What do you do when you have a lot to do? You cull them based on priority. Similarly, photo culling is the process of boiling down the best images.
The name sounds simple, but the process isn’t; especially when you have thousands of photos that need to be checked. Being a photographer for quite a long time, I realized culling is a skill, not just a side work.
So, here in this article, I will give you an idea about how to cull photos, which images should you cull, and some insightful information on culling.
Let’s begin.
What you’ll learn in this article
What is Culling in Photography?
Simply, cull means selecting something from its group.
Cull images is a process by which photographers can select or deselect their best images captured during a session, eliminate duplicate & flawed photos, and thus simplify the work of photo-post production.
Generally, photographers take shots in different locations, such as indoor, and outdoor spaces, or hire companies like photo studio rental in Los Angeles, etc. After the end of each session, there are thousands of photos in their storage.
Which Images Should You Cull?
Each new batch of photos needs to be culled to find the best photos. If you need specifications, here is what type of images you should cull, if photos:
- are flawed, lacks focus
- are saved in multiple locations
- are aligning with the story you tell
- having distracting or unwanted objects
- having composition, exposure, blurry, or color issues
- too much cluttered and chaotic surrounding that overshadows the subject etc.
What Are the Advantages of Photo Culling?
Culling helps the photo post-production work easier as it eliminates the long process of editing each image one by one. Photo editors can just pick the best images through culling and carry on their duties, as simple as that. In the process what other benefits the culling brings, let’s know.
1. Preserves your storage space
Working with several clients, professional photographers get their storage filled up with a large number of files. As all images are not required or necessary, by culling them, you can remove those ones, and free up the space only for the important ones.
2. Saves Time and Money
Whether you are outsourcing photo editing services or DIY the images, the more images the more cost or time it requires. So what culling does here for you is categorize the least to most needed images and you can easily figure out which ones to work on.
3. Removes Duplicate Photos
For testing light, angles, color or setup, photographers take several identical shots. Not all images need to be edited. With cull images, you can get the best images fast.
4. Brings Perfect Optimization
The culling process helps sort the images into different categories based on the look, lighting, setup, ambiance, etc. You can distinguish the best-looking images from the flawed ones.
5. Refines your photography skill
Image culling helps you find differences and based on that find the most well-furnished picture, develop a keen eye on details, understanding photo styles and thus making informed decisions on photos.
6. Streamlines Work for Your Client
Through culling photos, you can not only speed up your work but also ensure fast turnaround to the clients, assisting them to proceed with their work faster and ensuring their satisfaction.
7. Provide High-Quality Pictures
Professionally taken photographs are of good quality, however, slight mistakes can happen. If the photographers have several images, culling will help them get the high-resolution and perfect-looking ones.
How to Cull Photos Faster and Efficiently: A Step-by-Step
The culling process varies from person to person, with the common ground remaining the same. Some people want to sort out the best photos and do not need the other ones and vice versa.
Here is what I do.
- Step 1: I check all the images of a photo session and mark the faulty ones first. This process declutters and speeds up my process and sets my priorities where needed.
- Step 2: Then I create different folders to ensure the good ones, the best ones, and the less necessary ones. I don’t delete the last one right away and keep it for a few months. Through attentive check on composition, light, and color, technical aspects, sharpness & focus, storytelling and emotional aspects, etc. I take some quality time in assessing the good images and the best images.
- Step 3: The best photos don’t need much editing work. However, the good ones need a final touch-up, and guess what, those turn out as astonishing as the best ones, sometimes even better.
Culling can be done either manually or automatically. Understanding both of these is important, which brings us to the description below. In the beginning stage, the culling process is done in 2 ways.
Photo Culling In
Photo culling in means accumulating the best photos from a group of photos. When photographers or photo editors select the photos they want to keep, that’s what photo culling means.
The process of culling is done through:
- Adding colors
- Marking images
- Using flags,
- Star ratings etc.
Photo Culling Out
Cull Out is the opposite of culling in, meaning doing the same process for discarding photos that are not of high quality, or not right light, or color correction, or include too many faults. By adding color, marking, giving rates, and using flags, you select the less important images and thus initiate the process of deletion.
Apart from these two, there are automatic processes and professional support.
Photo Culling with AI
Nowadays, there is no solution that AI doesn’t provide and culling photos happens to be one of the demanding ones. Photo culling with AI software has added dynamism to photographers’ working process.
The AI technology of culling software for photographers saves time and improves efficiency and accuracy but still, the machine can never beat human judgment and subjective considerations.
Also, there may be data security concerns, technical issues, and miscommunication involved. So, it is always better to entrust professionals with sensitive tasks.
Photo Culling Service Provider
Undoubtedly photo culling is an essential process but manually doing it every time after a session is time-consuming work as there are hundreds of shots. Thus, many photography post-production agencies offer photo culling solutions that systematically organize and ensure that your captured and stored images are full of perfect shots.
Photo editors, are experienced and trained professionals in providing a diverse range of post-production services. They are equipped with the latest version of photo editing software skills and serve international countries. Bulk photo culling, selecting, or any type of photography post-production solution, you can contact them for the fastest solutions.
Final Verdict
By now you know how important the culling process is to ensuring high-quality photos for commercial purposes. Deleting subpar photos, quickens the process of getting good images, so that the photographers can make happy clients, and culling ensures accurate images.
Still, the process is time-consuming and to aid the process, there is revolutionary AI culling software and professional photo culling services. If you choose to take external services, make sure to understand your requirements and security.
