Culling Photos workflow

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jeffnles1

jeffnles1

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Wondering if anyone else does this or am I just too much of a retired IT project manager?
My workflow for keeping and culling photos is:
1) I open up the images on the SD card using Preview on Mac (I think it is called viewer on Windows).
2) I immediately delete any out of focus, bad exposures, awkward compositions and "why the heck did I take that image? pictures.
3) I import them into my photos library and when I'm editing and looking at the images there, I delete another bunch of ones that are duplicates or just not as interesting as I initially thought
4) Every January I go through the prior year's photos and delete any that are not a special memory, destined to be part of our calendar or just images that I like or think are good quality.

This wee was mu 2023 culling week. I deleted a little over 3,000 images. I somehow feel cleansed.

anyone else do this or am I just a little "too Jeff"....

Jeff
 
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I think you're adding too many steps. I never mess with anything directly on the card.

Open up capture 1, open the import menu, use the built in culling to go through, import everything after giving the best shots 3 stars in the initial process, format card after they all import, then go through and delete the garbage if needed
 
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jeffnles1 said:
Wondering if anyone else does this or am I just too much of a retired IT project manager?
My workflow for keeping and culling photos is:
1) I open up the images on the SD card using Preview on Mac (I think it is called viewer on Windows).
2) I immediately delete any out of focus, bad exposures, awkward compositions and "why the heck did I take that image? pictures.
3) I import them into my photos library and when I'm editing and looking at the images there, I delete another bunch of ones that are duplicates or just not as interesting as I initially thought
4) Every January I go through the prior year's photos and delete any that are not a special memory, destined to be part of our calendar or just images that I like or think are good quality.

This wee was mu 2023 culling week. I deleted a little over 3,000 images. I somehow feel cleansed.

anyone else do this or am I just a little "too Jeff"....

Jeff
Click to expand...
I do something similar but on my iPad. I tag the ones I like as favorites and then transfer them to my Mac. From there I back them up on external drives. I then go through the ones that weren’t tag and will trash most of them. The sd cards that contain the originals are archived. I don’t reuse the sd cards.
 
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I do #4 definitely, but I still keep too many. I also don't immediately delete due to exposure or composition...those may be able to be adjusted in post. Fun to try anyway, I enjoy adjusting in LR even if it's a flop.
 
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Cameron T said:
I think you're adding too many steps. I never mess with anything directly on the card.

Open up capture 1, open the import menu, use the built in culling to go through, import everything after giving the best shots 3 stars in the initial process, format card after they all import, then go through and delete the garbage if needed
Click to expand...
Probably adding an additional step you are right. My wife just imports them and deletes as she goes.
Jeff
 
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My process is completely different in the sense that I don't cull. Not because all my photos are great or because I think I'll need them at some point, but because of the scarcity of time. My process identifies good ones and pays little attention to bad ones. I don't care.

Whether the shoot is tethered or not, I view photos on LR with the sole purpose of finding good ones, which I move into a dedicated collection preset prior to going through the exercise, so it's a simple B press. If a shoot has 200 photos, maybe 20-30 make it into the Collection. I then go through the Collection and remove from it non-winners. Let's say I'm left with 5-6 which are then edited. Everything is backed and saved, nothing ever gets thrown away.
 
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Ralph said:
I do something similar but on my iPad. I tag the ones I like as favorites and then transfer them to my Mac. From there I back them up on external drives. I then go through the ones that weren’t tag and will trash most of them. The sd cards that contain the originals are archived. I don’t reuse the sd cards.
Click to expand...
I do format the SD cards and re use them. I typically get new cards when I'm going on a trip or some important shoot that may not happen again,
 
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KurtH said:
I do #4 definitely, but I still keep too many. I also don't immediately delete due to exposure or composition...those may be able to be adjusted in post. Fun to try anyway, I enjoy adjusting in LR even if it's a flop.
Click to expand...
Cool. I typically don't like the process of post processing all that much. I do admire those who do such great work in post.
 
