How many to keep

[KeithG]

Keep them all, except for the ones you delete. Storage space is now essentially free (just bought a nice 3 1/2 terabyte drive for under $100)

I do a quick triage pass through my pics to delete the rotten ones.
i then do a second pass to pick out the "best" and "good" ones
they then get displayed in that order in my online photo albums: best, good, rest
i keep all of them and do not adjust them in any way. Not enough spare time for that....

 

[Matt S.]

I keep 2-5%. Typically, I am merciless when culling.

 

[00wabbit]

Keep them all, except for the ones you delete. Storage space is now essentially free (just bought a nice 3 1/2 terabyte drive for under $100)

I do a quick triage pass through my pics to delete the rotten ones.
i then do a second pass to pick out the "best" and "good" ones
they then get displayed in that order in my online photo albums: best, good, rest
i keep all of them and do not adjust them in any way. Not enough spare time for that....

Storage space is cheap, but everything just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I have 68,200 photos in my lightroom library. Everynow and then I spend a few hours trying to cut them down.

 

[bvanant]

On a typical trip (say 40 dives) I end up with 3500 images or so. After each dive a quick pass to dump the very bad ones, then a look at the ones that have something unique. At the end of a trip, I typically like 40 or so out of 3500 or one/hundred. One thing that is apparent if you ever watch a professional (thanks Shannon) work is that they will focus on one subject per dive and shoot a crapload (the technical term) of pics of that one subject. Lately I have been trying to shoot only one or two things per dive but to get them right enough for a place on the wall. When I dive that way the yield is maybe 1/150 or so but they are nice (or I think they are).
Bill

 

[highlandfarmwv]

Twice I have tried to delete pix from my camera prior to saving them to computer, and got in the rhythm of hitting buttons deleting one after another. Then deleted the whole bunch by accident. No more deleting individual pics from camera for me!!

 

[Tigerman]

Ive seen the accidental deletion of the ONLY pic of a MASSIVE thresher shark anyone got..
Nobody believed we saw it of course - cause wheres the pix??

 

[Darnold9999]

Don't do any in camera deletions - dive time is for diving and shooting. Camera holds almost a thousand images so space is not an issue. Do the deletions later.

Did manage to delete an entire two hours of shooting moving images from camera to computer. Stupid adapter bent a pin when inserting the card - erased every image.