I enjoy taking photos. I like editing and creating my own little pieces of art. But making art is messy, in my case, it is a digital mess. I’m a tidy person. While I don’t mind my photo files looking like someone is working, I don’t want my space to be a digital disaster area. Part of cleaning actually starts at the beginning as I am importing files. I keep my files organized in folders which are labeled with the date and the location of the shot. I edit some shots right away, others I throw away right away. The majority spend several months sitting in a folder. I find it helpful to have to some time pass before I do a deep clean of any folder. When I deep clean, I look more critically at each photo. I’m deciding if I really want it to be taking up disk space. Everything that is deemed not disk space worthy is sent to the trash can:
ISO 125 4.15mm 1/35 f/2.2
It gives me a great deal of satisfaction to do this type of cleaning. If they aren’t already, surviving files are tagged, making them easier to find in the future. As far as when any file gets a final edit, I am much less structured about that. Some have had final edits the day or so after they were shot. Some wait for months or even a year. I’m not worried about rushing that part of the process, keeping my good files organized makes it easier to come back to them when inspiration strikes.
As for the photo above. I took several shots with my iPhone of the screen. They have been imported into Lightroom. The version I liked best I opened in Photoshop and made a duplicate layer. The top layer was converted to black and white. I then put a mask on that layer and painted to reveal just the blue below. Do you like this edit? Do you feel lighter after you have cleaned out your digital files? I honestly do. Feel free to leave a comment below.
Cheers!
Photography Journal Blog 
I also rename all files upon importing. Editing and cleaning is vital, particularly when you can easily take a couple of hundred shots in a few hours. You’re better organised than me.
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Yes, to me there is nothing more frustrating than not being able to find a file.
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I always put photos onto my pic in named folders as soon as I can. I then edit or bin them. I am very amateur so there is a lot to bin!
You seem very organised to me!
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My bin is often full to overflowing! I think that is one of the great things about digital, you can always get rid of it so why not try shooting something in several different ways?
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Exactly x nothing ventured nothing gained!
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I hadn’t thought about it as lighter, but that’s exactly how I feel … or will in a day or two when I get round to cleaning up some neglected folders.
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🙂 You’ll feel better, that’s often the carrot I use for myself 🙂
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I constantly delete photos since I take photos often. Btw, how do you save them? One person said that he always saved his photos in three different places.
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I do regular deleting since I take so many when I am on vacation, and I use iPhone a lot. It can be time consuming. How do you save your photos, in one place or two, three places?
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So, I have a main storage and a backup for my files. Both are separate from my actual laptop. I put the files in my main storage, which I then run a backup of at least once a week. I have a reminder in my calendar to run the backup once a week. If I have been taking a lot of photos, I will run that backup more frequently. I do not currently have a cloud backup option, do you? if so, do you like it?
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I first load onto Lr, later do backup. I also save them on my hard drive, when I do it automatically go to my Google + photo ( low quality images though). The photos in Lr got messed up when I upgrade Lr…
I tried to save some photo that I like with high quality onto a portable hard drive.
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Having to switch or “upgrade” is the worst. I always cringe when I have to do for an of my electronics or software. Also, the words “seamless” and “intuitive” should be banned from any such updates.
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You’ve inspired me, Amy. I am good with folders and keywording, but not very efficient about deleting, and it’s in the deleting that you become better by not holding onto mediocre images.
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I do really find that it helps be look more critically at my own work.
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I am exactly like you! I have to get rid of what I’m sure I don’t need.
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It’s necessary, but for me, I find I am better at it if I have had the files for a month or two, gives me a chance to emotionally separate from shooting them. I know that sounds a bit dramatic, but it works for me.
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Ahhh I’m trying to get into photography too and it’s so hard picking which pictures you want to keep and which ones you want to throw away. I am a photo hoarder, and I feel terrible deleting photos but I know I have to do some spring cleaning. I love your work though, even if you took this picture with an iphone! Keep it up, and give me some advice on my photos that I have on my page LOL
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Thank you very much for your kind comments, and I agree it can be hard to decide what photos to keep and what to discard.
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Amy I wish I had an organized system like this. We do save ours into dates and locations but we are not good at deleting those that don’t make the grade. Needless to say we have so many photos the task seems overwhelming. Don’t even get me started on the videos. We keep saying when Dave retires we will make this a top priority. Perhaps we need to start a bit sooner.
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Hi Sue, I’ll be honest, to me this is just like housecleaning, I don’t like doing it but since I want to live in a clean house, I do it anyway. Something I have found that works for me is to just do it in small amounts, just for a set amount of time, usually 30 minutes a sitting. I have that time on my calendar, that makes me more likely to actually do it and less focused on the whole task but just on what I can do in the next few minutes.
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Always fun to hear about your process, Amy! Thanks for the update!
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Thanks, who says cleaning can’t be rewarding 🙂
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Absolutely. You reminded me, whenever I lose something I usually find it when I organize. 🙂
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The only thing I don’t like about photography. At this point I store nothing on my hard drive, it’s all on duplicated remote drives. Thinking about cloud storage but still not convinced!
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Yes, I’m not sold on the cloud backup either. I have a bunch of concerns like how it can be accessed.
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It is a very good feeling to get the files cleaned up that is for sure!!
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That’s what I tell myself when I am struggling to get it done 😉
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I also get a lot of satisfaction out of digital housekeeping. It makes me feel like my computer is less stressed out, but that’s just me personifying it lol
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I do a similar thing, expecting the computer to work faster since it has fewer files weighing it down 🙂
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I so can relate to that! Very interesting read 👍
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Glad I am not alone in this, thanks for your visit and comment.
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I spent a bit of time last week clearing out old football photos. I keep everything I took at a game for two seasons in case I need to find an additional shot of a player for some reason then I remove all of them except for the published ones. The 2014/15 season cull removed around 12000 images 🙂 Most of my normal photography is documentary so I don’t tend to have a lot of intermediate versions floating about on my disc 🙂
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Yes, it would help if there aren’t a bunch of versions, that’s a problem I run into sometimes. I guess with as many images as you take, you would have to have some sort of culling system in place. How do you handle storage? Do you use external disks? the cloud? a combo of both?
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I do use an external disc on which I store older photos but I am aware that I run at risk of losing images 😦 Football photos have a limited currency – players move on, kit changes, teams get promoted / relegated. Last season’s images are so ‘seventies’ 😉 So I’m not too concerned about those. I’m more concerned about my non-football images so I really must look at perhaps putting them in a cloud. So far I have been lucky 🙂 I never delete non-football images (unless I had a disaster with the camera settings) so I need to look closely at the scale of the problem and see what costs in as a solution in the long term.
Knowing where to find a specific photo hasn’t usually been a problem for me – I have a very good mental picture of when I took a specific photo. I load a lot of images to either Flickr or WordPress so I can always check the date there if my memory has a senior moment 😉 I’m about to separate out my document / photography computing from my gaming. I’m rearranging my office today in preparation for buying a high end gaming pc for my simulations. I’ll be taking down the pc in the next hour, so if you reply with another question please forgive me if I am a little slow to respond 🙂
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Wow, that’s really impressive that you can just remember details and are able to find a photo that way. I am very bad in that department. I use keywords in an attempt to be able to search and find things that way. Also my folders are labeled with date and location information.
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Hi, Back and working (just a few peripherals to connect). I think I’m lucky that my photography centres around my transport hobby – so I tend to remember based on what trains I photographed on a given day. I have a terrible habit of remembering phone numbers too 😉 If Keywords work for you then that’s what matters 🙂
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Yikes, you remember phone numbers!? I can’t even remember my own 🙂 I always have to look it up.
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