In this tutorial, we will go over the preferred workflow process we currently use at Lin & Jirsa Photography. If you have seen our tutorial from the Lightroom 4 A to Z Workshop on DVD, you will know that we have also used the “Editing Out” Culling System to cull our images. There are many different workflow processes, but we now use the “Culling In” Workflow Process because we have found it to be much more efficient than any other workflow processes. Feel free to use whatever workflow process to suit your own personal needs as there is no one “right” workflow process. However, we hope that you will pick up a few tips from this tutorial that will help speed up your production workflow.
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“Culling In” Workflow Process: What Is It?
In the “Culling In” Workflow Process, we are going to select all of the images in our catalog and then reject them. Once we have rejected all of our images, we are going to go through each image and select which ones we want to keep. When we go through our images, do not worry about applying any develop settings to an image. We are simply just going through our catalog and picking out which images we want to keep.
Culling Our Images
First, get to the Grid View by hitting “G.” Then select all of your images by simply hitting “Ctrl + A.” As you can see below, all of the images in our catalog have been selected.
Once we have selected all of the images in our catalog, we need to reject them. Reject your images by hitting “X.”
After we have rejected our images, go to the Loupe View by hitting “E.” You can also get to the Loupe View by double-clicking on an image. Once you are in the Loupe View, go through each image by using the Left/Right Arrows on your keyboard. As you can see below, we are in the Loupe View and we are using our Left/Right arrows to move from image to image.
When you come across an image you want to keep, simply hit “P” to flag the image as a “pick.”
As mentioned before, we are not applying any develop settings to our images in the “Culling In” Workflow Process; we are only culling our images. That means that the culling process and the develop process are split into two components, allowing us to focus on each component separately. When we are culling our images, all we have to worry about is if we want to pick and deliver the image. Likewise, when we are developing our images, we only need to focus on batch processing.
Culling in the Grid View
We can also quickly cull our images through the Thumbnails in the Grid View (hit “G”). Once again, you would hit “P” to flag an image as a “pick.” To adjust the size of the Thumbnails, hit “+” for larger Thumbnails or “-” for smaller Thumbnails. We recommend having larger Thumbnails so that you can see your images more clearly. As you can see below, we are in the Grid View and the images we have flagged as a “pick” are not grayed out and the image you are currently viewing is highlighted.
After you have increased the size of your Thumbnails, you can also shrink the left and right panels, as well as the top and bottom panels to see your images more clearly. To toggle all of these panels, hit “Shift + Tab.” As you can see below, we have toggled all of the panels and increased our Thumbnail size to view our images more clearly.
As a side note, if you are worried that you cannot tell if an image is sharp or not in the Grid View, you will be able to tell when you are actually developing the image. When you are developing the image, you can always click the filter to show all of the images in your catalog and then select a different image that you might think is sharper. However, for the most part, you should be able to tell if an image is sharp or not when looking at a larger Thumbnail.
Conclusion & Learn More!
You can use the “Culling In” Workflow Process in either the Grid View (“G”) or the Loupe View (“E”). This workflow process is great because you can solely focus on just culling your images rather than developing them at the same time. In this workflow process, we only need to hit 1 button (“P”) to pick an image. We highly recommend using the “Culling In” Workflow Process as it will save you a lot of time. You can still use programmable keyboards, such as RPG Keys, but they are not necessary in this workflow process. You can still quickly go through your images with just a mouse and keyboard. In fact, Lin & Jirsa Photography can produce around 1,500-1,600 images an hour with this simple workflow process.
To learn more about the SLR Lounge Workflow System Workshop on DVD or to purchase it, click on this link.
To purchase the Lightroom 4 Workshop Collection which includes A-Z Tutorials, the Preset System, and Workflow DVD, click here.
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