CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Nick said someplace in this thread, or similar, the keeper rate should be in the 5% range. Even if 10% were all perfect, no one needs 2x to 5x of essentially the same shot. One culls first, aggressively, looking at the images for just 1-second and making an immediate keep / kick decision. For me, I browse at the pixel level looking at sharpness (focus) only, no composition. The slightest focus issue, which are many, and that is deleted and the display is auto-advanced to the next. The goal is to get to 100 (200 max) before you begin to edit anything. It might take 2- or 3-culls, but it gets easier when you're only looking at good vs good after the first cull of 50%, seeking 'the (potentially) great' only.

You also use a mass-edit program like LR, with lots of presets that automate your standard edits for a consistent look and feel for your work. Some people just pick a few to edit and leave the rest. I'm rarely working on a deadline, so I edit everything, constantly evaluating each image and always trying to find a reason to delete that image from the pool, within LR, even after the culling before import. My last 1200-image session resulted in 75 images I'm very happy with. When I've done race photos against a deadline, there's hardly any individual editing, just maybe cropping / leveling, if there's time.

Nickaroo

I only get help if I need it. I know how to cull through my Files pretty quick. And yes I do end up with a Very Crazy amount of Photos from just 1 Game. Even though I do Batch Processing, it still takes time and sometimes I just go by my inner feelings or attitudes towards certain shots. I have been up to par for the past 4 Seasons. It may sound like an ungodly task to shoot as many shots as I do, but most Pro-Photogs will usually have a pretty good handle on what they pick to edit or ship to our athletic dept.. I use Half-Time's to try and get a decent selection going so when I'am done for the game it's not to overwhelming. I just stay focused and my Brain let's me know if I have a Motherload of images to edit. I feel that a Photographer, such as myself, knows their 5 Star pics before they even get home or stay at the office to edit. Nobody can edit 1200 files in 2 hours. So, I train my eyes to catch certain things before going to edit. Now, when I do my Wildlife shots, I get them done that night before I call it a night.

Nickaroo

Oh, I totally agree with you, as I pretty much have an idea of what I present to ACR or LRC. It doesn't take to long to know when you have a keeper or not. I tend to knock certain files off at Halftime. I know which ones are good and which ones I won't even entertain. And yes you are correct as far as the Keeper% goes. But I usually keep a few extra that I haven't tried to edit. After a game I spend a couple of hours going through my images and culling or picking which ones that I will submit to Our Athletic Dept.. And believe me when I say that some days after a game, I have had one of our Staff ask me if i was in the Student Section drinking with the Students. I have had games where everything felt like I hit the Lotto, then others including Wildlife pics, I have asked myself if I needed a lobotomy or what. Paul, you know that when things are even going good, it can turn on a dime. That is why some games I just sit it out and work the Bench with our guys. I'm sure that you have probably had the kind of days that I aforementioned in all of the years that you have been shooting. MILC's are sure making my job a little easier. Please do not think that I would even attempt to edit every shot that I take. I pretty much follow your path, look at the image to make sure that it is not blurry and go from there. They would admit me to the Hospital near our Athletic Dept. if I hated them 300 files. Usually on Game Day, I have my setups ready for different spots where I feel that the action will be. So, I try to limit my images for a game to 850-900, the other 300 or so are my Wildlife shots, which I really pay attention to and cull through the same way. I still have files from November that I want to edit, and that is my Wildlife images.

Nickaroo

Oh Paul, I have used Presets just to get into the Ballpark of what I will edit or not. My deadline at U of M is around midnight. Me and the other staff might be in the office after Home games until 3AM. I own a really nice loft in Ann Arbor, so it doesn't matter to me if I stay up all night and the guys and I usually take an hour break to go the bar, The Arc, and do some fluid intake. Of course my Wife doesn't like it but she understands that I work with a great group of guys and we all work together to reach one common denominator, and that is for us to have at least 5-10 images to download to the portal for publication.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Thank you for taking the time to explain that. I helps those of us who don’t have a great amount of experience editing. Sometimes we get stalled, the hard part for me is when two images are close. So thank you for the good tips for keeping focused and keeping moving.

delder Loc: Maryland

Thank you so much for this post. I had NOT considered the initial "Focus on Sharpness"

Nickaroo

Thank You Paul for stating what mean't state. I would tell everyone to CULL your Images, then pick the ones that you will entertain for P.P.. I did do 1300 shots last week as my Friend and I went to Iowa to shoot Eagles on the Mississippi River. I think that my hand and arms were having spasms. Then of Course we had to leave for the Cage Fight that we had setup with the Wisconsin Badgers. That Michigan Basketball game was nuts, but I Sure did get some shots. Then, we drove to Chicago on Sunday and really took a few nice shots while we went to the train station to get some shots of the Deco Artwork, I swear that it is Beautiful and I would recommend anyone that likes Photography to go at least once.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

I hope I understood your approach correctly. It is an interesting way of culling. However, it seems to me that deciding what to initially cull based solely on sharpness at the pixel level in just a couple of seconds, and not consider composition or other factors, could potentially lead to a lot of very sharp but otherwise mediocre images. So I assume your culling process is more complex than that. I don't take a huge number of images so even if I have at most a few hundred from a shoot many can be deleted quickly because the image just doesn't contain interesting compositional features. The very last thing I look at during culling is image sharpness unless the image is clearly soft at first glance.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

To better explain, maybe we should start with three different scenarios:

1. Digital bursts of 3- to 10-images of action (sports, BIF, a bee at a flower, etc), or even of a relatively static subject like just a flower. Repeated for hours until you have 1200 images.

2. A group of digital images working a subject with different apertures, ISOs or slightly different points of view, such as 3 or 4 versions each of each individual car at an autoshow. Repeated for hours until you have 1200 images.

3. A roll of film with 36 unique images spread out of several hours of shooting.

Assume scenarios 1 & 2 filled a 32GB card with roughly 1200 RAW images around 24MP. Scenarios 1 & 2 apply to the culling process being discussed. Every image, all 1200, were captured with the same level of effort for focus, and exposure, and composition. Maybe I'm less of a photographer than others, but my experience is not every image works. Many / most don't, especially when I'm working at the edges of the technically possible in slow shutterspeeds or high ISOs. Or, tracking moving subjects where the few movements before / after the best view aren't as good / worth keeping.

But, since every frame was a good effort, they should represent compositions I thought would be interesting (worth taking) with just technical issues / differences in the details. An image that's not in focus, when so many others are, isn't an image worth considering further. If I have so many images I get to a third cull, that final cull will likely just look at compositions. More typically, the composition decisions are made in LR, after I've edited a few remaining similar images and can judge from the processing, and especially the cropping, and maybe even after completing the full edit of individual images including doing digital cleanup (cloning). I said earlier I'm always trying to kick images. At any point I can judge one is better than another similar image, I'll get rid of unnecessary frame.