raymondh Loc: Walker, MI

Canon’s DPP works fairly well for Canon shooters.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Ah, the power of the M1 chip...

I use a very similar method.

There is a program called Graphic Converter ($40 shareware, Mac only) that (among a zillion other things) does what I call a "sorting slide show". It can be set up so you can use keyboard commands to send images to different folders as you view each in full screen. This is great for initial detail views of images such as large groups of people. In fact, we used it in a portrait lab 20 years ago to edit customers' group photos! It was great to find the kids flipping the bird or displaying gang signs, closed eyes, bad expressions, etc., then picking the "least awful frame." I still use it. It's at version 12 and has been in development for 30+ years. Apple even bundled it with their computers back in the mid-2000s.

Horseart Loc: Alabama

I simply put mine in a folder and then view the first picture in "extra large view", if I don't like it, I click the X to be rid of it and then click on the arrow to the next picture...do the same with each picture. Pretty fast sorting for me.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Basically, there is no fast way to look at five hundred pictures. Unless he decides that he wants to delete all those in a certain location, he'll have to look at each one. It's easier if all similar images are grouped together. That would require some sorting. When I look through a large number of images, I spread out the workload. Evaluating hundreds of images in one sitting doesn't seem like a good idea. I take my tmie and do some now and some later. That way, I'm always fresh.

There is software that will help you call, but I'd rather do it myself.

https://fstoppers.com/education/beginners-guide-culling-and-why-we-do-it-89324
https://www.slrlounge.com/glossary/culling/
https://www.vfpresets.com/how-to-quickly-cull-images-in-lightroom/

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=culling+photos

cahale Loc: San Angelo, TX

If you use Windows, just go to the folder in which you stored them, select "View-Extra large icons" and see a bunch (number depends on the size and resolution of your monitor) at once. No hassle or adding new software to your computer.

Hip Coyote

I just import all pics into LR using my usual file structure, I go through the pics using X to mark for rejection and P to "Pick" the photos I want. I then delete all rejected photos. It keeps my LR catalog up to date and easy to do. Works for me.

Grahame Loc: Fiji

This method may be ok for culling obvious duds such as accidental shots of the ground but does not allow for fast detailed inspection.

It does not allow you to instantly inspect for 'sharpness' of the subjects eyes at say 100% pixel for pixel, which would be the major culling criteria for many with sports pics.

SteveLoker Loc: Fort Worth, TX

If he's using LR, try starting with Bridge. You can see the whole folder and cull from there?

cahale Loc: San Angelo, TX

Then open the first one using "Photos" and cull through them as rapidly as would be possible with any other function. You can easily zoom in to check sharpness.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I don't do sports, but I would think that culling should not necessarily be the final arbiter of whether the image will be used or not. When I cull, I look for composition and color and action. Focus is a criteria but it's down the line a bit. My images are used on the web or in newsletters, so most of them will be reduced and downsampled. Focus is not as important.

When I edit, I look at the details and I make the final decision then. Culling reduces the input to the edit stage but doesn't define the final image set.

Bruce T Loc: Michigan

You could use Cull software.

cahale Loc: San Angelo, TX

Sorry, feller, but when you decide at the edit stage, you are still culling.

Grahame Loc: Fiji

If you open the image in 'Photos' you are not able to place your cursor exactly over where you want it, say the eyes, and instantly have that location enlarged to say 1:1 and viewable on the screen. You have to spend time moving the image around on the screen, a significant time waster when you are culling through 100s of images.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

I use Lightroom (LR6, to be specific)...

It isn't uncommon for me to return from a sporting event with 2000, 3000 or more images. My "worst" was a 3 day event where five other photographers worked with me. I had over 20,000 photos to go through.

First, right before the shoot I make sure that my cameras' clocks are synced (as well as the clocks of any other photographers' camera)... This is done by linking to a computer and setting the camera's clock to match the computer. This way the images will later be displayed in the correct order, regardless of camera used. This camera syncing must be done no more than a day or two before the event, because the clocks in cameras lose time differently. They are off by seconds within a week, more as time goes by.

