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It May Sound Crazy, But DELETE Your Photos!

4/2/2013

11 Comments

 
Picture
Not all of them of course, but a good many. A few months ago, I shared on Facebook that I came back from our 10-day Christmas trip to Ireland with over 1,000 photos. And once again, I came back from a holiday weekend with 500+ photos on my camera. In just three days, I took 500 DSLR photos and another 100 or so on my iPhone, plus videos. Do you think I NEED 600+ photos to document my 3-day Easter weekend? NOT.A.CHANCE. I have two gorgeous and photogenic children, but I don’t need every single picture I’ve ever taken of them. All I’ll do is clog up the memory on my computer and overwhelm myself the next time I go to make a photo book or slideshow.

Here’s the thing, keep the meaningful photos, maybe even a few of the blurry ones if they help tell your story. But don’t keep 15 pictures of the same scene, when you were just trying to get the right angle or the best expressions. And don’t just keep the best ones, either. I have a series of pictures of my daughter from Christmas and there’s not a smile to be found, but I managed to capture the most hilarious set of facial expressions and I know she’ll enjoy seeing them as she grows older.

It may be too much to ask, but try to downsize your photos by a half. Or at least by a quarter. You won’t regret it and neither will your computer.

Get in the habit of following these three simple steps after each photo-taking event:
  1. UPLOAD your photos to your computer. (Don’t just keep them on the memory card and buy a new one.)
  2. Review each and every picture and mark down the obvious deletes.
  3. Delete the photos on that list. (You can DO it!!!)

If you're feeling particularly daring, you can repeat steps 2 & 3 a few times to pare down your photos even more.

I promise if you can get in this habit each and every time you return home, you will find that your digital photo collection is much more manageable and you aren’t wasting valuable storage space on photos you’ll most likely never use.

If the thought of deleting your photos has you paralyzed with fear, contact me any time.  I'm here to support you!


This post has joined the Blog Hop at A Dish of Daily Life.
11 Comments
Philip Griffith link
4/2/2013 04:08:33 pm

I find it hard sometimes to do the deleting of the bad or duplicate photos, especially if I don't do it right away. It really is easier if I do it while moving the photos from the camera card to the computer.

Reply
Megan
4/2/2013 04:24:53 pm

I'm the same, Philip. If I don't do it right away, it doesn't get done.

Reply
Rachel Jenkins
4/3/2013 12:40:14 am

If May add a habit or two...try to pair down the number of photos you actually take. I've been personally trying to think of it as if I had actual expensive film in my camera. As a dslr user you have the benefit of being able to tell within reason if you've got a good photo. I also recommend using your format function to clean off your memory card vs. just deleting. Its setting up your card in a "healthy" way. Great post Megan.

Reply
Megan
4/7/2013 04:31:09 am

Great additional tips, Rachel! And yes, I've heard that you should always re-format your card vs. just deleting files off of it. In my article, I was actually referring to deleting files off of your computer in which case, the delete button is the way to go!

Reply
Jen
6/29/2013 09:07:28 am

I am bad at deletting photos but i have a external harddrive that i save and back up my photos to.

Reply
Jen
6/29/2013 09:09:51 am

Me again .i forgot to add that using the external hard drive cuts back on using my laptop storage.

Reply
Megan
6/30/2013 08:16:11 am

Hi Jen! Thanks for commenting! An external hard drive is a great place to store your photos and definitely cuts down on computer storage space, just make sure you are backing up your photos to at least one other location like cloud storage, another hard drive that you keep offsite or CD/DVDs.

Reply
karen link
8/22/2013 03:43:02 am

great tips! I find that if I do it right away, I get rid of fuzzy photos or ones that aren't capturing the moment.

thanks for linking up.

Reply
Megan E McCourt
9/11/2013 04:28:36 pm

That's a great habit to have that will help control the amount of pics in your collection. Keep up the great work!

Reply
Adrian link
8/24/2013 04:39:28 am

I struggle with this too. I was horrified to realize that I have over 15,000 photos on my computer and I think somewhere I even lost a few - I have had several computer crashes over the years. I think my problem is that I don't have a good system for organizing them. I am slowly getting them organized into a folder structure that makes more sense, and I'm also getting a lot of them into photobooks and scrapbooks, but it's going to take the rest of my natural life to get it done! Fortunately, I'm really good about backing them up, so hopefully I won't ever lose them. It's like laundry - a task that is never completely done.

Reply
Megan E McCourt
9/11/2013 04:30:56 pm

Many of us are in a similar situation, Adrian, so don't feel that you're alone. It sounds like you have a solid game plan and are starting to execute on that plan. If you ever need any additional support or advice, please don't hesitate to contact me. : )

Reply



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