Clipping and excessive data

Just started with Inkscape, fantastic software!

Is there a simple way to clip that doesn’t carry forward the clipped data, i.e. what I’d consider conventional cropping? I have hundreds of photos where I need to extract a particular small object from each, convert each object into its vector representation (the objects share characteristics but have different shapes), then place and manipulate all those shapes on a single background.

When I use Inkscape to clip/convert, all the clipped info from each photo (a huge amount) seems to be carried forward and is difficult to deal with as I add more shapes. I guess I could use Gimp to crop first then use Inkscape to vectorize, but it is a lot more work considering the number of photos. Help is much appreciated - I tried going through the docs and tutorials but I'm spinning my wheels.