A question got posed on Facebook yesterday by another photographer asking about culling methods, so I figured that I would share my method here on the blog today. For those of you who don’t know what culling is, it’s the process of choosing which images you are going to edit. Often, I photograph two or three images of the same thing happening to ensure that no one is blinking or something like that! I don’t deliver two or three of the same images to my couples so I cull the ones that I don’t need out! To do this, I use the awesome software, PhotoMechanic. PhotoMechanic is an awesome program because it processes my big RAW files quickly and without rasterizing them first. This allows me to go through quickly and decide which images I want to import into Lightroom for editing! This helps save my computer storage and allows things to load more quickly!
I also use PhotoMechanic to separate images by parts of the day. For every wedding, I give my couples these folders within their online gallery: Lauren’s Favorites (these are used for the album design and the blog!), Pre-ceremony, Ceremony, Family Formals, Wedding Party, Bride + Groom Portraits, and Reception images. In PhotoMechanic, I can designate different colors for each section! Here’s a peek at what I mean:
For these images, the pink would end up being in the folder “Lauren’s Favorites” and the red images would go into “Bride and Groom portraits.” After that, I export each of these sets of images into individual folders and the import them all into Lightroom for editing!
One last tip for increasing speed in culling that I learned from my sweet friend Katelyn, is to cull in reverse. As the day goes on, your images are going to get better. Culling backwards allows you to find the best ones first!
This is literally one of my next video tutorials! :) Photo Mechanic is the bomb!
Great post — I swear by Photo Mechanic! Such a timesaver :)
Love your little nook. So pretty!
I just started using the trial version a few weeks ago and I’m hooked! I usually only have time to cull when the kids nap so maybe now I can sneak something else in that time ;) Thanks for sharing your organization tips!
Well, now I may have to go and check that software out!! ;)