Pre Lightroom Culling Software

EMA747

EMA747

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2,070
Name
Andy
Edit My Images
Yes
I have been getting massive numbers of images from holidays I have been on last year. I like the idea of software that can quickly view raw files, have "picks" or colour labels of the images I want to work on then be able to copy them to an "edits" folder. I can then just import the picks from the edits folder into Lightroom rather than having to import several thousand into LR.

I saw Photo Mechanic but at $150 it's way too expensive. Anyone know of a much cheaper, preferable freeware alternative? I have tried Faststone but it doesn't appear to have a "picks" feature.


Andy S
 
Why not just use Lightroom? Anything you flag a reject you can delete by using CMD-Del, you can go through the images as you import.

Or failing that, I guess bridge would be the obvious option, comes with Elements/Photoshop/any of the rest of the Adobe Creative Suite, but does much the same as the Library Module in Lightroom.
 
Canon browser software which came with your camera can rate images from 0 to 3 stars. You've possibly already got it.

Picasa has a starred photo function. Free

Alternatively, import them into lightroom, and once you've decided upon which are the keepers, you can delete the other ones. Saves introducing another level of workflow and another piece of software.

Faststone has a tagging function to batch select images which can then be moved.
 
lightroom you can rate them 0 to 5 stars, can flag, flag for rejection, and add to a quick collection or custom collections.... no need to use anything else, use whichever of those systems you get on with best :)
 
The problem with LR is it's quite slow to render privews even on my fast desktop. When away it would be good to be able to load all the pics onto my laptop and cull them each night or so, that way I have already got a manageable selection for editing at home. On my laptop rendering 1000 or so previews in LR would take hours!

I read Photo Mechanic is very fast as it uses the jpeg in the raw files. As I say it's just too expensive.
 
........... or use the camera for the initial deleting and then Lightroom. As Andrewc mentioned you can change the quallity of the preview which might speed things up - that and restarting the machine every so often or making sure the hard drive is not too full which also slows it down considerably
 
Lightroom is slow as molasses, so I can heartily support the OP's desire for a faster image browser and rating prog.

Photomechanic is pretty fast, http://www.fastpictureviewer.com/ is a cheaper alternative that supports Adobe Compatible ratings, meaning if you do blast through them with FPV, your ratings will apply when you import into LR.
 
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