Should you print every digital photo you take?

The ease and affordability of using a digital camera has made them highly popular among even beginning photographers.Digital photography is constantly growing and developing technology which leaves any photographer with lots of options to choose from to fit their photographic needs.You may literally see a sea of digital cameras should you be attending a sporting event, concert or just a friend's wedding.But it leads one to wonder what should you do with all the pictures you take?While the ability to edit and re shoot has never been easier many times over eager photographers are left with pictures they don't really want or even need. So the question becomes-should you print every digital photo you take? Before you give up and simply print all the digital pictures you take here are a few things to consider-

• Know what you really want pictures of.If you are attending a sporting event do you want crowd shots, reaction shots, or just playing field shots? Are spotlighting a certain player or the whole team?What will the pictures be used for?Are you documenting for a report or article or do you want pictures for a personal scrapbook only?Knowing what you want will help you focus on getting the pictures you really want.
• After you have the pictures storing them becomes relatively easy if you have the space but that leads to another problem.If you are storing your pictures for later printing do you know where they really are?Are your photo files organized by date and detail description so you can make a plan about what you really want to print? Knowing exactly what you have on your photo files and where to find them will help you only print what you really want.
• Ditch the duplicates. You can take as many shots as you want with digital photography.But that does not mean you should keep them all.If you have taken several images of the same subject do not be afraid to keep only the best shot. Eliminate the duplicates either before you download them from your camera or right after.
• Consider using an image library.Microsoft Digital Image suite will allow anyone to easily sort through their existing photos.One of the advantages of using a program such as this is that as you mouse over a thumbnail of a photo it increases in size to give you a better view of the selected picture. This way you can easily identify the photos you want to keep and delete the ones you do not need or want both quickly and easily.

You may have heard that digital cameras do all the work.You just push the button and great pictures magically appear.Some will even say that the better the camera is the better the photos.This is just not true.The truth is that you can take great photos with a simple point and shoot camera or take the worst shots with the most expensive camera made.It is not the camera that makes beautiful pictures it is the photographer.Arm yourself with some knowledge and do some planning and you can produce great pictures with even the smallest digital camera. This is because most digital cameras, even the consumer point and shoot models, have a tremendous amount of functionality built into them. By applying a little ingenuity and creativity, you can take shots that will make viewers ask, "So what kind of camera do you have?"While you can answer you will really know that it is you that is responsible for those breathtaking shots.