Cull and Rate a Shoot

Culling means going through everything you shot and keeping only the good frames. The faster you cull, the more time you have for editing. This recipe uses flags for the first pass, stars for ranking, and the Culling View to choose between similar shots.

1. Open the shoot

Add the folder (see Importing Photos). Then in View Options:

• Sort By → Date Taken, ascending, so the shoot is in order.
• Display Mode → Recursive if the shoot is split over subfolders (for example one per camera).

2. Optional: let Auto Cull find duplicates and blurry shots

1. Select all (Ctrl+A), right-click and choose Productivity → Auto Cull.
2. In Cull Images, keep both options on: - Group Similar Images, Similarity Threshold 28 (24 to 32 works well). Higher values group more loosely. - Filter Blurry Images, Blur Threshold 100. Raise it to flag more shots as blurry.
3. Click Start Culling.
4. The Similar Groups tab shows each burst with the Best Image (green, highest score for sharpness, focus and exposure) and the other frames as Duplicates. The Blurry Images tab lists out-of-focus shots. Duplicates and blurry shots are preselected; click to change that.
5. Choose an action and click Apply to N images: - Mark as Rejected (recommended): sets the Reject flag, nothing is deleted. - Set Rating to 1 Stars. - Move to Trash.

3. First pass: Pick or Reject

Open the first photo (Enter) and go through the shoot with the keyboard:

Decide quickly. Check in this order: focus (sharp where it matters, eyes for people), exposure (can it be saved?), moment (expression, blinks, peak action). Most modern RAW files survive about two stops of correction, so don't reject for exposure too quickly.

Tip: in View Options → Filter by Flag, choose Hide Rejected. Rejected photos then vanish as you go, and the next photo is selected automatically. If you rejected by mistake, click Undo in the message that appears.

4. Compare similar shots in the Culling View

For bursts and series of the same scene:

1. Switch to Culling View in the library header.
2. Select up to six similar photos in the strip on the right.
3. Turn on Sync Zoom and Pan and click on the eyes or focus point. All photos zoom to the same spot at 100%.
4. Pick the best with Shift+P and reject the rest with X.

5. Second pass: rank with stars

Filter to your picks (Filter by Flag → Picked) and rate them:

Use color labels (Shift+1 to Shift+5) for anything else you need to track, for example green for "ready to export" or purple for "print".

6. Clean up

When you are sure, delete the rejects: Ctrl+Backspace (macOS: Option+Delete), or right-click empty space in the grid → Delete Rejected Images. They go to the system trash, so you can still restore them.

7. Move on to editing

Now filter to your keepers, edit the first photo, and copy the edit to the others with Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V (see Copy & Paste Settings).

For tags such as client-album or print, select the photos and use right-click → Tagging. Later, search for the tag, select all results and export them together.

Tips

• Ratings, flags and labels are written to .xmp files too (if XMP sync is on), so Lightroom, darktable and other apps see them.
• Pressing the same rating or label again removes it.
• Cull strictly first and loosen later. Promoting a 2-star photo is faster than doubting a 5-star one.

See also

• Library View
• Keyboard Shortcuts