Should you post-process only the photos you plan to show?

You may find a gem you overlooked — something which you passed over but which on further inspection works better for you than an image you selected on the first pass. This may simply be a detail that wasn't obvious, or that a blurry image caught a far better expression than a sharp one, or it may be that some creative work brings out something in an otherwise overlooked image.

You may get some benefit from looking at the images you didn't select, and identifying for yourself why you didn't select those. You might not necessarily want to post-process these, but winnowing your work is an excellent way to learn.

Another thing to consider is to work on taking fewer pictures you're not keeping. That's a challenge, particularly in these days of ten-frames-per-second burst rates and no obvious monetary cost for each one. There is, as you've clearly discovered, a cost, though — each click means some amount of later work. Beyond that, you may find that putting more thought into each image means you bring home the same chosen few, surrounded by less baggage.

To me, a holy grail of photography is making every shot a "keeper". I'm nowhere near that, but getting closer. One thing I noticed is that when I take a number of shots, it's usually the first that's the best — that was the moment, and the rest are just second-guessing. Learning to second-guess less leaves me more time for the next moment.

As with other affectations like shooting with only prime — no zoom — lenses, this is a luxury in having photography as a hobby. I don't have to get the shot to sell to a client or put on the front page. If I miss something because I wasn't clicking enough, or didn't have the right focal length on the camera, I try to learn from that too, and be in the right place the next time — because, hey, there's always tomorrow (and if there isn't, no one will be there to look at my photographs anyway).