Freeing Disk Space

[rpcrowe]

Saving disk space

I deleted older versions of Photoshop and Bridge as well as Permiere Rush that I never used


Photoshop: I have the 2025 (4.83GB) version
I also have a Photoshop Beta (4.95GB) version


Do I need BOTH the Photoshop 2025 and the Beta version of Photoshop - deleting either one would save 4+GB of space.
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[Manfred M]

Unless you are testing some of the new functionality, especially in the AI functionality in Photoshop, there is no reason to keep the Beta version.

I deleted my Beta version because I work with the current full release (2025) only.

[DanK]

I also stopped installing the beta versions


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[pnodrog]

It is certainly worthwhile removing unwanted software. However for most photographers it is usually the image files that take up the bulk of the storage area. Large multiple layer PDD or TIFF files being a big offender as is unnecessary duplicates of photographs. For me it's a constant battle. The LightRoom "Virtual Copy" function has reduced my saving different versions of the same photograph almost completely.

[billtils]

Why worry? External storage discs are so cheap that if culling is a real (or emotional) problem don't bother, just move everything in the "don't really want to delete it but .." space on to one.

[DanK]

It is certainly worthwhile removing unwanted software. However for most photographers it is usually the image files that take up the bulk of the storage area. Large multiple layer PDD or TIFF files being a big offender as is unnecessary duplicates of photographs. For me it's a constant battle. The LightRoom "Virtual Copy" function has reduced my saving different versions of the same photograph almost completely.

I agree. It's images that matter, although LR backups pile up as well and need to be cleaned out from time to time.

Apart from the large size of PSD and TIF files, the major storage problem for me is the morass of images. I don't cull enough because it is so tedious to do it. I do a few things to lessen the clutter:

-- when a folder from a shoot has a lot in it, I use star ratings in lightroom to help me find the better ones later.
--I virtually never save JPEGs of anything. When I upload, I use a utility from Jeffrey Friedl that creates the JPEG, uploads it, and then deletes it. In Lightroom, it's trivial to create another JPEG version if I need it.
--when it's helpful, I use virtual copies.

My current setup is programs on an SSD and photos on an internal hard drive, mirrored to an external drive and backed up to the cloud. This works fine, except that when I'm away from home with my laptop, I have no access to my photos, and I have to move photos I edit on the laptop to my main computer by exporting a Lightroom catalog. A pain. I'm thinking of transferring the primary copy of the photos to an external drive, perhaps a Sandisk Desk Drive, so that I can carry my images and catalog with the laptop. The Desk Drive runs about $250, if you shop around.

[pnodrog]

I will soon be doing a lot of travelling and my laptop although reasonably good does not have the storage available for all my photographs. So with that in mind I have transferred all my photographs to an external 4T portable SSD. For performance reasons I have kept the catalogues, previews etc on an internal SSD. At this stage I have not observed any notable reduction in performance. I have not done a denoise since doing it and expect it may take a very little longer.

When I go away I will simply move the catalogues to the external SSD and the current one onto the internal SSD drive of the laptop. The largest drive (HDD) on my desktop computer is now basically a backup drive. This is largely a reverse of how I have done it in the past. However all my photographs are now more or less mobile.