Photo Storage Sanity??

[suenewbie]

OK, I probably should have asked this a long time ago, LOL! How do you all keep up with even viewing and then identifying and keeping a "sane" number of your photos? I'm finding with the volume of photos I'm taking, I don't always have time to go through them to determine which are really worthy of keeping.

I'm importing into LR, which is working very well, and am using the "recommended" organization for my folders, image names, etc. HOWEVER, I'm now shooting so often that I have literally HUNDREDS of photos a week. I make myself take the time to import into LR, label, and set key words for them immediately after I return from a shoot. So that part is done. But what are the rest of you doing to keep up with choosing the "good" ones, developing those, learning what you did right and wrong from a photographer standpoint, maybe posting them to your site, etc., etc.?

I've read that to grow and improve at photography, you need to take thousands of photos. OK, I'm doing that part! But, yiikes, how does anyone have time to carefully review and learn from all those thousands??

Any suggestions are most welcome!
Thanks,

[Donald]

I'd suggest, Sue, that that thing about taking thousands of photographs is that you take them over quite a lengthy period of time, NOT just in a few weeks! If you're taking so many that you can't keep up with cataloguing and editing, then maybe you're taking too many?

The other important discipline, I think, is training yourself as to when and when not, to press the shutter. Maybe firing of hundreds of shots in the hope that some might be keepers is not the best way to train yourself how to use your camera to best effect. I'm not an events photographer so am never shooting high volume. But even when in that sort of situation, I'd never shoot off at the rate of hundreds per week, although I accept that some poeple do. In my normal landscape activity, I feel as if I'm really pushing it if I shoot 6 - 8 frames at a location.

[Black Pearl]

I keep track by putting pictures into named folders within Lightroom.
Wherever the picture was taken I create a folder on import and stick it in there. I find it is easy to....well find them and I can keep track of where I've been.

[Saorsa]

I use a freeware program called FastStone.

When I use Nikon Transfer to bring my files off the camera I have it create a new subfolder each time. I also have it set to open that folder with FastStone as soon as the transfer is completed.

FastStone allows me to open up up to four images simultaneously and compare them. It also allows you to tag them so that I can easily identify the substandard shots that I want to eliminate. Once I have them all tagged, I select the tagged view, look through to see if I've missed anything great and then delete them.

Since I shoot wildlife a lot, it's pretty easy to eliminate everything that has eyes out of focus, covered by the nictating membrane or heads covered by a wing in a BIF shot. I usually still have a lot to go over later.

I also use this time to create subfolders for species or types of shots to simplify reviews. For example, I might be shooting in the park and get a lot of Pelicans, Ospreys and Gulls of different types. I simply click and drag them to an appropriate folder before reviewing. So I don't have to pop all over the place trying to compare a pelican shot with one taken an hour ago.

[Stagecoach]

Hi Sue,

I'm sure you are going to get lots of different answers here and there's not going to be a right or wrong method, but they will be applicable to how and what you shoot.

Here's an example of a nightmare regarding this subject for a specific shooting scenario that I encountered yesterday and how I tackled it.

I shot some 500 images in just three hours at an event that consisted of 28 cars competing in 1/4 mile speed runs, each doing three runs and my intention was to achieve a good panning shot of each car.

Having downloaded the images into one folder it suddenly hit me as to how on earth was I going to sort this lot, I considered using ratings and labels and gave up and decided to tackle it by putting each car within its own folder.

For viewing large numbers of images quickly and moving into folders I find Windows Explorer my preferred method.

I then had 28 folders containing between around 6 to 18 images of the same car.

A quick browse through the entire content of each folder revealed if there were acceptable and unacceptable images following which I deleted anything that was 'obviously' unacceptable. Having deleted the rubbish I simply browsed through the remaining with the goal of deleting anything other than the best two or three. In choosing the 'best' I took into account such things as possible crops and PP required or possible.

These remaining images now await PPing and on completion will be placed in a 'Sub Folder' entitled 'Finals' with a title that records their image No and size, eg GJS_9876_1200W.jpg

Culling the 'not so good' I find helps keep things tidy and manageable unless of course you want to keep the poor ones to learn from

Grahame

[IzzieK]

Sue...

