Jump to content

What do you do with your similars?


Recommended Posts

When I photograph something, I take anywhere from two to 10 shots of it. Especially if it’s something that moves, like an insect. Then I look at each one, often picking one for a horizontal, one for a vertical, and sometimes another one or two depending on the subject. Once these are developed and ready to upload, I go through the folder and delete everything I didn’t use. It keeps my folders tidy, and it saves me from having my HDs get too bloated.

If I were a lot younger, I might save an occasional few for later uploading down the road for that subject to fit in the “new image” category.
 

I have no interest in going back and developing old photos. I have enough trouble these days finding the time to develop the new. My back issues limit how long I can sit at my computer now. I used to have upload sizes of 20-30 images, these days they are more like 8-12. I could do more if I bulk developed, but that's not my style.
 

So what do you do? Save everything that’s in focus with no glaring faults? Or only save what you've chosen to upload at this time?

For myself, when I first got into stock, those early few years, I tended to save everything. No longer.
Betty

Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, Betty LaRue said:

When I photograph something, I take anywhere from two to 10 shots of it. Especially if it’s something that moves, like an insect. Then I look at each one, often picking one for a horizontal, one for a vertical, and sometimes another one or two depending on the subject. Once these are developed and ready to upload, I go through the folder and delete everything I didn’t use. It keeps my folders tidy, and it saves me from having my HDs get too bloated.

If I were a lot younger, I might save an occasional few for later uploading down the road for that subject to fit in the “new image” category.
 

I have no interest in going back and developing old photos. I have enough trouble these days finding the time to develop the new. My back issues limit how long I can sit at my computer now. I used to have upload sizes of 20-30 images, these days they are more like 8-12. I could do more if I bulk developed, but that's not my style.
 

So what do you do? Save everything that’s in focus with no glaring faults? Or only save what you've chosen to upload at this time?

For myself, when I first got into stock, those early few years, I tended to save everything. No longer.
Betty

Up until lately, I`ve been a very lazy cataloger. I saved everything.  I quickly scanned my shoot for that day and picked a few for developing, then went out the next day and did the same thing.  This was before I got into stock and was only uploading to a POD.  This has been going on for 10 years... Now I find myself in the position of going back over all my horrid shots and eliminating them once and for all and hopefully finding a few gems that I hadn`t even looked at before.  I`m looking forward to getting a new camera, so want to clean up the archives... it`s a daunting task, but I plan to be ruthless.  Once this have been taken care of, I plan on only keeping two or three of each subject regardless of how in focus my subject is.

 

Betty, you`ve got the right idea to go back over your folder right away and clean it up, otherwise..... well, you can see the pickle I`m in.. lol.

  • Love 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

my current process.

 

First sweep mark anything of interest with 1 star, mark obvious deletions (missed subject, missed focus etc,), delete these.

Second sweep of the One stars.  3 stars on those of value, 2 on back-ups.

3rd sweep, mark the 3 stars with colour codes for processing. 

 

Edit obvious, upload.

 

Forget the shoot.

 

I am now starting to go back to these, probably once a fortnight, ruthless culling the 0 and 1 stars. some will get upgraded if i see something I missed.  I do mainly editorials so sometimes i'll find something where i missed a story angle.  

 

Note that for subjects i really liked and enjoyed (like mexican festivals) i cull much less than for a small protest, rally, or picture of public figure.

 

as i am now doing much more flora and fauna, i am finding i cull a lot after initial upload, keeping mainly other 'interesting' pose  

 

 

 

 

Edited by meanderingemu
  • Love 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Betty LaRue said:

So what do you do? Save everything that’s in focus with no glaring faults? Or only save what you've chosen to upload at this time?

For myself, when I first got into stock, those early few years, I tended to save everything. No longer.

 

Not all of my photography is for stock, and I keep a number of things for personal reasons.

 

I generally delete anything that's glaringly  bad with no redeeming subject matter.

 

I'm also doing Alamy searches to see if adding my photographs to an subject area makes any sense.   For a couple of things this past week, the answer was nope.

