Excire Foto is quickly becoming my favorite new tool for organizing my photos. As someone who has multiple catalogs spread out across different programs — it’s pretty easy to see why. Excire Foto lets me add any photo to it, meaning I can search across catalogs, programs … even different hard drives.
And while Excire Foto is great for searching by keyword and finding similar or people-oriented photos, it also has one more huge superpower that’s saved me a ton of time.
The ability to filter by star rating and color label.
How Excire Foto helps with culling
You might not think this is a big deal, but I assure you it is. No matter what program I’m using — Capture One or Lightroom Classic — I always assign a color label to those images I choose to edit further. And when I need to give my clients a quick top 10 for social media usage, that’s where my star ratings come into play.
The beauty of Excire Foto is I can easily assign those colors and star ratings in Excire Foto. Then they’ll be automatically transferred to the program I edit in. This means that using Excire Foto as a culling tool can be really powerful.
On the opposite end, if I add a supported color label or star rating in any other program, I can then tell Excire Foto to sync its metadata — meaning those additions or changes come through there, too.
Filtering by stars and color labels
You can assign stars or color labels using the same colors Lightroom Classic uses — 0-5 for stars, and 6-9 for color labels. You can also hover over a photo in the grid view and assign it there, or by opening the photo in single view and using the toolbar at the top.
Once you’ve done that, it’s easy to filter by stars, color labels and even flags. In grid view, just hit Show toolbar at the top. You’ll be presented with a number of different filtering options to choose from.
Don’t forget to store and load
Once you’re done making changes and adding stars and color labels, be sure to go to Photo > Store metadata in Excire Foto.
Then, depending on the program you’re using, you’ll want to load the revised metadata. Here are a few program-specific instructions and limitations:
- Capture One: Supported fully; go to Image > Load Metadata to update.
- Lightroom Classic: Supported fully; go to Metadata > Read Metadata to update.
- Lightroom: Supported partially; will read metadata from Excire Foto that’s added prior to import. Lightroom does not support color labels.
- Luminar: Not supported; Luminar cannot load or store metadata like stars or color labels in imported photos.
Stars, colors and the power of artificial intelligence
I’ve had several times where I have a client come back to me six, nine months down the road and ask for a specific photo again. Or a different angle that I hadn’t originally sent them. Likewise, I sometimes like to dig through my archives for the best of the best. And Excire Foto helps me with both of those.
After I’m done editing a photo, I always give it a blue color label. And if it’s a photo I’m really happy with, I give it a 5-star rating. This is perfect for finding photos for uploading to social media or my online portfolio down the line, as I don’t have to sort through thousands of photos or remember where I had something stored.
As you can see, Excire Foto just simply makes my life as a photographer way easier. It lets me focus more on my craft, and less on the organizational front.
Your article is very helpful. I bought and have been experimenting with Excire Foto. One of the things that I cannot figure out is if I can get the keywords that I have already put on my photos in Lightroom Classic into Excire Foto. Is there a way to do that? I understand how to store the metadata from Excire Foto, but I want to go the other direction too!
Hey Cindy – Excire Foto should automatically see any metadata you’ve attached to images in Lightroom Classic. This includes keywords, color labels and star ratings. If it doesn’t, in Excire Foto, go up to Photo > Load Metadata when you have your photo(s) selected. Or if it’s an entire batch of photos, right-click on the parent folder and select Synchronize.