I just came back from a little trip from Melbourne (Australia) where I have another home. Just in my backyard there alone I had taken a great number of galahs, both white and yellows and pink and white. BIFs, normal sitting on my fence, or while they were battering my peaches. Then I met my first grandchild for the first time -- lots of shots there too...and church with my eldest son and his wife, their brand-new house , my youngest son, my husband and me.

Your question? How will I keep track of all my new shots? I don't. For now, I made a folder called Melbourne, February 24 trip. Took a little peek two days ago and edited a few, left the rest for now. Bad habit...but I sort out the most important first and put them in the same folder under a sub-folder. Then I can set out later to put them in their appropriate location on my hard drive especially allocated for my "Relatives" hard drive.

Yep ! I have several hard drives to help me remember shots and tutorials later in my ripe old age.....Airplanes HD, Relatives HD, Tutorials HD, etc. And I barely delete any of my shots because they represent my learning curves. One of these days, I will. At the moment I still have to find more time to review all of them.

[stevefrazier]

Hi Sue!

There is a very helpful feature that I really have come to appreciate in Lightroom. When I go out on a photoshoot, I frequently take several hundred photos. When I import them into Lightroom upon returning home, I rapidly go through all of the batch of photos that I took that day. Each time I see one that I really like, I press the P key (which flags the photo as a "pick"). After I have finished flagging all of them that I want, I then change the Filter option in the lower, right-hand corner of the screen (changing it from "Filters Off" to "Flagged"). On the photo ribbon at the bottom of the screen, only those photos that I have picked will now be displayed. Next, I create a Collection for these photos, highlight all of the picked photos and drag them into the collection. That way, whenever I return to work on that batch of photos, I only see the ones that I have picked. (I imagine that there is a way to automatically delete all of the ones that I have not picked but I haven't taken time to explore that yet). There is a good video by Phil Steele called "Introduction to Adobe Lightroom Workflow" that goes into this in more detail at steeletraining.com/photo-tutorials.htm

BTW, this is my first post. I'm definitely a newbee to Cambridge!

Steve

[DanK]

Sue,

I agree with Donald: try to take fewer. One of the problems with digital is that it SEEMS costless to take huge numbers of photos, but it really isn't, for precisely the reason you found: it becomes a real pain to sort through them all, and just about impossible to go through them thoughtfully and learn from them.

As a second step, you may be able to cull some right away, after uploading to the computer. I usually do. Of course, when in doubt, I keep them.

Dan

[FrankMi]

Hi Sue, for static subjects, one of the keys to taking fewer images but get more of what you want is to try to make each image you take of the same subject better in some way than the preceding one. Often, as you explore how to best capture a scene, you look for better shooting angles so with each capture of the same subject try to get a better shooting angle than what you previously captured.

Perhaps the worst approach is to scatter shots all over the place and hope that when you get home that one will stand out for you. Much better to review each scene in the viewfinder and decide if it is better than what you have before you snap. This should help you cut down on having too many to choose from later.

Hope this helps.

[Mike Buckley]

You're getting such good advice that I'm going to suggest a more general outlook on things: Once you determine a plan, consistently implement it until such time that you decide the plan needs to be tweaked. Then consistently implement the revised plan until...you get the rest.

Personally, I always cull images as soon as possible before doing anything else. That means eliminating at least 90% of the images from a given shoot or holiday, which makes the challenge of dealing with the others both more enjoyable and far less time-consuming. Yes, I eliminate the images that don't make the first cut. That includes the originals and the backup copies that are automatically made during the download process. I realize that a lot of people never ever delete an image. That may work for them but it doesn't work for me.

Do whatever works for you and consistently make it happen.

[NorthernFocus]

Sue, I'm not going to provide any nuts and bolts advice. You'll work out a system that works for you. It is natural to keep a higher percentage of your shots early on. And you have to figure out what is good and bad by looking at photos. With time you will get more and more selective and able to cull a bit more dispassionately. With time you will also naturally shoot less as you get more selective about what is worth pressing the shutter button on.

[Downrigger]

Personally, I always cull images as soon as possible before doing anything else.

I'm with Mike and I'm new, like you. This is a good thread. It is, for me, a reminder of how I think it might happen that I will improve as a photographer.

