In this post, we will see how FilterPixel can help in culling photos in the fastest & smartest way.

Check out Nikki Closser explaining the FilterPixel tutorial in under 5 minutes!

Here is the breakdown of the topics we are going to cover:

• Overview
• Importing your folder
• Automated Culling
• FilterPixel Workflow
  • Using Auto-select
  • Faceview and Survey Mode
• Coloring and rating
• Export
  • Export to Lightroom
  • Export to Local Folder
• Additional Features
  • Comparison mode
  • AI Sliders

Overview

FilterPixel is a photo culling software that uses Artificial Intelligence to tag undesirable photos - like out-of-focus, closed eyes, etc. as rejects.

It can also group all similar photos & selects the one best out of every similar set in a single click.

Finally, you can export to Lightroom, your local drive, or any other editing software. Let’s get started with the workflow:

Importing your folder

After login, You can drop the folder containing your RAW files here.

After you drop the folder, you will see the following screen to write a project name and choose the type of shoot.
For example, My project name can be “Mariam-Jacob 2021/01/ Wedding” and the type of shoot and click Start Now button.

Tip for choosing the type of shoot:
1. If you take your selection decisions on the eye quality, use Portraits.
2. If you want AI to check aesthetics, use Weddings/Events.
3. In all other cases, use Others

Automated Culling

Time to Import = 0 ms

Time to Cull = 5 to 20 minutes

There is no time to import photos, and unlike other softwares, the previews in Filterpixel are generated on the RAM of your machine. As a result, no extra cache is generated anywhere, saving your device a massive amount of storage.

After the import, the culling process automatically starts, taking 1-20 minutes based on your number of photos.

After Culling is done, the photos get automatically classified into three views.

You can switch on/off any of those or multiple together to get all the photos of that filter to review. Let’s understand more about these views:

• The view Unlabelled helps you see all your good photos that are not having any issues like out of focus, face blurriness, closed eyes, composition, lighting, etc.
• The view Rejects helps you see all the photos with bad eye quality or focus quality issues.

• The view Accepted helps you see all the photos that are your best photos. These photos should go in your final selections.

  PS: AI does not accept any photo until you click AutoSelect

  **
  Keyboard Shortcuts:**

• By Pressing P on the keyboard, you can accept any photo.
• By Pressing U on the keyboard, you can unlabel any photo.

• By Pressing X on the keyboard, you can reject any photo.

  

  After automatic Culling, every photo inside FilterPixel is represented using three different icons, as shown above.

FilterPixel Workflow

Click AutoSelect

With Autoselect, the AI will pick all the best photos & tag them as accepted.

Go to Accepted View to check what the AI has selected.

Once you are in Accepted View, you can review only the selected photos selected by AI & REJECT whatever you don’t want

TIP: Use Faces & Survey Mode to check the images quickly

Use Faceviews & Survey Mode for Quick Review

While reviewing, you can quickly check the faces on the side and reject the photos that you don’t want.

If you like the faces, go to the next photo if you don’t press X to reject the image.

For example, The AI has accepted this photo, but I wouldn’t say I like the face, so I press X and reject it.

Survey Mode

You can also quickly review the duplicates of your photo using the Survey Mode. Click on the +1 that appears on the top left of your photo which indicates that the photo has 1 duplicate photo. (or use shortcut key S).

Using survey mode you can view multiple duplicate photos at once.

You can also double click on one image to zoom in and all the other photos will get zoomed in at the same spot for a side-by-side comparison.

Coloring And Rating

Color & Ratings in FilterPixel works very similar to Lightroom. FilterPixel gives you complete control to provide stars & ratings manually, just like any other photography culling software.

For a complete list of shortcuts, press Cmd+K or Ctrl+k within FilterPixel.

Keyboard Shortcuts:

You can use the keyboard shortcuts 1,2,3,4,5 to star rate images.

You can use shortcuts 6,7,8,9 to color the images.

You can clear the star rating by 0 and color rating by (⌘Command) + 0 on Mac &

Ctrl + 0 on windows.

For Purple color, you can use Ctrl/(⌘Command) + 9.

Export

When you have finalized your accepted ones, you can decide what you want to Export outside FilterPixel.

Export photos to Lightroom

You can either click on export to lightroom or simply drag and drop your selected photos to the library of your Lightroom.

Export photos to your local folder

You can move or copy your required photos to a folder inside your system or simply drag and drop them to your local folder.

Keyboard Shortcuts:

• You can press Shift and use the (←/→) arrow keys to select a few images to color/star rate or add any filter like Accepted, Unrated, or Rejected by pressing P, U, and X keys, respectively, which you can export finally.

Additional Features

Comparison Mode

Press C on the Keyboard to analyze similar photos in comparison mode.

Keyboard Shortcuts: On the left side of the screen, you will see the photo selected by AI; you can change it with

Navigate Alt/Option + arrow keys on the left side

Use Alt/Option + P, X, U to accept/reject/unlabel on left side

On the right side of the screen, you will see similar photos; you can change them with arrow keys & accept/reject/unlabel them with P, X, and U.

You can exit the comparison mode by pressing the escape key on the keyboard or by clicking the back button on the screen.

AI Sliders

If you wish to further cull your photos quickly, you can use the AI sliders present at the bottom of the grid view.

AI sliders are of two types- Focus quality and eye quality. You can drag these sliders to the right depending on whichever is more important to you.

For example: If you drag your focus quality to 50%, all the photos with 50 and more focus quality scores will appear on the screen and the remaining photos are filtered. To get back these photos, simply drag your slider back to 0.

Modes, Zoom And Navigation

FilterPixel currently supports four modes, “Grid Mode” & “Full-Screen Mode,” Survey Mode & Comparison Mode.

In the grid Mode, just like Lightroom, you will see all images in a grid. However, in Full-Screen Mode, you can see one image in the entire grid at one time.

In survey mode, you can compare two or more duplicated photos at the same time.

In Comparison Mode, you can compare two duplicate photos together along with their faces.

Keyboard Shortcuts:

• To enter Full-Screen Mode, you can use the key F, or you can click the

  the full-screen icon in the top bar.

• To enter into Grid-Mode, you can use the G key on the keyboard or click the grid-view icon on the top bar.
• You can press the C key on the keyboard or click go-to-comparison-mode in a similar tab to enter into Comparison Mode.
• You can press the S key on the keyboard while on an image or click on +1 top left of the photo to go to Survey mode.
• To navigate between images in both views, you can use (←/→) arrow keys on the keyboard.
• You can Zoom the image in the Full-screen view using Spacebar.

Conclusion

I hope the above tutorial will help you create a workflow around FilterPixel & help you to cull easier, smarter, and faster.