If there is one thing I have learned over the years, it is that when you are presenting your photos, it is much better to have a few great pictures than it is to have a few great pictures mixed into a whole slew of mediocre and not-so-great pictures. Even the best photo, when paired up next to a poor photo, will lose its luster. One bad apple spoils the whole barrel; one bad photo spoils the whole portfolio.
One of the things that separates the amateur from the pro is knowing which photos to keep and which to toss. Now, this is especially hard if you are wearing mommy goggles. It’s hard to toss out a photo that is out of focus and over exposed, and I’m not saying that you have to delete it, but you should probably avoid showing it off.
My favorite method of culling photos is using the rating system in Adobe Bridge. I will go through every photo and rate it with a 3*, 4* or 5*. (If my gut instinct is that it is a 1* or a 2* I just mark it as “rejected” by hitting the delete key.) Then I go back through the photos given three stars and decide if they really deserve to be picked or not. They are either promoted to four stars or are rejected. What I am left with are the best photos. These are the photos I spend time editing. I never waste time editing a flawed photo. Usually the five star photos are the ones I feature on my Facebook page or blog.
Here are some criteria I use when going through a set of photos:
1. It must be in focus.
2. The composition must be pleasing to the eye (or I must be able to crop it).
3. It must be properly exposed. (Since I shoot in RAW, if it is slightly off, I can fix it in Adobe Camera RAW)
4. It must have that certain something: a connection or a moment. It is hard to describe, but I must really like the photo to give it four or five stars.