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- sd / cfe > SSD (much faster to view)
- fastrawviewer (keeps magnification between images, much quicker to preview RAW when they're 50mb+) mark all the OOF / bad compositions to delete, keeping maybe 10% of a 1000 shot outing (1hr birding)
- take screenshots of the great pics and send them to friends in the process, neglect ever processing them properly
- back up to NAS
- format sd / cfe

after a year i'm about 10% through a 1tb SSD, and my NAS has 6tb so i've got another 8-9yrs until i have to think about doing any further cleanup. it only costs an extra $300 to store another 10 of photos (backed up to a NAS with redundancy), so i can't see any reason to force myself to delete old ones for a very long time... and by the time i get to that point, storage is going to be even cheaper than it is today.
 
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Nimi said:
My process is completely different in the sense that I don't cull. Not because all my photos are great or because I think I'll need them at some point, but because of the scarcity of time. My process identifies good ones and pays little attention to bad ones. I don't care.

Whether the shoot is tethered or not, I view photos on LR with the sole purpose of finding good ones, which I move into a dedicated collection preset prior to going through the exercise, so it's a simple B press. If a shoot has 200 photos, maybe 20-30 make it into the Collection. I then go through the Collection and remove from it non-winners. Let's say I'm left with 5-6 which are then edited. Everything is backed and saved, nothing ever gets thrown away.
Click to expand...
Hi Nimi, so you never delete anything...and you backup everything? Interesting...
 
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1 copy to a folder on my PC
2 Open in FastRAwViewer7
3 Also open in NXStudio pn second monitor (so I can se focus point and focus area)
4 Cull/delete anything that is not a "keeper"
5 Raw concersion, denoise and some sharpening using DxO PhotoLab Elite 7 (either tiff or dng format)
6 Bring "keepers into LR Classic for detailed editing

Several steps but having only the keeper images in LR makes it faster and easier to work there. With most wildlife, especially BIF, I cull a high percentage of the shots. Most may be sharp and well composed but only one out of each burst sequence is the best.
 
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KurtH said:
Hi Nimi, so you never delete anything...and you backup everything? Interesting...
Click to expand...

Yup. I'm cursed with knowing my daily rate, I dont have any extra hours in the day, and culling becomes super expensive when I apply my rate to the culling process. So I don't. Storage is dirt cheap and backup is automatic and occurs overnight every night. My "working" portfolio is a fraction of all my photos. I actually don't even know how many I have.
 
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CoyoteCreationsNW said:
1 copy to a folder on my PC
2 Open in FastRAwViewer7
3 Also open in NXStudio pn second monitor (so I can se focus point and focus area)
4 Cull/delete anything that is not a "keeper"
5 Raw concersion, denoise and some sharpening using DxO PhotoLab Elite 7 (either tiff or dng format)
6 Bring "keepers into LR Classic for detailed editing

Several steps but havingonlythekeeperimages in LR makes it faster and easier to work there. With most wildlife, especially BIF, I cull a high percentage of the shots. Most may be sharp and well composed but only one out of each burst sequence is the best.
Click to expand...
Hello Coyote. You're using several different software packages for the "usual" post items. It sounds like your process may have matured/been refined over the years, yes? I'm intrigued with your step #3. NX Studio quickly and easily highlights the focus area?
 
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KurtH said:
Hello Coyote. You're using several different software packages for the "usual" post items. It sounds like your process may have matured/been refined over the years, yes? I'm intrigued with your step #3. NX Studio quickly and easily highlights the focus area?
Click to expand...
there is an option to turn on focus point in Nx Studio. It shows the focus point as the focus area that was selected for that image. lets me quickly get rid of missed focus (this happens more than you might think, especially if using VR normal hand held). Also NxStudio is free. Yes my work flow has evolved. I came from a fashion and portrait background. LR and PS were the standards, For portrait work I still use Topaz Denoise AI and rarely Sharpen AI. I do not use the overall photo AI. Sometimes use Portrait Pro for people editing. For wildlife, DxO PhotoLAb seems to do a better job. I tried PurePrime3 but felt its sharpening was a little too aggressive for my taste. PhotoLab lets me tame that. See the bear close-up I put in the photo presentation for an example of DxO processiing as a first step.
 
