5 ms·

A few people have raised this question in the thread already, but why are we compelled to store such unreasonable numbers of images? I'm definitely not immune

by jcoq 5y ago

A few people have raised this question in the thread already, but why are we compelled to store such unreasonable numbers of images? I'm definitely not immune and I find that the satisfaction I get from my photo collection is inversely proportional to the size of my collection. At this point, I'm just lugging around this huge mass of data "just in case". There's no way I will ever have time to sort my images. There are probably 2000 wedding images alone, let alone the tens of thousands thousands of random snapshots that may or may not be something I ever care to see again. At this point, I would almost prefer a smart solution opt-in solution similar to what Google photos provides for smart albums: "We found these images that would be good long-term. Save them indefinitely?"

sliken 5y ago
Sounds like you are not organized. Are all your photos tagged with location, long/lat, date, and subject matter? Can you in 5 seconds or less pull up every waterfall? Photo of a loved one? Every rainbow? Every trailhead? I reference mine quite often, usually for a purpose I didn't originally think of. The name of that cool restaurant in a city you visit rarely? How about how many double rainbows did you get last year in June? Pinning down dates from a previous pet. Or the funny pet photo with a squirrel in it? Where were you on March 2nd when your credit card got charged for $1202.20? When did you meet your new significant other 3 years ago or so? What trail head was it that you saw a bear? What is the serial number, VIN, or similar for just about anything valuable you own... or owned. How old where you when you won that race? The cost of a store a photo for life isn't much, seems silly to spend hours and hours trying to delete them, doubly so because mistakes will be made. Just tag them so you can find what you want. I was surprised how much tagging helped. Grand mothers poured over ever damn photo I tagged with the grand kids. Starting collections of wild animals we've seen by state. etc. When bored I find it rather fun to relive a vacation or hike. Even my kid seems to quite enjoy "visiting" places I've been. Sure 95-99% of my photos don't get viewed, ever. So? Why waste man hours on useless photos, just make sure you are organized enough to find the 1-5% that you do care about.
- blooalien 5y ago
  I personally use https://www.digikam.org/ https://www.digikam.org/ to keep my own photo/image library organized and tagged. It's also easy to embed a bunch of that data directly into the image file metadata, too. Like you, I enjoy the ability to easily call up entire categories of images at will/need with a simple keyword/location search. Really handy when I'm doin' graphics stuff (Blender 3D, Inkscape, GIMP, whatever) and want a particular type of image for some purpose.
- NortySpock 5y ago
  What software are you using for organization and tagging?
- pm90 5y ago
  I have not met a single person in real life this organized with their photos. People I know upload albums to Facebook (!) and forget about them; they might post some really good/momentous ones on Instagram. It’s truly amazing to me (in a good way) that one could devote so much time to organizing photos.
  - abadaba 5y ago
    Not sure what OP is using for their photos, but Google Photos handles all of those mentioned features automatically for me. I’m sure there are other similar apps that do the same.
- jnieminen 5y ago
  What software are you using for tagging?
- austhrow743 5y ago
  If you've got some system and software combo worked out that brings keeping your photos organised like this in line with the time cost of deleting then I think many many people would be interested in a summary. Think of all the grandmas you would indirectly be providing more grand kid photos to!
- fy20 5y ago
chillage 5y ago
For photographers these images are their life's work and professional value. They need to be able to go back and reference a client's photoshoot or pull up a higher resolution file or retouch a photo or come back to an old photo and use new software to re-edit it to perfection, or find related photos from a photoshoot of interest in the future, etc.... It's very different from when a hobbyist takes photos just for their personal fun
davidy123 5y ago
No way I am going to trust today's guessificial algorithm. The capacity/cost does scale as the file size increases, and the algorithms get smarter. Photos can increasingly be analyzed for useful correlation. Today we can find by time, place, people, object, eventually scenes will be reconstructed, lifestyle patterns contributing to long term health outcomes, leading to real diagnosis, memory augmentation and simulation (much of it requiring better privacy). In the meantime, I enjoy being able to time travel to amazing or obscure moments (even if it's just that amazing abricotine in 2016).

by jcoq 5y ago

sliken 5y ago

Sounds like you are not organized. Are all your photos tagged with location, long/lat, date, and subject matter? Can you in 5 seconds or less pull up every waterfall? Photo of a loved one? Every rainbow? Every trailhead? I reference mine quite often, usually for a purpose I didn't originally think of. The name of that cool restaurant in a city you visit rarely? How about how many double rainbows did you get last year in June? Pinning down dates from a previous pet. Or the funny pet photo with a squirrel in it? Where were you on March 2nd when your credit card got charged for $1202.20? When did you meet your new significant other 3 years ago or so? What trail head was it that you saw a bear? What is the serial number, VIN, or similar for just about anything valuable you own... or owned. How old where you when you won that race? The cost of a store a photo for life isn't much, seems silly to spend hours and hours trying to delete them, doubly so because mistakes will be made. Just tag them so you can find what you want. I was surprised how much tagging helped. Grand mothers poured over ever damn photo I tagged with the grand kids. Starting collections of wild animals we've seen by state. etc. When bored I find it rather fun to relive a vacation or hike. Even my kid seems to quite enjoy "visiting" places I've been. Sure 95-99% of my photos don't get viewed, ever. So? Why waste man hours on useless photos, just make sure you are organized enough to find the 1-5% that you do care about.

blooalien 5y ago
I personally use https://www.digikam.org/ https://www.digikam.org/ to keep my own photo/image library organized and tagged. It's also easy to embed a bunch of that data directly into the image file metadata, too. Like you, I enjoy the ability to easily call up entire categories of images at will/need with a simple keyword/location search. Really handy when I'm doin' graphics stuff (Blender 3D, Inkscape, GIMP, whatever) and want a particular type of image for some purpose.
NortySpock 5y ago
What software are you using for organization and tagging?
pm90 5y ago
I have not met a single person in real life this organized with their photos. People I know upload albums to Facebook (!) and forget about them; they might post some really good/momentous ones on Instagram. It’s truly amazing to me (in a good way) that one could devote so much time to organizing photos.
- abadaba 5y ago
  Not sure what OP is using for their photos, but Google Photos handles all of those mentioned features automatically for me. I’m sure there are other similar apps that do the same.
jnieminen 5y ago
What software are you using for tagging?
austhrow743 5y ago
If you've got some system and software combo worked out that brings keeping your photos organised like this in line with the time cost of deleting then I think many many people would be interested in a summary. Think of all the grandmas you would indirectly be providing more grand kid photos to!
fy20 5y ago

chillage 5y ago

For photographers these images are their life's work and professional value. They need to be able to go back and reference a client's photoshoot or pull up a higher resolution file or retouch a photo or come back to an old photo and use new software to re-edit it to perfection, or find related photos from a photoshoot of interest in the future, etc.... It's very different from when a hobbyist takes photos just for their personal fun

davidy123 5y ago

No way I am going to trust today's guessificial algorithm. The capacity/cost does scale as the file size increases, and the algorithms get smarter. Photos can increasingly be analyzed for useful correlation. Today we can find by time, place, people, object, eventually scenes will be reconstructed, lifestyle patterns contributing to long term health outcomes, leading to real diagnosis, memory augmentation and simulation (much of it requiring better privacy). In the meantime, I enjoy being able to time travel to amazing or obscure moments (even if it's just that amazing abricotine in 2016).