Delete or not delete, that is the question.

Messages
414
Edit My Images
No
If you go out and take multiple images to create a large panorama from, for example, 10 images and on returning home you create the pano. and are happy with the results

You look at the 10 images and none (or most) of them are 'good' photos in their own right. Would you delete them and only keep the pano or would you keep them as well even though you are highly unlikely to ever used them again. I ask as my RAW files are now about 40 MB and that will soon mount up through time and while storage is quite cheap, do we actually need them?
 
The only raw images I keep are those of family members that I have shoot. Anything else is deleted after it has been processed - I used to keep the raw files of everything, just in case... or I thought I would go back and re-edit them.... I have never gone back!

If it were me - I'd be deleting them.
 
The only raw images I keep are those of family members that I have shoot. Anything else is deleted after it has been processed - I used to keep the raw files of everything, just in case... or I thought I would go back and re-edit them.... I have never gone back!

If it were me - I'd be deleting them.
I don't process all the images I shoot until I need them and still keep the RAW file. Just as well as some I processed in the early days now need reprocessing since improving my skills.
 
The only raw images I keep are those of family members that I have shoot. Anything else is deleted after it has been processed - I used to keep the raw files of everything, just in case... or I thought I would go back and re-edit them.... I have never gone back!

If it were me - I'd be deleting them.

You really shouldn't shoot your family members, it will give you a bad reputation, and never ends well.
 
No single answer. I tend to keep raws for revisiting - and I do revisit a percentage of them over time. I might go back to basics, & have a radical rethink about how an image is done.

It's quite over the top, really, because I also archive the hi-res 16-bit (& sometimes layered) tifs that are produced from the raws. Which ought to be enough anyway for most purposes.

You don't necessarily want to go back to the start point every time you want to reinterpret a raw image. Although sometimes it's healthy & productive to do just that.

But every 2 or 3 years, I might do a mega cull as my overall perspective changes, & to keep storage space in bounds ...
 
I have no issue about keeping images that, in the one file' they are usable images and have overtime got used to deleting all the crap ones.

The issue I now face is if I have 10 images, each in their own right don't make a decent image and would be binned but merged in to a panorama they make a really good image I wouldn't want to be without (and may even be able to crop in to 2 or 3 shorter panos. I will keep the big pano (1.2 gig) but would I need to keep the 10 parts (total 400 MB) as well. I'm think no.
 
Do what you want, it's a free world, & life is full of dynamic purpose. You've answered your own qusetion. Move on, quickly. Stop clogging the airwaves.
 
Whatever makes YOU feel good :)
 
I always cull my photos early in the process. I then keep all of the Raw files and the final TIFF/PSD files. I do produce a few JPEG's for web and competitions but delete these from time to time as I still have the TIFF/PSD. I rarely go back to earlier Raw files but it would not be possible to guess in advance which might be of interest. Recently, I had almost 6 months without being able to shoot so did look back and found some interesting shots I had not really used. One thing I did notice that some of the S/W has improved significantly in recent years (e.g. Topaz) so re-editing the original Raw can produced much improved results. Storage is cheap and all my back ups take less than 2 T Bytes on my NAS.

Dave
 
I keep my pano shots.

Years ago I switched from Raw Shooter Essentials to PS and I realised I was getting better results so I went back and reprocessed quite a few raws. If at some point in the future that sort of thing happens again and I'm getting better results from some new software I wont be able to go back and reprocess raws if I've deleted them.

Plus there's always the possibility that I'll get better at using the software I have now or I could just change my mind and want to do something different with the colours or something and that's a lot easier with a raw file.
 
I keep it all - the only exception is Lightroom creates a massive DNG file when you stitch multiple images.
Those I delete when I'm sure I'm not going to immediately reprocess the panorama.
They're very large files and as I have the source files to recreate them perfectly I don't see any need for them.
 
Back
Top