How to Sort 5,000+ Photos Quickly in Photo Mechanic
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
- As wedding photographers, culling or selecting the best photos from a wedding can consume so much of your valuable time! In this video I'm sharing my process for quickly and efficiently culling my images using a program called Photo Mechanic!
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Thank you so much for this tutorial, I have ADHD and I'm a wedding photographer and this part of my job has been so painful for me. You have literally changed my worklife for the better thank you so so much x
you're a genius, from one over shooter to another you changed my life
You hit the mark on procrastination with giant folders. So glad I stopped by ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Thanks for watching!
This is the way I cull my photos. The subfolder’s idea was amazing. Thank you for that
Thanks for watching!
I learned about culling in reverse when you taught it in one of your courses and it changed my entire photo editing experience!!
Great to hear! It really is a game changer!
The reverse culling technique is such a great idea. Thank you so much Katelyn, I really learn so much from your videos!
KJ moving from the least desirable part of the task to the most desirable part of the task is actually a motivational technique used in education. It’s called the Premack principle.
I’ve struggled with a culling system for years and this is the best culling system I’ve seen!!
Awesome Anna!
Hi @KatelynJames
May i ask what …PK… stands for in KJPK0000.CR2?
I guess/understand KJ is your initials but what is PK, I only see …KJPK…so it’s not the camera?
I’m reworking an ideal folder/file-name structure for my initial rawfiles (for anything/everything) and at present it goes like this:
Main drive or imagefolder/YYYY/YYYY-MM-DD(-Location-Event-Client’s)/YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS-ÖM-0000.xxx (0000 is still original, not new sequential)
LADY!!! These tips are incredible!!!!!!!! 🤍
Love the tips, Katelyn. Long time PM user, but your idea of breaking the wedding down into folders, all the way through to final delivery is something that never occurred to me. Going to start doing that and call it the 'Katelyn Way' from now on.
Ps. I find mouse-wheel scrolling instead of arrow clicking faster on culling. Also with regards to culling backwards, great idea. Another thing I've done is quickly take an image with my hand in front of the lens when I know I've got my framing right for the group shots I want, so if I am culling forwards I'll skip until I see that hand or finger obstructing my lens and pick from those.
One final thing I like to add is that I'm culling by stars. In my system 2 star and above are keepers, 4 and above are for my portfolio etc. so this leaves colours free as a marker if I take a break and come back. The colour marked image is where I stopped culling.
Thank you!! This is SO helpful!
Glad it was helpful!
Drop photo mechanic. I used it for years but Narrative select is way better. I swapped to it earlier this year after they finally made a viable windows version. I love the markers under the faces that indicate how well the focus is and how open the eyes are. Zooming in on faces for group shots is a thing of the past.
I've been using PM for years and never thought about moving files into separate folders for each part of the shoot. I've always imported all my selects into lightroom and sorted them in a catalog, such a pain in the butt. Thanks a lot
When you drag pbotos to each sub folders, are you moving those photos or you are just copying them?
@@Shalin.S.Shah. they move to the sub folders. Then I import the whole directory in Lightroom. When imported the folders show up… I usually do folders like ‘portraits’ ‘groups’ ‘details’… etc
WOW! Amazing way to organize photos. I am barely coming back to photography after 10+ years and this way to organize is very good. Thank you for sharing :)
Thanks for watching!
this saved my folder structure! migrating into photomechanic is so much more intuitive targeted on a workflow example and starting from a blank contact sheet screen. Photomech should hire u to make their tutorials.
Thanks for watching!
My workflow is a mess and constantly evolving. I still haven’t quite found my “method” yet. Im still trying new things and ways to cull and organize. You explained this so good and I’ve been on the fence about committing to trying photo mechanic. I’m gonna give it a go. The reverse culling method is so simple yet I never even realized how beneficial it would be. Thank you times a million!
Very effective workflow! My Lightroom workflow is very similar. I rate all images 1 star, activate the filter ">>show only 1 star rated images
Pretty much the same workflow I use.
Probably a stupid question here, I'm completely new to Lightroom. When I'm jumping through images, there is a pause of about a second or so before the full resolution image renders. Would this pre-rendering stop that and show me the full res image instantly? If so, is it called pre- rendering? Struggling to find it in the menus
@@SebCoulthread Exactly. Select all pictures you want to pre-render, go to „Library“ menu, „Previews“ and click on „Generate 1:1 preview“ (or something like this, i don’t know the exakt English translation😊). After the pre-rendering, you can instantly zoom in without delay.
@@downlink_x This is amazing, thank you so much!
@@SebCoulthreadAdditional tip: If you want to apply a preset for all pictures (for example a wedding), activate the preset first and start the pre-rendering after. Otherwise (if you render first), the pictures have to render again, after applying the preset.
This was SO SO SO helpful! Thank you Katelyn.
This in invaluable, Katelyn. Thank you so much.
Thanks for this. Looking for a culling solution and this helps. I do the same on test shots. One thing I always do if testing and working things out is once set up, I camera down and shoot my feet. So in the timeline, I don't bother with any images prior to my feet shot. LOL
PERFECT! Great tips! I'm not a wedding photographer. I shoot events (Medical Assn. Meetings) which have lots of events within an event. General Sessions, Workshops, Receptions etc. Your Photo Mechanic workflow was exactly what I was looking for!!! PERFECT!
