We shoot digital. We shoot a lot. Often way too much.
Hey, that’s the beauty of it, right? One shot or a thousand shots cost the same if your memory card is good. But is that really true?
Aside from the fact that I remember my fashion editorial days, when we shot three rolls of film for every image, if not four. That’s between 100 and 140 shots per image, not so different from what we do today — but I digress, although this is probably a good topic for another post.
The point is if we have to spend hours culling our images, are those extra shots really worth it? Sometimes yes, they are, so why not find a way to cull faster? And here we go — a few quick tricks to speed up your culling and never have those quick-burst guilt pangs again.
Before import: Create a metadata preset
Before you import your images, create a preset that you’re going to use for every card download from now on.
Include your copyright details, and assign one star to every image. Call it 2019, and then make a copy of this to update every year.
On import: Assign the 2019 preset and create smart previews
Ideally, keep the LR catalog on the internal drive and store the images on an external hard drive. You will thank me later.
Assign the 2019 preset, and click on the Smart Previews checkbox.
When the images are imported, eject the hard drive. Ta-da! You’ve just sped up Lightroom, because it doesn’t have to revert back to the original image every time you switch from one to another. It now works on those wonderful smart previews you’ve made, which are waaaaaay faster to load. On your way now.
Next hero move: Caps lock
Click on the Caps Lock key. This will automatically take you to the next image as soon as you assign a rating to the one before. Easier done than explained — bear with me and you’ll see it happen. For now, just click that shift lock and make sure it’s on.
The true superpower: Hold your fingers on the number keys
As you click on a number, Lightroom will automatically assign that rating to the image, and having your the Caps Lock on will pull up the next image without you having to click on it or use the arrows. Magic!
Now for the real boost: TWO is for keepers
All your images have one star now. All you have to do is start with the first image and click either ZERO or ONE or TWO.
ZERO is for the blurred, bad images you want to delete. I don’t bother with marking photos as rejects (hitting the X key), as it doesn’t make my workflow faster. I can later filter search all the zero rated files and delete them just as fast.
ONE is for what you want to keep but it’s not great. TWO is for the keepers — the ones you will want to process.
And that’s it! You’ll be amazed at how fast you can do this. Two fast runs is usually all it takes to cut things down to a fifth of what you have. A wedding takes me half an hour to an hour at the most, and is actually quite fun.
When I edit, I give three stars to the edited ones, and leave at two the ones that are good but didn’t quite make the final showreel. That way, they can be easy to find again if I need them. And the best of the best gets four stars, the ones I want to find again for the portfolio. You know them when you see them.
Oh, and while you’re at this — editing on smart previews is also waaaaaay faster than doing it with files connected, so you might just want to get cracking and finish it off in one go. Inspiration hits best when things go fast ad easy.
At then end of all this, re-attach your hard drive and all the work gets re-connected to your original files. More magic!
Now be a darling and let me know if you try this and how it works for you. And if you have any other tricks to warp-speed your culling, comment below!
Stumbled across this article in my Google news feed. Pretty good tips actually & excellently explained. Thank you.
Thank you! Glad you found them useful :) follow us!
I do a slight variation where I find all the ones with potential promise and rank them 2,3 or 4. Then I show only the 4s and begin a rough edit in which they have to justify being there…anything which I’m still not loving gets renumbered to 3. Then I go through the 3s looking for potential 4s. Seldom do I find a 5 😂
Everyone can work out their own variations, the star rating system is so useful for culling yet people don’t seem to use it enough.
By setting my ratings between 1 and 2, and then giving 3 stars to edited photos, I immediately know which photos have been edited and which are still to be worked on.
4 stars go to the best of them (what might be published online), 5 stars are the top ones. I’m mean with my ratings… you’re so liberal!! :D haha
Great ideas, thank you
Glad you found them useful! :)
When you reconnect your hard drive is therr a way to have it delete all the files you deketed from lightroom?
I don’t delete when I cull. I set star ratings to zero for the images I don’t want to keep. When you reconnect, you select the zero-rated images and delete them then.
the real way to speed your culling is to load them into photo mechanic 1st , cull there then load the stars into LR for the actual work :)
Yes, but this article is about culling in Lightroom. Not everyone has or wants to buy another software… hence the whole point of the article :)
Thanks a lot for this article, fantastic workflow, very speed.
the real way to speed your culling is to load them into photo mechanic 1st , cull there then load the stars into LR for the actual work :)
Yes, but this article is about culling in Lightroom. Not everyone has or wants to buy another software… hence the whole point of the article :)
Stumbled across this article in my Google news feed. Pretty good tips actually & excellently explained. Thank you.
Thank you! Glad you found them useful :) follow us!
When you reconnect your hard drive is therr a way to have it delete all the files you deketed from lightroom?
I don’t delete when I cull. I set star ratings to zero for the images I don’t want to keep. When you reconnect, you select the zero-rated images and delete them then.
Great ideas, thank you
Glad you found them useful! :)
I do a slight variation where I find all the ones with potential promise and rank them 2,3 or 4. Then I show only the 4s and begin a rough edit in which they have to justify being there…anything which I’m still not loving gets renumbered to 3. Then I go through the 3s looking for potential 4s. Seldom do I find a 5 😂
Everyone can work out their own variations, the star rating system is so useful for culling yet people don’t seem to use it enough.
By setting my ratings between 1 and 2, and then giving 3 stars to edited photos, I immediately know which photos have been edited and which are still to be worked on.
4 stars go to the best of them (what might be published online), 5 stars are the top ones. I’m mean with my ratings… you’re so liberal!! :D haha
Thanks a lot for this article, fantastic workflow, very speed.
When you reconnect your hard drive is therr a way to have it delete all the files you deketed from lightroom?
I don’t delete when I cull. I set star ratings to zero for the images I don’t want to keep. When you reconnect, you select the zero-rated images and delete them then.
the real way to speed your culling is to load them into photo mechanic 1st , cull there then load the stars into LR for the actual work :)
Yes, but this article is about culling in Lightroom. Not everyone has or wants to buy another software… hence the whole point of the article :)
Great ideas, thank you
Glad you found them useful! :)
Thanks a lot for this article, fantastic workflow, very speed.
I do a slight variation where I find all the ones with potential promise and rank them 2,3 or 4. Then I show only the 4s and begin a rough edit in which they have to justify being there…anything which I’m still not loving gets renumbered to 3. Then I go through the 3s looking for potential 4s. Seldom do I find a 5 😂
Everyone can work out their own variations, the star rating system is so useful for culling yet people don’t seem to use it enough.
By setting my ratings between 1 and 2, and then giving 3 stars to edited photos, I immediately know which photos have been edited and which are still to be worked on.
4 stars go to the best of them (what might be published online), 5 stars are the top ones. I’m mean with my ratings… you’re so liberal!! :D haha
Stumbled across this article in my Google news feed. Pretty good tips actually & excellently explained. Thank you.
Thank you! Glad you found them useful :) follow us!