Comments on: How to (Effectively) Cull Your Photos: 5 Steps to Follow Before You Hit “Delete”

By: Chris Pearson

Chris Pearson — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 21:55:23 +0000

Selecting Auto advance (from the 'Photo' menu in LRC) is useful. Once you've imported your images, if you select 'Previous import' under Catalogue in the left-hand sidebar, open the first image in loupe view then use X (reject) or U (unpick) you can rattle through the images quite quickly. You can also do this in full-screen view. Then just hit 'CTRL + Backspace' to delete rejected images.

By: Spike Hodge

Spike Hodge — Fri, 27 Dec 2024 19:35:28 +0000

In reply to Lesley Lee. I think the chore, and feeling of waste, when I cull hundreds of images in a mass tidy-up has made me a lot more "mean" with the shutter button :-)

By: Spike Hodge

Spike Hodge — Fri, 27 Dec 2024 19:30:56 +0000

About a week before I read this article I was looking at some pictures I took over a year ago. At the time I took them I was a little disappointed and never really looked again. But after a years "rest" I think there are a few that are actually quite good!

By: Cornelius Mouzenidis

Cornelius Mouzenidis — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 05:10:40 +0000

Some photos might be saved with the help of some post-processing, like if you add a bokeh effect or make the image black and white with a color accent it can magically make it ten times better and overall worth saving. Sometimes, however, even these little tricks don't help and that's how you know it's time to say goodbye to the photo.

By: Jahir Shaju

Jahir Shaju — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 03:18:37 +0000

Informative and good article, Thanks David!

By: SueWsie Wils

SueWsie Wils — Sun, 02 Jul 2017 16:43:00 +0000

Technical failures is easy, but I also do an immediate deletion of similar shots -selecting the best in alternative compositions and deleting the rest. I find it saves time later.

By: David W. Shaw

David W. Shaw — Fri, 30 Jun 2017 20:40:00 +0000

In reply to Lesley Lee. Sounds like a chore, but also a good system for backing up. There are a couple of excellent articles here on DPS about creating an efficient backup system, and yours sounds similar. I do the same thing with RAW files, and with non-descructive editing in Lightroom it's easy to make any changes you wish. I do however delete my discards from all my hard drives, if I didn't I'd be filling drives far too often. Thanks for the comment!

By: Lesley Lee

Lesley Lee — Fri, 30 Jun 2017 08:23:00 +0000

I am currently doing a big cleanup of older photos and being more religious about the ones I’m now taking. I use your colour code system but once I’ve done that, I move all my discards into a folder in the catalogue, along with the seconds. Then I back up the lot onto an external drive. Next, I delete the discards on the hard drive. I resort and once I’ve got the final call I make sure that’s tidied up too on the external drive. I back up the ‘OKs’ and the ‘keepers’ on my OneDrive cloud storage as a backup of the backup. One of the best things about working in RAW, is that if you make changes to your edits, you just have to overwrite the old sidecar files with the new and all is good. Much quicker the second time around. I only keep the keepers on my hard working machine.

By: David W. Shaw

David W. Shaw — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 18:57:00 +0000

In reply to Nat Coalson. Agreed! But many also cling to the images when they shouldn't. There is a middle ground for sure. And I totally agree about looking at the failures. On my photo workshops, we spend a lot of time looking at the images that went wrong, and I think people learn a lot from that. Then they can hit delete and move on to correcting the errors in their next efforts.

By: David W. Shaw

David W. Shaw — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 18:56:00 +0000

In reply to David. People shots are much easier because, as you say, there are a lot of blinks, glances away and awkward expressions. I like your idea of having a separate folder for the near-dupes. Using that could help the clutter in my catalog.