Imagen Culling is a AI solution designed for photographers. It helps you quickly choose the best photos using our algorithm. When used alongside Imagen Editing, it helps you deliver your photos to clients quickly and smoothly.
This guide explains the techniques and best ways to use Imagen Culling, which could be particularly helpful for you.
Understanding culling results
Imagen has three types of selections:
Keepers: The best photos from a group of similar photos.
Standalones: There are no alternatives to this photo. There photos don't have duplicates and are not part of a group.
Duplicates: The remaining duplicate photos from a group that wasn’t selected.
For each selection type, you can choose the rating method of your choice and customize the color labels and star ratings to fit your workflow.
For example, by default, the Star-Rating method selections are:
- Keepers are 3 stars.
- Duplicates are 2 stars.
- Standalone is 3 stars.
If you wish, you can, for example, change the rating method for Keepers to 5 stars, Standalone to 4 stars, and Duplicate to 3 stars.
Here are the Imagen defaults for the different rating methods:
| Color labels | Stars | Flags | |
| Keepers | Green | 3 | - |
| Duplicates | Yellow | 2 | non-flagged |
| Standalone | Blue | 3 | - |
Rating methods
Star rating: Star rating is used as default. When using star rating, we suggest giving the same star rating to both "keepers" and "standalone" as they both are valuable being reviewed together, with equal importance.
Color Labels: When using color labels, you can use different colors for "keepers" and "standalone" (unlike with stars). This is because colors are not necessarily indicating that one photo is better than the other as stars tend to indicate.
Flags: The flagging method uses a simpler YES/NO approach. The "keepers" and "standalone" will be flagged, and the Duplicates will be left unflagged. You can review the flagged photos and simply remove the flag if they don’t make the final cut.
Recommended flow for reviewing the culling results
We recommend reviewing “Keepers” and “Standalone” photos together.
Go back and check the “Duplicates” only when you think Imagen didn’t pick the best photo.
The easiest way to review the culling results is using the Lightroom Classic Filters:
-
- Select the project folder.
- Click the keyboard shortcut “\” to show the Filters section.
- Choose the “Attribute” tab.
- Choose the relevant filters. For instance, you want to see the “Standalone” and “Keepers”. Click the 3 Stars or the Green and Blue color or Flag according to which rating method you used.
- Keyboard shortcuts to quickly browse through and change the Lightroom flags:
Star Ratings
- Use number keys 1-5 to designate 1-5-star image ratings
- Use “0” (zero) to un-rate an image
Color Labels
- “6” = Red
- “7” = Yellow
- “8” = Green
- “9” = Blue
Flags
- “P” = Flagged
- “U” = Unflagged
- “X” = Reject
If you want to review the remaining photos in the catalog that weren't selected for the groups, you can filter the "Duplicates" section. These are very similar to the chosen photos and might be valuable, especially if you need multiple shots of the same scene for delivery or other reasons.
Depending on how many final photos you need to deliver to your client, you can follow these suggestions to reach that specific number:
- When reviewing the images, you can choose to give a high rating(5 stars) to images that stand out.
- Similarly, a low rating(1 star) can be given to images you want removed from the selection.
- You can also adjust the grouping criteria preference to get a lesser number of Keepers.
Grouping Criteria:
Imagen Culling selects the best photo per group, and adjusting this setting will affect the number of photos Imagen will select as keepers and standalone.
- “Less Similar” will group photos with a lower level of similarity.
Choosing this setting will result in a lower number of photos selected as “keepers” and “standalone”. - “Similar” is the recommended similarity level and set as the default setting. This setting will group photos that share similarities but are not identical.
- “Very similar” will only group photos that are almost identical, resulting in more groups and more photos selected.
Choose this option if you wish to receive more photos from Imagen.
Sending a Culled Project for Editing
To learn how to send a culled project for editing, please see this article: Send a culled project to edit
