Deleting files - creating more space

andygb

Up until now, I have been downloading all of my photos from CF card straight to my PC. Now, as I have taken quite a few shots - weddings, wildlife, airshows, I have thousands of images.
Just recently, I have been shooting RAW files, and then converting the best ones to TIFF format to preserve quality.
The other day, I went on a serious culling exercise, looking through the old images, which I now think are useless. Initially, I thought this would free up a lot of space, but it hasn't. I have only gained about 1GB on the hard disk.
I am now going to go through and sort them all out, and only keep the best ones, transferring them to disk.
Is there any better way to get back the lost space, or is it gone forever?

Rossy.

I dont get what you mean by lost space?

If you delete files you regain the space on your HDD

googler

You did empty the recycle bin after you deleted them, didn't you?

busenbust

Is there any better way to get back the lost space, or is it gone forever?

^^You mean the deleted pictures ??

JasX

Rossy. wrote: »

I dont get what you mean by lost space?

If you delete files you regain the space on your HDD

...assuming you remember to empty your recycle bin.

If you are short on space a portable/external hard disk is also useful for backing up large quantities of photos

Rossy.

JasX wrote: »

...assuming you remember to empty your recycle bin.

If you are short on space a portable/external hard disk is also useful for backing up large quantities of photos

I know. I build PC's.

I however dont store stuff in my recycle bin, I have it delete straight away to save faffing around

I however do double check that whatever i delete is what i actually want rid of

I use a WD passport 320gb external HDD for storing my important stuff. Nothing gets deleted from that as i know it's stuff i want to keep.

culpepper

your raw files will be the largest.I assume you are deleting them and then emptying the bin and then looking at space remaining afterwards. Tiffs are smaller than raw usually but bigger than jpegs.Jpegs are much smaller than the other two.
You can get a good idea of what is taking up space with a free program like windirstat which will show you everything as a graphic representation and enable you to select all of one kind per drive eg.click on the raw files part of the image it shows and it will take you to the folders containing them.
It is a good idea to defragment after deleting image files.

busenbust

culpepper wrote: »

your raw files will be the largest.I assume you are deleting them and then emptying the bin and then looking at space remaining afterwards. Tiffs are smaller than raw usually but bigger than jpegs.Jpegs are much smaller than the other two.
You can get a good idea of what is taking up space with a free program like windirstat which will show you everything as a graphic representation and enable you to select all of one kind per drive eg.click on the raw files part of the image it shows and it will take you to the folders containing them.
It is a good idea to defragment after deleting image files.

good advice!

John_Gray

If you prefer actual figures or bar charts to pretty-coloured blobs (and which true geek wouldn't? ) then try TreeSize Free...

andygb

Thanks for all the answers. I did delete the files, and I always empty the recycle bin, but I do not seem to be gaining the space that I thought I would. Not long ago, I had around 38GB free on one half of my hard drive. The other day there was around 21 GB free (I still have 69GB unused on the other half). This has coincided with me using RAW and converting to TIFF. The TIFF files are each averaging between 10MB and 20MB. I may start off the culling session with the newer RAW files and see how much space that gives me.
I will also think about an external hard drive, using disc as back up in future.
Thanks once again.

busenbust

andygb wrote: »

Thanks for all the answers. I did delete the files, and I always empty the recycle bin, but I do not seem to be gaining the space that I thought I would. Not long ago, I had around 38GB free on one half of my hard drive. The other day there was around 21 GB free (I still have 69GB unused on the other half). This has coincided with me using RAW and converting to TIFF. The TIFF files are each averaging between 10MB and 20MB. I may start off the culling session with the newer RAW files and see how much space that gives me.
I will also think about an external hard drive, using disc as back up in future.
Thanks once again.

This is one of mine :

http://go.iomega.com/en/products/external-hard-drive-desktop/prestige-amp-professional-desktop-series/prestige-esata/?partner=4735