How to Choose The Right Photo Culling Software?
In today’s age, shooting and sorting photos has become a lot easier thanks to all the technological advancements in the photography industry.
However, with such advancements, it is also becoming more difficult to organize and curate a large number of photos. Professional photographers (especially wedding photographers and sports photographers) mostly shoot in RAW format, which is heavy in size (average 50 MB per photo), and this leads to huge storage costs.
To tackle this problem, specialized photo culling software comes into play. But with so many options available, how can you choose the right one for your needs?
In this blog, we will explore various factors to consider when choosing a photo culling software for your photography business.
Fast rendering speed
The most basic requirement in a photo culling software is a fast rendering speed for photos.
This is a no-brainer. as RAW photos take the most time when it comes to loading previews on Adobe Lightroom or any other photo editing software.
A good photo culling software should be able to load RAW photos or any other file format immediately without trouble.
Manual vs automatic culling
Thanks to the technological advances in the photo culling industry, there is now a photo culling software on the market that can cull and organize your photos automatically using AI.
FilterPixel is a photo culling software that can cull photos automatically using AI. This means that the AI can tag all your low-quality photos (blinks, bad expressions, out of focus) and also select your best photos automatically with a single click.
User interface and ease of use.
It is recommended to use photo culling software that is easy to use and has a clear user interface.
As photo culling is a simple (but dull!) process involving selecting and rejecting photos, it does not make sense to buy software with huge learning curves.
At FilterPixel, the user interface is simple and minimalistic, which helps in creating a streamlined culling workflow for photographers with no confusing or technical terms.
Automatic sorting and grouping
Automatic grouping is an important feature if you are a high-volume photographer who has to click dozens of photos of one scene to not miss any important moments.
For example, in FilterPixel, the AI can group duplicate photos together and even select the best photo from the duplicate set with a single click.
Using survey mode, photographers can review these duplicate photos at once and select the best version themselves.
Face recognition
Face recognition is a life-saving feature for saving those mundane clicks that photographers do to zoom in on any photos to check the focus quality and facial expressions.
Photo culling software like FilterPixel has a facial recognition feature that can detect human faces and show a zoomed-in version of them, helping to save time by reducing redundant clicks.
Machine requirements
It is important to consider if the culling software is machine dependent or not when making the decision to purchase one.
Some AI photo culling software that are machine-dependent requires high RAM storage along with fast processing speed to work efficiently.
Photographers have reported lag or slow culling speed when they have another application running along with their culling software such as Adobe Lightroom or Chrome.
This issue is not present if you get a culling program like FilterPixel, which processes all your photos on cloud servers, giving you fast culling speed no matter what laptop or PC you are using.
You can even use Lightroom Classic or Chrome along with FilterPixel and experience fast culling speed with no lag on your system.
Tags and Filters
Filters are an amazing way to sort and organize your photos based on certain parameters, such as star ratings, color ratings, or tags.
Generally, all photo culling software has such basic filters available that can be used to filter tagged photos, but if you want to go one step further, FilterPixel can analyze and tag photos automatically based on eye quality, focus quality, as well as actions such as kissing, hugging, dancing, etc.
Photographers can filter their photos based on these AI tags and organize them in no time.
Pricing
Budget is also an important factor to consider when making a purchase decision for a photo culling software.
Manual photo culling software like Photo Mechanic costs around $229 for a single license and only includes the manual features. For newer updates, the user has to pay again to get access to the new features, which is a bit unfair.
Pricing for AI photo culling software FilterPixel starts at $11.99 (including free future updates), and one can pause or cancel the subscription anytime when they are not using the software.
Moreover, if the users are not interested in the AI features, they can simply use the manual features for free, giving a more flexible and affordable option to photographers.
Workflow and adaptability:
Every photographer’s workflow is a little different from the next. It is important to check if the software you are purchasing fits right into your workflow or not.
FilterPixel is one of the most user-friendly applications when it comes to fitting into your workflow. It allows Lightroom users to simply sync their tags on their photos, so the photographer does not need to even export the photos again from FilterPixel.
There are also direct export options to move/copy photos from FilterPixel to Lightroom Classic and Capture One.
For other photo editing software and online storage services such as Dropbox and Google Drive, users can also simply drag and drop their photos from FilterPixel.
Conclusion
So these are the most important aspects photographers should consider while choosing a photo culling software to avoid any issues later.
Photographers can always sign up for the free trial version of these software to see which one works best for them. FilterPixel offers a free 14-day trial that can help photographers get a good understanding of the software.
So what are you waiting for? Go try FilterPixel for free.