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CoyoteCreationsNW said:
there is an option to turn on focus point in Nx Studio. It shows the focus point as the focus area that was selected for that image. lets me quickly get rid of missed focus (this happens more than you might think, especially if using VR normal hand held). Also NxStudio is free. Yes my work flow has evolved. I came from a fashion and portrait background. LR and PS were the standards, For portrait work I still use Topaz Denoise AI and rarely Sharpen AI. I do not use the overall photo AI. Sometimes use Portrait Pro for people editing. For wildlife, DxO PhotoLAb seems to do a better job. I tried PurePrime3 but felt its sharpening was a little too aggressive for my taste. PhotoLab lets me tame that. See the bear close-up I put in the photo presentation for an example of DxO processiing as a first step.
Click to expand...
So LR for everything else (i.e., lighting, cropping, etc.)? Going to give NX a try, thanks.
 
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I find myself importing and culling images in at least 2 different ways. In part it depends on how many images are clearly not any good. For example when photographing birds in flight, hummingbirds, bats at night triggered by motion detection, 90% or more of the images are garbage being either blank frames, or cut off wings, etc. Here I'll download using Lightroom, but first I uncheck all images seen as thumbnails in the import dialog box and then go back and check the the images that have a chance of being good.
In other situations where I have plenty of potential keepers, I will use one of two methods.
The first is to import the images from the card using Lightroom, after first unchecking any obviously bad images. Then after building at least standard previews, I'll go through the images with pick and reject flags and the delete all of the images marked with as rejected.
The second method I sometimes use is to import all images on the card to my computer using PhotoMechanic. Then I use FastRawViewer to cull the images. Then I import the best images into Lightroom.
 
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Import into LR, go through images and hit X on crap/OOF/non-keepers, which flags them as rejected. At some point later I do a CMD+Del to permanently delete any Rejected photos, leaving me with my decent/great stuff, and over the next few days/weeks slowly whittle those down to just the best. It’s a slow, methodical process. Really good stuff gets posted to Flickr, and at end of year I put all good stuff into a photo book.
 
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jeffnles1 said:
Wondering if anyone else does this or am I just too much of a retired IT project manager?
My workflow for keeping and culling photos is:
1) I open up the images on the SD card using Preview on Mac (I think it is called viewer on Windows).
2) I immediately delete any out of focus, bad exposures, awkward compositions and "why the heck did I take that image? pictures.
3) I import them into my photos library and when I'm editing and looking at the images there, I delete another bunch of ones that are duplicates or just not as interesting as I initially thought
4) Every January I go through the prior year's photos and delete any that are not a special memory, destined to be part of our calendar or just images that I like or think are good quality.

This wee was mu 2023 culling week. I deleted a little over 3,000 images. I somehow feel cleansed.

anyone else do this or am I just a little "too Jeff"....

Jeff
Click to expand...
Culling is mind-numbing and I hate doing it. But, I think, it must be done. Everyone has their own process. In the midst of winter is when I review the prior 12 months photos in LrC. I remove any non-keepers except for a few which vexed me during editing. Those few might have WB issues I couldn’t resolve or background detail I struggled to remove. Sometimes I had masking issues or sharpening problems. I have a Lr collection for those images. As editing tech improves I go back to them to see if I’m able to edit them more acceptably.
 
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I make decisions on keeping vs. deleting at one time - upon ingest. After that the time and implied cost of going back through older images is not worth it. But I do rate every image immediately after importing. I only discard images that are clear discards. On more than one occasion I've had images that were not my favorite that needed to be used by a client or for a project. Sometimes it's because of cropping and orientation - I need a vertical version of an image that I thought the best version was horizontal. In other cases there is a small issue with a select image that I did not notice - slightly soft, an eye not quite open all the way, something in the background, etc.

Don't forget the impact of technical editing tools on your images. I have discarded images for small flaws that are easily fixed today with more advanced editing tools. Of course, images of animals normally have a higher standard since there are opportunities to take lots of photos of the same species.
 
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I'm always surprised at how many people DONT use Bridge. Bridge has actually cut my edit times for real estate by about a 1/3rd over using lightroom.

Dont waste time importing photos youre just gonna delete anyway. Just rate them in bridge while still on the card and only move what you actually want. Bridge is MUCH faster at viewing RAW files than lightroom.
 
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EricBowles said:
I make decisions on keeping vs. deleting at one time - upon ingest. After that the time and implied cost of going back through older images is not worth it.
Click to expand...
Yes, when working at 20 fps.

Otherwise I use a three pass system.

But at twenty fps your system is the only way to survive.

Cleaning up later to save space is a waste of time, plus I often find that reject candidates can produce nice images with improvements in technology and my skills.
 
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