[Answered ]-Django: How to update Photo model that uses Imagekit without re-uploading photo on save()

Your file storage shouldn’t be called unless the file associated with your FileField has changed. In your case, I don’t see a reason why s3 should ever even get hit by doing a simple photo.title = 'New title'; photo.save()

It could be lots of other issues, granted, I haven’t tried Imagekit yet (very nice app!), but I’m guessing something, somewhere is inadvertently altering your ImageField file data. I suggest you write a simple test that edits an existing Photo model instance and debug the issue thoroughly.