Non-wildlife culling approach

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BarkingBeans Coffee

BarkingBeans Coffee

Michael H
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I purchased and watched Steve's video on LRc Library module. It's what convinced me to use LRc and PS again. So now I just did a non-wildlife trip to Portugal. I now have collected my images, along with my wife's and another couple. They have been imported into LRc and there are 5,200 images. When I went to delete the duds, there were not many.
So what approach would you take to sorting through images like this. The vast majority of them have GPS tags because they were taken with my Z9 or a phone.

I was thinking of reviewing them for themes, and writing these down, and then going back and rating them based on that category. I don't want to Keyword 5,200 images at the start. Categories could be food, castles, port wine, patterns and shapes (tiles and streets), specific locations such as a town, just to name a few.

I am curious what approaches do people take when it's not wildlife with obvious out of focus or other reasons for culling and sorting?
 
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I use the star system. 3 *'s must be in focus, well composed and a keeper. 4*'s Stand out images for expression, pose, location, etc. 5 *'s (I get very few of those!!!) are simply outstanding and worthy of sharing with the world! LOL!

If I have multiple images of the same location, situation, etc.....I cull it down to the very best 2 or 3 images.

I keep about 1-2% of my wildlife shots. For architecture projects, the keeper rate is more like 70-80% since I am slow and deliberate in creating the compositions but often times needs to take 3 or 5 exposure bracketed shots.
 
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BarkingBeansCoffee said:
I am curious what approaches do people take when it's not wildlife with obvious out of focus or other reasons for culling and sorting?
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I typically use Collections plus a flag or number rating system for things like that.

IOW, set up a LR Collection with the main topic for instance Portugal 2023. Within that Collection you can if you want set up other sub-Collections if there are strong categories that stick out depending on the trip you took.

Then you add images to the main or sub-Collections as you see fit and a single image can be added to multiple Collections if the image or images don't fit neatly into one logical grouping. Adding images to Collections doesn't make copies or create multiple images on your drives taking up more storage, it just adds a logical path from the Collection back to the place the actual images are stored so that you can get to them quickly by browsing in each Collection or sub-Collection and not have to go back to the actual storage folder to find images of interest. Add to that a flag based or numeric score based system for any real standout images you want to find in a hurry and you can filter each Collection based on those flags or numeric ratings to find the standout photos really quickly.

There are other quick locate filters you can use in LR like chasing Metadata filtering from the Grid View and selecting things like date or camera (e.g. quickly find the iPhone images vs your other images) or lens or many other metadata parameters. This searching can happen in the original ingest or storage folder but these searches can be performed from the Collections as well so within a Collection named something like: Portugal 2023 Scenics you can perform a metadata (or flagging or rating) search on specific shooting data within just that logical Collection.

That's more or less how I also organize: Wildlife, Landscapes, Astro and other other nature stuff as well with logical Collections at the high level for Mammals, Birds, Landscapes, Astro, Macro, etc. and then sub-Collections for specific species or landscape locations or star trails vs, moon shots vs solar, etc. Collections are an easy way to organize things without a lot of copying around or even moving the images from their storage locations on import for which LR uses a date system for folders when each new batch of photos is imported. It also lets you add the same image to multiple collections if desired without making copies of the original image files and taking up more hard drive space.
 
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I also use a numbering system based on gut feel. The ones that stand out as really nice get a 3 or a 4. If I have plenty in all categories I just work further on those and start getting rid of "similar" ones based on sharpness overall, crop, background, etc. Since you have different categories, you could first sort them with colors. For example, food gets red, architecture grenn, etc. to break it down into more manageable chunks. Remember: Good is the enemy of great, that's the hardest choice. BTW, I usually delete from disk the ones I deemed no good, so I don't second guess myself later or see the similar ones and question if I kept a copy. I have never missed them.
 
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Thanks all this helps me focus on a process.

What do people think the main difference is in using a collection vs keywording? I think once I have the collection/subcollection it would be easy to keyword. So maybe both are good. Is there a way to see what collection an image is contained in if I am in grid mode. Purpose would be trying to see if I missed any not what is in the collection?

Creating the sub collections will help me think through the themes. Rating them will be much easier.
 
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BarkingBeansCoffee said:
Thanks all this helps me focus on a process.

What do people think the main difference is in using a collection vs keywording? I think once I have the collection/subcollection it would be easy to keyword. So maybe both are good. Is there a way to see what collection an image is contained in if I am in grid mode. Purpose would be trying to see if I missed any not what is in the collection?

Creating the sub collections will help me think through the themes. Rating them will be much easier.
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My approach is very similar to Karen, but I also rate 1 and 2 which are discarded. My 4 and 5 rated images are candidates for editing but include duplicates and similars. For editing I pick the one image I want to edit out of similars or duplicates. I expect all images to be rated, have high level keywording, and and selects identified before I get home from a trip.