This was extremely helpful. I've used PM for awhile, but my injest workflow is not as simple. I'm going to try your way!
This is an excellent video!! Please keep them coming!
Better to overshoot than to miss something the client was expecting
Thank you very much for this video. It will help me a lot in organizing my files and working efficiently!
Oh my word! I have photomechanic but I still struggle, this has helped me so much! Thank you, you beautiful human for all these amazing tutorials you put out for us peeps. BIG HUG! You are amazing and don't you forget it. oxoxoxoxoxoxo
Love the idea for creating, and copying the empty folders to help organize in the beginning! Great video!
I love this channel!! Love y'alls new "bye" at the end, too 🤣
haha Thanks for watching!
This is fantastic! Thanks so much! As someone who shoots weddings and never really played around with Photo Mechanic, your tutorial was straight to the point and helped knock off hours of culling time!
Thanks for watching!
I'm new to pm so this is just what I needed..thank you
OMG! The copy blank folders tip. Hadn’t thought of that even though I do it for other things. Thank you
I do the same thing but use 'Collections' within LRCC to cull with. Once the collections are loaded up(all those categories), I'll 1*(color) and 2**(B&W) star the images I like. I can be processing the previous folder and editing the next folder. One has to cull everything first. I can deliver to a client, a one photographer shoot in two days.
Thank you so much for this video! Was using Narrative Select, but my free trial ran out. Thought I'd give Photo Mechanic a try, watched your video, and I love the program! And great tip about the sub folders :)
This is a great video, love the minor details you offer on shortcuts and usage of the app.
BEST HAIR EVER!!
girl, you r aaaaamazing
Thank you so much for this video! Now I can have fun while going through all of my photos! Lol
This was such a helpful video, just wanted to say thank you!
Thanks for this video Katelyn! Exactly what I needed to start with Photomechanic :)
Used Photo Mechanic for 10 years. Switched to Narrative Select and it’s a big improvement mainly because of face zoom.
Thanks for sharing!
That's so helpful. Thank you so much.
so funny, cuz i love culling the reception more than the rest of a wedding day! I can fly through the party like there is no tomorrow!
That is a good skill to have!
I'm starting on photography and have made a couple of portfolios. I use Lightroom to cull my photos and since thebeginning, i set the best photos as 3 stars, because i feel i aint at that point to look to my photos and say "Wow! Thats a 5 star!"
I haven’t used Photo Mechanic yet but have seen a few other videos where they use it to “ingest” images from their card reader. Your way of using finder is what I typically do to get images off my card, but my question has to do with setting up preferences in PM. Is there anything I should set up or change in PM before using it for the first time? Thank you so much for taking the time to do this video😊
I like the culling method where one would 1-star the good ones on the first pass, then view only the 1-star images on the second pass, while labelling the good ones 2 stars on the second pass, etc. It's very hard to know how good a photo is until you look at it immediately after another good photo, and this technique pretty much solves that (but takes longer).
Another trick is to use culling "mantras", such as asking oneself: "Is this a classic?" or "Is this a magazine cover?", as it keeps the mind focused and keeps a more absolute quality bar until the best images can be compared towards the end of a cull.
Photo Mechanic is THE culling program for trigger happy (how else to catch a golden moment!) photographers!
Thanks for watching!
Katelyn, thank you for this video! I like how you're using the keyboard entirely to cull. I'm also a longtime PM user have been using my mouse to tag as I cull. I can't wait to try out your method in real time.
At what point do you get rid of the bad photographs (closed eyes, poor focus, bad exposures)? My process is has been to "take out the trash" first. I go through the entire take and move these unwanted files to a temporary folder that I keep for about a month, then delete. With the "trash" out of the way I'm able to view and select what I want to give to a client. Of course, "talking out the trash" is very time consuming to do before the real work of selection begins. I'm just afraid that if I don't do it first, I never will. Hard drive space is valuable. When do you get rid of your missed photos?
Awesome advice! Thank you
I use fastrawviewer. It only costs a one time $20. It does the same as photo mechanic. I can cull straight onto the memory card. (It makes a comp file). I then copy from the card onto the Mac desktop. Then I import into C1. It works very well. I can add colours as well as stars. Colours for sections of the event. I will sometimes cull twice. After the first cull, I filter the 1stars and then cull again to reduce it even more.
Thanks for watching!
Wow, this is such an amazing and educational video. Katelyn, what did we do to deserve this!
Thank you for the tips. And also realised this photo mechanic seems bit overpriced if thats all you are using this for. Now I know exactly what I would do.❤❤❤ Ty
Thank You So much, You Made my day ☺
Thank you so much for this video
I discovered Recently after shoot and wow..it's and amazing app
Yes!
I like the idea of all the sub-folders breaking up the day into smaller chunks, it makes perfect sense. One question though, how do you export from lightroom to the individual folders, or do you have to export each group (folder) at a time?