I download all the images from the memory cards. Neat thing about Lightroom is I can start working on a batch that's been downloaded while another memory card is downloading. (I don't use LR to do the download.... I just use the computer's operating system... drag and drop "copy" to a folder for all the RAW files. When there are multiple photographers, there are multiple folders... one for each shooter's RAW files.) During this stage I'm just looking quickly through images, maybe tagging some of the best ones as "keepers" or as bad ones to later be deleted.

Once all images are uploaded and have been imported into Lightroom, my first task is renaming them. When it's just me it's no problem. I use a simple YYYY_MM_DD_xxxx naming method. It's a little tricky when I work with other photographers because I have to go back and modify their images by adding a suffix... usually their initials.... to be able to easily identify who shot what. During the import into Lightroom I also have it apply any lens or camera corrections that might be available and add copyright info in the EXIF. When there are multiple photographers I have to do the copyright for each of them separately. All this is pretty easily done in Lightroom, because you can select a group of folders for the renaming and sequencing... or a single folder for the copyright info.

With the organizing done, I start to work on the images. Something I do with many events is organize the output by participant, so that they don't have to dig through hundreds of images looking for theirs (or images of their friends). Lightroom has a couple useful tools for this purpose... a color code system and a "star" system. Some use these to rate their images. I don't. I only use them for organizing. With six colors (including none) and six stars (including none), I can create 36 different "tags" for images that are later used when exporting them. I do this "tagging" while working through the images.

I've found I can "edit" around 200 images an hour in Lightroom. At this point I'm just doing simple stuff to produce "proofs" for people to look at and speed is a priority. Usually this edit is just a matter of quickly inspecting each image, maybe straightening it, maybe tweaking exposure or color balance slightly if needed. Typically that's it. Takes me 15 or 30 seconds per image on average. While doing this I use the Lightroom "flags" to choose my keepers (white flag), maybes (no flag) and trash (black flag). But for now I only delete the real "mistakes"... shots of my toes when I bumped the shutter release... totally out of focus shots... etc.

Actually, some shots of my toes are deliberate. When there is a break in the event, such as moving from one class to another or half time or the end of a quarter, I take two shots of my toes with each camera. This "marks" these periods and can be really helpful later during the image editing. I don't shoot baseball or football, but if I did I might use this trick to mark the innings in baseball or to mark each time the ball changes hands in football.

Keyboard shortcuts and the "Previous" button in Lightroom are real time savers. A single keystroke can set the flag I want on an image or "turn out the lights" to better see an image on my monitor. The "Previous" button applies the same changes to an image as were done on the immediately preceding one. Since there are often sequences with all the same "problems", this gets the job done fast.

Once I have worked through some images I use Lightroom's selective abilities with the tags I used to differentiate participants. For example I may limit LR to show only images tagged "red, with three stars". This will show me only that participant's images, in proper sequence. Often I will jump ahead to get at least a few images of each participant throughout the day up online into galleries, for them to view. Each participant gets their own JPEG folder, where I have LR send their images during export. These are fairly small, proof quality, watermarked images.

I put in about 10 hour days and get about 2000 images edited in this manner each day. So a large event may take 2, 3 or 4 days depending upon the size of the event. I only recall a single time that I took over 8000 images by myself at an event. Multiple shooter and multiple day events are another matter and a lot of work!

At this point I often use LR to keyword the images with the event title. I also may have tagged the individual participant images with their names. But I have a file folder with their signed release as well as other documents from the day, that I can refer back to if needed.

Once the above is completed, I end up with a comprehensive archive of the day's (or days') event that can easily be searched. When someone buys a print or digital image file or for any other purpose, I go back to LR to find the image, might do a little re-tweaking there if needed, then send it to Photoshop for finish work. That finish work can take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or more, depending upon what's needed and how the image will be used.

I have event archives going back 20 years. I have a Lightroom catalog for each year from 2003 onward. I didn't start using LR until 2009 or 2010, but a single catalog soon got too large, began slowing LR down, so I split them up by year. With many sporting events this works pretty well since they tend to repeat annually.

Grahame Loc: Fiji

Selection criteria (or what many commonly call culling) is going to be based upon the individual photographers priorities and the image purpose. These may vary widely, but whatever they are, when you have hundreds of images that you want to deal with the objective for most will be a workflow with 'functions' that allow the quickest action to undertake those individual criteria.