I use keywords for large groups of images, and then further refine with additional keywords. I can create a collection from keywords on an automated basis. Collections could cover location, subject, etc. and may or may not have time periods as well. Keywords can automatically populate Smart Collections.

With a large number of images, Photo Mechanic is a good alternative and a lot faster than Lightroom for ingest, caption, keyword, rating, renaming, notes, etc. With this approach, only candidates for editing go into LR at all.
 
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My process is similar to Eric's. For instance, once they are sorted by time (in your case since you have photos taken by others), you can select a lot of images all taken at Location A, and keyword them all at the same time. You can also add keywords to selected photos can contain Person A and B and.......... Keywords doesn't take much time when you are doing a lot of images at once.

Once they are keyworded, you can select the images of Person A and process the best ones. Or images taken at a certain place/activity and pick the best ones from that series.
 
I think the painter tool can be useful here. There are a lot of things you can paint, so you could very quickly 'spray paint' one keyword and then make one collection for major categories.

jkost.com

Julieanne Kost's Blog | Using the Painter Tool in Lightroom Classic

One of my favorite tools in Lightroom Classic is the Painter tool. For those of you not familiar with it, the Painter tool allows you to pick an attribute (including keyword, label, flag, ratings, metadata templates, settings (presets+), rotation and target collection) and apply to images by...
jkost.com jkost.com
 
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I am a big fan of LRC Collections, but understand that this is a feature that is only available within LRC. Keywording become metadata and can be used outside of LRC, but it can be a more complex solution depending on your keywording scheme. You can do both, and perhaps start with collections and then decide if you want to keyword later.

Regarding culling, I also use a variation of the number system when I want to focus on the "keepers". They way I was taught was to start by assigning "1"s, and considering deleting those that are not worth saving at all. Then review the "1"s for the "2"s, using more strict criteria, and keep repeating with 3, 4 and 5. This way you keep reviewing a smaller and smaller subset for each review.

Good luck,

--Ken
 
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BarkingBeansCoffee said:
What do people think the main difference is in using a collection vs keywording?
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Personally I use keywording for attributes that could apply to many different kinds of photos and use collections to create groups of similar kinds of photos that I want to review or select from as a group. So I might have keywords for things like Action, Happy, Cute or many other adjectives that could apply to a wide variety of images of very different subjects or even very different genres. But I use Collections to group images that are all related such as all my Wood Duck or Bald Eagle photos go into Collections by those names. Or for something like you described in your post, when I've taken trips I often create a Collection of that trip and perhaps sub-Collections beneath that one for things on that trip like historical landmarks or local people or things like that.

An example of one way to use that was when my wife and I took a six week road trip up the Alcan to Alaska and through the Yukon and back in our van and camped the whole way. So when I got home and after culling the obvious bad shots or mistakes I created an Alaska Trip 2019 Collection and there's some sub-Collections under that like: Camping, Scenics, Wildlife and the like. But during that trip I managed to capture some keeper landscape and wildlife images that I thought were worth adding to my existing nature and wildlife images Collections. So a few of those images got added to existing Collections like: Wildlife>Marine Mammals>Sea Otters or Birds>Hawk Like Birds>Bald Eagles or other Collections that already existed for other work I've done. The great thing about Collections for that kind of thing is that adding them to more than one Collection isn't a problem and doesn't result in multiple actual copies of the image files. The Collections are sort of like index card files that tells LR where to find the actual images and the same actual image file can show up in multiple Collections just as different ways to access the same actual image.

Hope that makes sense
 
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Thanks for these insights. I decided to start by experimenting with collections.

Step one was Smart Collections based on city or state to capture general areas. One problem is about 10% of the images were taken with a Canon that doesn't have GPS.

What this helps is focus on activities via places that will help with grouping for key wording.

I wonder if Adobe is working on AI key wording beyond faces?
 
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Replytoken said:
Regarding culling, I also use a variation of the number system when I want to focus on the "keepers". They way I was taught was to start by assigning "1"s, and considering deleting those that are not worth saving at all. Then review the "1"s for the "2"s, using more strict criteria, and keep repeating with 3, 4 and 5. This way you keep reviewing a smaller and smaller subset for each review.
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I use something like that when I'm faced with a large number of images and have already culled out the obvious mistakes and bad images. I'll go through and use the number rating system saving 5 ratings for those that jump right off the screen and I know I want to use but might end up with a lot of 2 or 3 rated images that are solid and might see some future use but not the kind that I just know I'll want to use.

After a couple of passes I'll filter for all Unrated images and take one more pass through these to see if there's something I missed that really should be kept and if so add a rating number to those images. Then with the filter set for unrated I'll select all visible unrated photos (Ctrl-A on a PC, CMD-A on a Mac) and hit X to put a delete tag on them then hit Ctrl-Backspace (PC) or CMD-Backspace(Mac) and choose the option for deleting them from both LR and from the disk and then they're gone...
 
