like the photo either. I asked him if it would be OK if I threw it out and he was cool with it. I actually tossed the entire envelope of photos in the trash, then retrieved it. I just had this (irrational perhaps) feelings that I shouldn't throw it out. It is sort of like I want permission to do it (but I got his permission!).
Anyway -- is there any reason that I have to keep it even though I don't like it? I really only I can answer this but for some reason I agonize over throwing out photos when it doesn't bother me to throw away anything else.
Another example, but a harder choice than the one above. There is an old photo of me with my mother at the Renaissance Fair about 30 years or so ago. It is the only photo I have of the Fair. It is not particularly flattering photo of either of us. It is the only photo I have within a couple of years of the photo. It is the only photo I have of me with the particular hairstyle I have. However, it is a horrid hairstyle. Also, the clothes I am wearing don't look good and it is from a time when I didn't particularly like my weight. I have trouble throwing it out because I have so few photos within that time period.
2. The other issue is digital photos. The last several years I've use a very good digital camera. I don't have to pay for film developing and I'm not a great photographer so I will take lots and lots of photos with the idea that if only a few of them are great then that is fine and I can't get rid of those that are bad. I don't mind deleting those that are blurred. But, otherwise, I find it hard to delete them. Even the ones that are too dark I will keep with the idea that I can use software and make them look better (same thing with red eye or a lot of other defects). But I end up with huge numbers of photos of the same general thing which when I use my photo organizer software to find photos means I have to weed throw lots of similar photos.
To give an extreme example -- some years ago I had an opportunity to take a lot of photos of cheetahs. I took over 200 photos, most of which are good photos. But -- I don't really need 200 cheetah photos. Since they aren't "bad" photos I had trouble deleting them.
I use Photoshop Elements to organize my photos and right now I have roughly 18000 photos in it. When I want to find something -- even with categorizing and tagging photos -- it is tiresome to go throw lots and lots of photos that are very similar.
For these I could:
1. Keep all photos and keep them all organized in Photoshop Elements. -- That is essentially the status quo.
2. Delete those that are blurred or aren't good photos after editing them, then keep all the "good" photos and keep them all organized in Photoshop Elements -- Status quo less the ones I weed out. This would not decrease the volume all that much.
3. Go through and pick out the best few photos of each similar scene (knowing what is similar is difficult at times -- is cheetahs on such and such a day one "scene" or is cheetah eating meat a different scene from cheetah standing still?). So if I had 10 photos that were of the same "scene" - however I define it -- then keep only 2 or 3. Permanently delete the rest.
This is hard for me to do particularly where I like all the photos. We went to Stonehenge this summer and I have 194 photos. Now, there is a lot of variation - photos of the entire circle from the outside, photos inside the circle, close up photos of particular elements. I find it hard to delete any of them although clearly some are better photos than others.
4. Same as 3 in terms of selecting a few photos of each scene but instead of deleting the others just move them out of Photoshop Elements. I could still keep them in a separate folder but they wouldn't be organized with my main photos. I would only see them if I went to look specifically for them by going to that folder.
Anyone have any thoughts on any of this.
Someone -- please convince me it is OK to throw away old school photos or photos of me or other people that I just don't like....