Questions Before You Delete the Bad Photos
A blurry frame is sometimes the only picture of a person. Ask a few questions before you delete the rejects.
Deleting bad photos feels like kindness to the future browser. Fewer blinks, fewer dark frames, a roll that looks intentional. Sometimes the blurry frame is the only one in which a person appears at all. Sometimes the dark frame is the only one with the right face and the sharp one cut them out. The question is not whether the photo is good. The question is whether it is the only record of something you would be sorry to lose.
Is this the only frame of this person
Before you delete a reject, look at the burst and the surrounding minute. If a guest appears only in the blurry frame, that frame is doing a job the pretty pictures are not. You can leave it out of the browsing album and still keep it in the originals. The album is allowed to be flattering. The archive is allowed to remember who was in the room. Burst duplicates should not all sit in the front of the folder, and they should not all be thrown away until you know the chosen frame actually includes the people you care about.
Is the flaw in the picture or in the moment
A closed eye is a flaw in the picture. A tearful face, an unposed kitchen, a dim birthday with the candles as the only light, may be the moment itself. Deleting those because they would not win a contest leaves a family record that looks like an advertisement. Ask whether you are removing a technical failure or a feeling that makes you uncomfortable. Technical failures can go when a better frame of the same moment exists. Uncomfortable true moments deserve a pause, and sometimes a private folder rather than a public album. Privacy is a reason to limit sharing. It is not automatically a reason to destroy the file.
Do you have a spare copy of the set yet
Do not cull the only copy. A mistaken delete of a sharp frame, hidden among rejects, is a normal slip when you are moving fast. Copy the batch first, including the ugly frames, and cull on a copy or only after the spare exists. Photo day already ends with a copy for this reason. If you are cleaning a phone in a queue somewhere, you are in the wrong place to decide what is bad. Wait until the files are on a computer where you can see them large. A phone screen makes good pictures look dispensable and bad pictures look identical.
Who else might disagree with bad
The photographer's rejects are sometimes another relative's only souvenir. A picture of someone mid-sentence may be the expression their child remembers. If the files are shared, or they depict other people's children, ask before a large delete, or keep the originals and only tidy the browsing set. You can always hide a frame from an album. You cannot ask a deleted file whether an aunt wanted it. The selection history of family albums is full of editors who chose in good faith and left people out. A note that says you kept the unpolished originals is a small correction to that tradition.
Can you say what you deleted
If you do remove a large number of frames, write one line in the folder note: rejected blinks and duplicates removed on a given date, originals of chosen moments kept. You do not need an inventory of every deleted file. You need the next person to know the folder is a selection, not a complete camera card. If you cannot write that sentence honestly, you are not ready to delete. Keep the rejects in a subfolder named rejects and revisit it later. Disk space is rarely as scarce as it feels in the moment you are annoyed by clutter. Annoyance is a bad archivist.
Frequently asked questions
Should I delete blurry photos of documents? Keep the most readable frame and you can delete the worse attempts after it is copied and you have confirmed you can read the text. A blurry document that is the only attempt should be kept until you photograph the paper again.
What about embarrassing photos of me alone? You may delete your own, especially if they were never meant as a record. If other people appear, or the photo is the only one from an event, consider a private folder instead of erasure.
Is there a percentage I should delete? No. Delete technical failures you truly do not need, after a spare exists, and stop when you are tired. Tired deletion is how the good frame in a burst disappears.