Hey Photographers… Here’s My Secret to Culling Faster!

Here’s a tip that completely changed my life. Okay, that was a little dramatic. Well not my whole life, but I definitely got some of my time back 🙂 This is not my own original idea, it was a little trick I learned one of my favorite photographers, Katelyn James and something I am very grateful for.

So here it is… When it’s time to choose your favorite images from your next photoshoot, try culling BACKWARDS. As in start at the end, whether it be the end of a portrait session or the end of a wedding. What?! Mind. blown.

Most of us (especially us wedding photogs) immediately start at the best part of the day, a.k.a. the pretty details at the beginning of the day or the beautiful portraits in gorgeous light. And it makes sense, it is what we’re most excited for and pumped up about shooting in the first place and can’t wait to see what we captured.

Then when we get to the more mundane or not-as-exciting parts of the day like the ceremony or the trillion-bazillion dancing photos we over shoot at the reception, and after a handful, we quickly get burned out because there are just so many to look at and lots of duplicates of the same thing. Sometimes we just stop and come back later and even put it off as long as possible lol.

And if you really think about it, even during the beautiful parts of the day, the best photos are usually near the end. Whether it be at the end of a sequence of posing and you finally finessed all the little details to make it perfect or you figured out the perfect settings to make it better SOOC (straight out of camera). The best images will naturally be towards the end.

Just as in many parts of our lives, tackling the hardest/most difficult/not-as-eventful part of whatever you are working on… I’m looking at you procrastinators! (ahem. talking to myself here too)… will take a big load off your plate and you will feel so much better when you have it done. Then you get to work on the pretty parts of the day at the end of your culling session to *reward* yourself for a job well done!

While I do all of my editing in Adobe Lightroom, I love using Photo Mechanic for culling. It is a one-time cost of $150 and it has been a game-changer in my workflow! If you are currently using Lightroom, you know that even when you render 1:1 previews ahead of time, that there is still a slight delay in the photos showing up in high-resolution so you can view them right away to make sure they are in focus. In Photo Mechanic, the previews load immediately, EVEN when zooming in. No more waiting around twiddling your thumbs just waiting for your images to load. And then after I’m done culling, I export and edit in Lightroom. Try it out, you’ll thank me later 🙂

Are there parts of your editing workflow that you would like to be more efficient at? Leave a comment below and I’ll do my best to address it in a future blog post!