Unless you're quite good, and terribly busy it should be easy to cull a lot soon after the download. I keep that step in my mind as part of the plan for a session of shooting. I find looking at the images that should be thrown out somewhat instructive, but the lessons are redundant (focus, light, composition) so the learning as I cull does not take much contemplation, most often only the realization (again and again) that I need to be more thoughtful, slow, and selective about my shooting. I do what Steve does to select and eliminate the culls.

The PP work is the more important learning tool for me... If you have culled extensively you have a small and approachable pool for PP not so intimidating to get to later. Among the keepers, the PP work adds more to my learning because I see better what makes an hoped-for keeper actually not what I intended, and I delete many of those, too.

So, for me, actively trying to learn, much of whatever progress I have any chance of making relies on realizing that the cull and PP are, psychologically, an integral, essential, part of the shoot. This thought alone exerts some restraint on my right index finger when I'm out there with my camera.

[Saorsa]

I'd like to add that culling soon after the shoot is a learning experience. The shoot is still fresh in your mind and you recall what you were doing at the time.

A lot depends on what you are shooting too. If I were shooting portraits or still lifes, I would hope that I took fewer shots than shooting wildlife.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Sue,

Like some others above, I ...
* shoot wildlife (therefore often many very similar shots to avoid focus misses, clipped wings, winks, etc.)
* download in to a specific 'shoot/location' folder

Although at an air-show with car parade, I might separate the planes from the cars in to different folders

* cull immediately after downloading
* star rate those not culled on the first pass, especially:

the best ever ones = 4 stars
the obviously good ones = 3 stars
the ones that need lots of PP help = 2 stars
the ones that are unusual, but not technically great = 1 star
which leaves quite a few un-star rated ones I ought to delete, but rarely do

* often cull only 30%, which leaves me with too many to handle
* also find the failures useful to keep as an example of how not to do it
* use filtering on star rating to limit my shots for PP choices to a more manageable number
* rather than separate pictures off into different folders to group shots together (like the cars, or bird species), I rename the files, then re-sort the folder, which groups them together and allows me to see all the herons together no matter when I shot them through the day

HTH,

[suenewbie]

Hi Sue!

There is a very helpful feature that I really have come to appreciate in Lightroom. When I go out on a photoshoot, I frequently take several hundred photos. When I import them into Lightroom upon returning home, I rapidly go through all of the batch of photos that I took that day. Each time I see one that I really like, I press the P key (which flags the photo as a "pick"). After I have finished flagging all of them that I want, I then change the Filter option in the lower, right-hand corner of the screen (changing it from "Filters Off" to "Flagged"). On the photo ribbon at the bottom of the screen, only those photos that I have picked will now be displayed. Next, I create a Collection for these photos, highlight all of the picked photos and drag them into the collection. That way, whenever I return to work on that batch of photos, I only see the ones that I have picked. (I imagine that there is a way to automatically delete all of the ones that I have not picked but I haven't taken time to explore that yet). There is a good video by Phil Steele called "Introduction to Adobe Lightroom Workflow" that goes into this in more detail at steeletraining.com/photo-tutorials.htm

BTW, this is my first post. I'm definitely a newbee to Cambridge!

Steve

Hi, Steve, and welcome from one newbie to another.

Thanks for your pointers. They helped in my quest to get organized! I took them one step further as well as tweaking the flagging. You might find this helpful, since you were asking about deleting those unflagged ones. Here's what I did with my last two photo shoots:

BTW, if anybody out there has ideas to make my latest attempt at organization more efficient, I'd love to hear them!

1. Imported them directly into Lightroom off my camera card. As part of the import, I create a sub-folder under "2014" labeled with the shoot date and location (e.g., "02-19-2014 Venice Rookery").

2. I go through them immediately and use the "Reject" (shortcut = 'X') flag for those that are obviously not worth keeping, which achieves the same effect as your use of the "Pick" flag, only in reverse. During this same review, I also set the "Pick" flag on those that I think I may want to do some PP on in LR. I leave some unflagged, to indicate that they are keepers and probably don't need much PP.

3. I select "Delete Rejected Photos" from the "Photos" menu. Filtering the rejected photos is an unnecessary step, since this command specifies the rejected photos.

