One of the most difficult jobs when reviewing your images is to know which ones to keep or delete and which ones to process. I even struggle with this as many times I am considering artistic renditions, teaching opportunities and such when I am going through my images. The “sister shot” is usually an image captured within minutes of the first one and has enough merit to be a keeper. And a keeper doesn’t necessarily mean an award-winning shot-but rather a shot you would not toss out.
On my first round I get rid of the obvious junk. Unsharp, poorly exposed or framed images. On my second round I am looking for images that are not only technically good but also have some interest. On my third round I am selecting only the images that speak to me. I usually do this within a few days so that I don’t get back logged.
After I am done with the final cull, I add all my Lightroom processing to each of my keepers, then bring them all into Photoshop and do one at a time until I have completed them all. Usually the keepers don’t require much work so the job is done fairly quickly. I always keep the RAW file intact and save an unsharpened full resolution Tiff file which becomes my MASTER FILE. It contains all my changes and is used for print. I also create a jpeg of each to be used for my blog, website, or slide programs.
The hard part comes when I have two similar images and can’t decide which one to keep. I have learned to keep both. Years ago, I was taught to ruthlessly delete. But as storage space becomes cheaper and cheaper, I have kept more and more. That turned out to be a good thing as during this pandemic I have rescued several from my files.
Below are a couple of sister shots that I like. Some have been rescued and some were never even considered for the bin…