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I do understand the rating of images and this thread is a good reminder of that process. I am still in the process though of focusing on how I get to groups or themes so that I can rate them. For example all the food images, flowers, cats (yes Portugal loves their cats - does that count as wildlife) or castles or beach scenes. Right now I am thinking about these differently that wildlife where location and theme don't seem to matter to me.
 
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Ok here is a question for your gurus.

Is there a way to make a sub-collection for a series of dates by date. So for example right now I making a smart collection by date but we were gone 23 days so that is tedious. Is there a way to do that more efficiently.

I could either filter by the date, create a sub collection with the date name, and then select all and hit B to add them.
Or I could make a sub-collection by a date, duplicate it, edit it, and save it.

Both of these take some time. Is there an easier way?
 
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BarkingBeansCoffee said:
Ok here is a question for your gurus.

Is there a way to make a sub-collection for a series of dates by date. So for example right now I making a smart collection by date but we were gone 23 days so that is tedious. Is there a way to do that more efficiently.

I could either filter by the date, create a sub collection with the date name, and then select all and hit B to add them.
Or I could make a sub-collection by a date, duplicate it, edit it, and save it.

Both of these take some time. Is there an easier way?
Click to expand...
Once you have all the images sorted by date, select the images within the dates parameters you want. Once the images are selected create a collection or sub-collection.
 
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BarkingBeansCoffee said:
Ok here is a question for your gurus.

Is there a way to make a sub-collection for a series of dates by date. So for example right now I making a smart collection by date but we were gone 23 days so that is tedious. Is there a way to do that more efficiently.

I could either filter by the date, create a sub collection with the date name, and then select all and hit B to add them.
Or I could make a sub-collection by a date, duplicate it, edit it, and save it.

Both of these take some time. Is there an easier way?
Click to expand...
Why not just use File Name with a date range and make a Smart Collection. It will pull all images with that location in the file name. Or you could use Location as a Keyword, and create a collection based on that keyword and a date range. You could add a rating if you rate your photos - all unrated photos or all 4 and 5 rated photos.

The value of smart collections is at least in part the ability to use rules to create collections.
 
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When I ingest photos from a trip I create daily folders within the main trip folder so they are already sorted by a specific date. In some cases they have subfolders for a time or location (morning/afternoon/night etc depending on the trip) This is easy for me because I copy the photos from the card to a specific location before importing them into LR. If I have photos from others on the trip I keep them separate at least until their copyright information is attached. Yes I sometimes end up with a lot of folders, but I don't find it is a problem. You can always select the 'show photos in subfolders' option. Collections (smart and dumb) happen down the road as needed.

There is more to my system as it is highly customized to the way I think. It works very well for me. It might not work as well for others. :) It's one thing I've always liked about LR. I set up my catalogs to work the way I think vs the default Adobe way.

(additional edit. Sometimes I have just copied everything into one folder and then use a file detail sort by date to separate them into dated folders.)
 
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@EricBowles basically I did that using the capture date with Smart Collections but I had to make 23 of them. I put in an idea to Adobe that automating a date range into individual dates as sub collections would be very useful for vacation photos.
 
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BarkingBeansCoffee said:
@EricBowles basically I did that using the capture date with Smart Collections but I had to make 23 of them. I put in an idea to Adobe that automating a date range into individual dates as sub collections would be very useful for vacation photos.
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I'm not sure, but sometimes you can use a range of dates or Greater than the initial date. I usually have a logical file name and folder name, so I can simply say "West Virginia" and "Create Date > 1/1/2023" and it produces a collection. I also keyword things like park name, waterfall, etc. and can refine further.

There are lots of ways to create the ability to use collections, names, keywords, and other metadata. The more you use that information, the more worthwhile it is to populate that data for future photos or even going back occasionally. Don't worry about perfection - I started keywording when I had a library of 85,000 images and did not go back to older files. But at this point I have 500,000 images, and over 400,000 of those have some level of keywording, common file names, and location that can be used as needed. Every time I download a new card of images, I have basic keywords, caption, location, folder and file names that can support Collections or similar data searches.
 
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BarkingBeansCoffee said:
basically I did that using the capture date with Smart Collections but I had to make 23 of them. I put in an idea to Adobe that automating a date range into individual dates as sub collections would be very useful for vacation photos.
Click to expand...
That's where the duplicate smart collection option becomes useful. At least you don't have to start from scratch.
 
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I guess I don't understand. If the images are sorted by date, why can't you select all the images that were taken during (for instance) May 15 - May 19. Let's pretend that was when you visited a major location. Once the images are selected, can't you create a collection? And with them selected keyword them all at once for that location?

Then do the same with May 20 - May 25, etc...........

That way you are not creating 23 daily collections. You are creating collections based on key points in the trip.

Instead of trying to automate it, this approach seems very quick and simple.

OK - I'll hush up now..................;)
 
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