4. LR displays a pop-up asking "Delete the rejected master photo from Disk, or just remove it from Lightroom." I press the "Delete from Disk" button, but one could also press the "Remove" button, which would not permanently delete the image from your hard disk.

My next step is to post to my Flickr page, my favorites out of what's left. Since I don't usually want to post ALL of the shots I saved, I do the following:

1. Go through the retained images again, this time setting a Color Label on the ones I want to post to Flickr.

2 I created a filter for that Color Label (and saved it so I could reuse it) and run that filter.

3. I select all and drag all the photos with the Color Label to my Flickr set-up, then press the Publish button.

I'm sure my methods will evolve as I learn more LR tricks (from the great folks on this forum and the many videos available) and get a better understanding of what I really want/need to keep.

Now, on to read everybody else's suggestions!

[suenewbie]

Sue, I'm not going to provide any nuts and bolts advice. You'll work out a system that works for you. It is natural to keep a higher percentage of your shots early on. And you have to figure out what is good and bad by looking at photos. With time you will get more and more selective and able to cull a bit more dispassionately. With time you will also naturally shoot less as you get more selective about what is worth pressing the shutter button on.

Dan, great advice! As a new photographer, and one photographing wildlife (primarily birds), I find there's not always time to be super selective in the shots I take, because things happen out in the field so quickly and unexpectedly. See my attached photo for this week's REALLY unexpected event!

Anyway, as you said, I'm sure as my skill, understanding of my camera, lenses, and settings, and my artistic eye develop, I will shoot less. Also, as a newbie, I get so excited and afraid that I'll lose that "once-in-a-lifetime" shot, that I over-shoot. Just the shear volume of the shots I have to deal with when I get home will, no doubt, contribute to my becoming more selective!

Here's this weeks unexpected shooting opportunity (this time, it was a slow-moving opportunity, so a bit easier!):


140223_Venice Rookery_NIK#2460_LR00003.jpg by smolnar18, on Flickr

[suenewbie]

The PP work is the more important learning tool for me... If you have culled extensively you have a small and approachable pool for PP not so intimidating to get to later. Among the keepers, the PP work adds more to my learning because I see better what makes an hoped-for keeper actually not what I intended, and I delete many of those, too.

So, for me, actively trying to learn, much of whatever progress I have any chance of making relies on realizing that the cull and PP are, psychologically, an integral, essential, part of the shoot. This thought alone exerts some restraint on my right index finger when I'm out there with my camera.

Mark, I like how you think and will adopt your idea that it is in PP where I'll have more opportunity to think through my shooting decisions and learn from the ones that didn't turn out as hoped. Thank you!

[suenewbie]

* star rate those not culled on the first pass, especially:

the best ever ones = 4 stars
the obviously good ones = 3 stars
the ones that need lots of PP help = 2 stars
the ones that are unusual, but not technically great = 1 star
which leaves quite a few un-star rated ones I ought to delete, but rarely do

Thanks, Dave. I think I'll begin adding the star-rating in my first review pass, as you've done. I can see how this could reduce the number of and prioritize those that might be worth spending time on PP. Also, if I don't get to a shoot for PP for a while, it will help me remember what the shots were I wanted to work on

[suenewbie]

I'd suggest, Sue, that that thing about taking thousands of photographs is that you take them over quite a lengthy period of time, NOT just in a few weeks! If you're taking so many that you can't keep up with cataloguing and editing, then maybe you're taking too many?

The other important discipline, I think, is training yourself as to when and when not, to press the shutter. Maybe firing of hundreds of shots in the hope that some might be keepers is not the best way to train yourself how to use your camera to best effect. I'm not an events photographer so am never shooting high volume. But even when in that sort of situation, I'd never shoot off at the rate of hundreds per week, although I accept that some poeple do. In my normal landscape activity, I feel as if I'm really pushing it if I shoot 6 - 8 frames at a location.

Donald,
Thanks for your sage advice. I've had a look through some of your photos, and they are stunning, so I obviously have a lot to learn from the likes of you. I'll work on being more thoughtful before pressing the shutter, but knowing myself and my stage in photography, it will be years (if ever) before I can reduce it to 6-8 frames at a location.

[Downrigger]

Nice gator, Sue.