This article discusses the different photo culling hacks used by professional photographers such as using AI to cull photos, Lightroom Plugins, or outsourcing photo culling services.
Professional photographers have a lot on their plates when it comes to running a business. Looking for new clients, shooting, editing, and maintaining their social media presence are just some of the many day-to-day activities photographers have to do.
Most of these activities are enjoyable and necessary to run a successful business but some activities (like Photo Culling) seem downright frustrating and time-consuming.
We have noted down the top 3 photo culling hacks photographers can use in 2022 but before we proceed, let’s clear the air about what photo culling is and why photographers are using these hacks instead of culling manually:
What does culling photos mean?
Culling photos means the process of reviewing photos and selecting or rejecting them based on different criteria such as eye quality, focus quality, expressions, and more! The process turns out to be very stressful and time-consuming when there are thousands of photos to go through and a lot of them are duplicates.
Clearly, spending hours going through all the photos manually and making selections among several duplicates is not the best way to cull photos. It’s 2022 and photographers are now becoming smarter than ever.
Here are three photo culling hacks available in 2022 that photographers can use to make their photo culling process faster!
1) Using an AI Photo Culling Software:
Sitting in front of a computer and going through thousands of photos, manually, one by one, to select the best ones is now a thing of the past and many professional photographers are shifting to dedicated AI photo-culling software.
The speed of the AI is super fast and takes around 30 mins to cull around 3000 photos which is impossible for any human to copy. Apart from speed, some software such as FilterPixel provides full control to the user over the selection and also has quirky features such as Face views and Comparison mode.
The cost of FilterPixel is around $14.99 per month, which is totally worth it considering the amount of time it is going to be saving for photography businesses.
Considering it takes 5 hours on average to cull 3000 photos manually, you will save at least 4 working hours with an AI photo-culling software every day.
This is one of the best hacks photographers are making good use of to save their time and money. If you are interested in trying it out, you can sign up using the link for FilterPixel 14-day free trial.
Our verdict on AI Culling software:
2) Using a Lightroom plugin
Adobe Lightroom Classic is hands down the most popular choice for editing photos among professional photographers. However, it lacks behind in speed when it comes to culling photos in the library.
There are flags, stars, and colors to rate and cull photos but the loading speed makes it hard to go through thousands of photos and make decisions.
This can be made 10x easier with the help of FilterLR.
FilterLR is a plugin for Lightroom that can automatically cull and rate your photos based on eye quality, focus quality, composition, lighting, etc.
The best part is, that while the plugin is running you can edit your photos simultaneously in Lightroom.
The culling speed of FilterLR plugin is the same as FilterPixel or even faster than other culling software but it misses out a lot on features such as Face views, comparison mode, or survey mode.
The lack of features in the FilterLR provides very less control to the user than FilterPixel.
FilterLR is currently in beta. You can join this FilterLR slack channel to get the plugin totally free for 3 months!
Our verdict on AI Lightroom Plugin:
3) Outsourcing
Outsourcing photos to an editing agency is another way few professional photographers are saving time and effort in their business.
These agencies can not only cull your thousands of images to top hundreds but also provide other services such as editing and retouching.
Advantages of using Photo Culling services
There are dozens of advantages for photographers of using a photo culling service:
- Saves hours of time: For wedding photographers, culling thousands of photos can eat up a good portion of their day. Using a photo-culling service can help you save precious hours of your day that you can use according to your preference.
- Makes work less stressful: Sitting in front of the computer making minute decisions on which is the best photo out of 5 duplicates can be stressful for photographers. Using a photo-culling service will save you from taking such decisions and help your work to be more stress-free.
- More productivity: With the work being delegated, you can focus on getting more clients to shoot and grow your business!
- More accurate results: With humans (and possibly experts) selecting and rejecting photos on the daily basis, the results are much more accurate than AI. However, the accuracy of AI is constantly improving such as detecting and accepting photos with intentionally closed eyes.
Disadvantages of using a photo culling service:
- High cost: In comparison to using an AI photo Culling software or a Lightroom plugin to cull photos, outsourcing to a photo-culling service is somewhat costlier as it is charged on a pay-per-photo basis.(Using a photo culling software with an unlimited photo plan is a relatively much cheaper option.)
- Less control: Since it is someone else selecting the images for you, it might be possible to miss out on a few shots that the photographer might have personally selected for their clients.
- More time taking: Photo Culling services have a turnaround time of at least 2-3 days minimum that can be slowed down in case of a busy season. In case of an emergency where the photographer can’t wait for 2-3 days, it might not be a good idea to go for a photo culling service.
However, AI is much faster than humans when it comes to culling and takes around 20 mins for 3000 photos which is much faster!
If you are interested in trying out a photo culling service, you can either hire a freelancer on Upwork or Fiverr to do your work, or there are more professional and trustworthy photo culling services that you can try out.
Some Professional Photo Culling Services:
1) Weedit
Weedit offers a variety of photo-related services that includes photo culling, photo retouching, color enhancement, photo correction, and many more.
They accept photos through Wetransfer or dropbox. When it comes to the turnaround time for getting photos, this is what they claim on their website:
“Retouchers get down to work right after our managers receive all the info on the order and reference samples. If any questions arise, managers will get in touch with you.”
In terms of pricing, weedit starts from a minimum of 0.06 USD/ image for photo culling. Returning customers can also make good use of their packages. For the rate of other services, you can check it out on their website’s pricing page.
2) Flatworld Solutions
Flatworld Solutions is an ISO-certified global delivery center that specializes in outsourcing dozens of services such as data entry, software development, photo editing, and much more.
According to their website, the turnaround time is 24-48 hours after submitting photos for editing.
In terms of pricing, photographers can ask them for bulk orders using their website.
3) Imagesalon
Imagesalon is a photography and post-production company for SMBs that is founded by photographers Davina and Daniel Kudish.
With over 70+ editors, Imagesalon offers photo culling services starting from USD 0.06/ photo along with professional photo retouching and editing.
Photographers can either also create their own profile for editing through a professional editor or choose existing Imagesalon express profiles.
4) Freedomedits
Freedomedits is a professional photo and video service that provides services such as editing, culling, and creating portfolio slideshows. They provide different packages according to the editing needs of the photographer. Culling charges depend on the number of photos and they are included in the editing packages they offer.
The editing style of the photographer is learned through an onboarding call with one of the account managers from Freedomedits.
According to their website, the turnaround time for photos is 7 days for cull and editing. Add 3 more days if it is the peak season. (July to December)
If you are not very picky over your selections or have a very specific style, then you can go ahead with such photo culling services as the selections are made by their team and according to their preferences.
Bonus hack:
Try using a modded 8-bit controller or Xbox/ PS5 controller to cull your photos faster wirelessly instead of using the keyboard to make the process more fun. You can buy an 8-bit controller from Amazon for a good price.
Conclusion:
Overall, these photo-culling hacks should help you save time no matter which one you use. It all depends on how much control, speed, and cost you want.
If you are interested to learn more about AI Culling software, you can go check out our blog of Best AI Photo Culling software for 2022 to learn about all kinds of software.