  • Love 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I tend to hang on to similars if I think they are OK. Some of them end up on my website. I used send similars to different stock agencies, but now I can't find any other outfits that I want to contribute to. Keeping image folders tidy? I gave up on that pipe dream a long time ago. 🙃

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I keep way too much and think your way is great! That's very disciplined, I just muddle around and always mean to do better. I also find it a bit tedious to upload too many at once, the whole process of keywording and titles, etc. can be very time consuming.

 

I need to start culling the thousands of photos that will never be used for anything.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Sharon said:

Once this have been taken care of, I plan on only keeping two or three of each subject regardless of how in focus my subject is.

I meant to say, I plan on only keeping two or three shots of each subject "and eliminating the rest" regardless of how in focus my subject is. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In my opinion and the workflow that I use.  Anything I photograph, event, stock or corporate assignment, I download all files, then backup 16bit RAW files

to an external drive.  I use NIKON D800's so my RAW or NEF files are large.  After everything is backed up and the original take of NEF files is still

on my main drive, I start making selections, I often go from over 300 images to 10 or 20.  Once I have made my selection of NEF files I make another

edit, only then do I upload files to Light Room (LR).  Once in LR I make small corrections and output to PhotoShop (PS) as 16bit TIFF's.  Once I've finished

the 16bit Tiff's I do caption and keywords (IPTC) and do the final work in PS and then knock down to 8bit to save as JPEG's.  External Drives are cheap

I remember when a 1TB external was over $300 USD, now I pay $55 for one.  I save NEF's. 16bit TIFF's and the few edited JPEG's on external drive, I have

no idea of how many 1TB external drives I now have but it is a lot.  I also have hundred of thousands of 35mm chromes shot over the decades that I 

go through and on occasion find a valuable image in.  Have a few hundred chromes sitting on my desk waiting to be scanned and finished to be uploaded.

 

Chuck

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Personally, I only delete obvious horribles but you are being very professional, Betty. The wildlife photographers I have taken tours with only save the ones they expect to be able to sell. The old saying is that the difference between a professional and an amateur is the size of their trash.

 

Paulette

  • Love 1
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Chuck Nacke said:

Anything I photograph, event, stock or corporate assignment, I download all files, then backup 16bit RAW files

to an external drive.  I use NIKON D800's so my RAW or NEF files are large. 

 

You're getting 16 bit NEFs from a D800? Unless I'm misunderstanding you I didn't think that was possible. Thought they were 12 or 14 bit.

 

2 hours ago, NYCat said:

The wildlife photographers I have taken tours with only save the ones they expect to be able to sell.

 

 

That would make sense for those on assignment where the photography is their work and so the storage costs can potentially eat into their profits.

 

For me as a hobbyist I store virtually everything, except for the obvious totally out of focus shots I may not copy from the card. I learned the hard way from my old habits that being too selective about what I keep just harms the collection in the future. I have a rats nest of mostly years old external HDs with enough space to last me well into the future. Mac OS is also so good at searching that as long as I keyword what I export I will find anything. As this is a hobby for me first and foremost what I intend to put on alamy doesn't determine what I will keep. I dump the whole lot into LR, process and keyword the ones I like, adding them to the quick collection as a marker of what ones to export, and export twice, once to JPEG then to 16 bit TIFF for archiving.

 

I've learned from the past that it is always preferable to add storage (even cheaply) to avoid having to prune, but then as a naturally disorganised person (you should see my desk) who would rather spend his time doing things other than pruning, that suits me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Cal said:

 

You're getting 16 bit NEFs from a D800? Unless I'm misunderstanding you I didn't think that was possible. Thought they were 12 or 14 bit.

 

 

 

Cal,

 

You are correct in that the D800's only capture in 8bit, 12bit or 14bit, I have always had mine set to 14bit and in Lightroom the choice for NEF to TIFF is either 8bit or 16bit, so I do choose 16bit and work from there before I knock it down to 8bit and a JPEG for upload.

 

Chuck

 

Edited by Chuck Nacke
accuuracy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I keep everything bar the obvious mistakes.  As a result, with similars, I will do an initial upload but later (months/years) may find others to upload . Making subsequent uploads, as you say, Betty, repopulates in the new image category and this seems a good reason to do it

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.