New to me and thinking about it I believe you'd need to export to individual folders. This is great, because I break up my exports from LR anyway because I find exporting 200-400 at a time faster than say 1000 at once.
Love this system! Your RAW images are already so beautiful! Have you changed any color settings in-camera to get such gorgeous coloring? I shoot on Canon too but I think if I shot in the same outdoor area the skin tones would be off and the green grass would look super vibrant SOOC. Any tips for that?
Katelyn.... great video... just to make sure I'm not missing anything, Photomechanic 6 is $139.... Photomechanic 6 Plus is $229?
Overshooter at 6k images? Damn! I typically shoot Indian mid sized weddings and I'm shooting anywhere between 10-18k images. I'm fed up of LR being sluggish and slow. I was looking into aftershoot but it's expensive and also has no one time purchase option. I'm gonna start the video now and hope photomechanic can help!
Love the *reverse culling* tip!
What do you think of the AI culling software, like Aftershot (or whatever it's called)?
I am not a fan of the AI software!
Thanks for this video! I'm looking to add Photo Mechanic to my workflow, just a quick question. Why are there .xmp files after culling in Photo Mechanic?
Is there a rating system like lightroom? So I work by doing rounds of culling. Round 1 is rating everything that's in focus or properly exposed. Round 2 fire tunes from there and so on and so forth. So being able to isolate everything I voted one way and re go through them to vote them another way is essential. The reason I want an alternative to lightroom is because of the importing and exporting when all Im trying to do is cull, not edit so have duplicates and triplicates of photos kills space.
Thank you for sharing this Katelyn! We have Edits available to be tried out as well now!
Shoot us a DM for the link to the Free Beta.
I am a sportsshooter, but this tip helps mee.
Id be curious to understand to what extent the functionality in Bridge compares to photo mechanic.
It amazes me how Photo Mechanic and Breezebrowser can generate previews so fast. Why can't Adobe do that? Sports shooters love Photo Mechanic for its speed, and because they can import team rosters to help with labeling images.
It really is crazy!
They don't generate previews, they use the previews that have already generated in-camera. Every RAW file contains an embedded JPEG file used for previewing, as they are necessary for camera previews (cameras don't display RAW files) as well as later use. Many image viewers do this. Since LR is an editing tool in only briefly uses them but then quickly renders new previews from editing.
Adobe could do that, and actually already does it in a way, but it's not clearly communicated to the end user. The thing is, by default it will create previews for editing, but if you select "None" during the import phase then it wont and you can use that fast preview in Library (it even says next to the image that it's an Embedded preview and works as fast as it works in Photo Mechanic). When you switch to Develop module then it creates a final preview for editing.
Do you still send out your images for editing? How did you go about founding someone to edit?
What are your exporting settings for the final edited images? I shoot r5 and I'm always afraid I'm going to lose too many pixels so I still end up with 25mg files as jpeg!!! Please share :)
When travelling, do you change the time on all your cameras or keep the time zone?
Katelyn! What is your favorite aperture for weddings? Do you change it depending on what you like?
I normally start around 2.0 and will drop down to 1.6 or up to 2.2
is there an affliate link i can use for photo mechanic? I didnt see it in the description
We don't have one... I think they have a 30 day free trial
Are there plans for a I pad version please ?
Great video as always. Is there a benefit to using colors instead of stars? E.g. I would give 1 star to potential keepers, 3 stars to definite keepers, and 4 stars to "highlights" photos. Do you use different colors instead? What are the benefits or pros/cons? Many thanks.
This is such a helpful video. Thanks very much. Question - I use windows, so I think I would ingest my photos in PM. Can I then or also set up the subfolder system and do the dragging of culled photos into the appropriate subfolder? Also, I am having difficulty figuring out: a) how to import the 'five-star" subfolder folders into LRC; and b) what to do with the photos I am not choosing to use. Thanks, again, for your help, if possible.
Katelyn! You ever revisit your old shoots in your catalog, flip through all the photos you originally dismissed, and thought to yourself... "Hey! These are actually pretty good!" After enough time has passed, I find myself looking at all the "crap" shots with a fresh set of eyes. Anyway that's the premise for the youtube short I posted today. Check it out if you like having fun, and have 51 seconds to spare. Anyway thank you for sharing! Subbed!!! =)
I process my pictures using Darktable, so this software doesn't fit my needs (first it's somewhat expensive, second it uses folders instead of tags/metadata), but I'm still taking away a couple interesting ideas, thanks.
It's digital, shoot what you want. I used to use 2 1/4 inch roll film and would shoot 300 frames per wedding. I had what I wanted and sometimes would sell all of the prints.
Could this process work if you are a nature, macro or landscape photographer?
I think so!
Can you do the same thing with bridge?
I'll see your overshooting and raise you a Nikon Z8 @ 20 fps raw. I'll have a thousand shots of the same swan just going to the local park for 10 minutes 😭 Great video!
When you drag selected photos to the folders, arw they being moved from your master folder or are being copied over?
Have you ever shoot Wedding exit with sparklers?
you say "i don't like that one" at 10:22 - how did you remove the red tag? if i press "1" again, it is still red, thanks!
do u use the 6 or the plus one ? and which is better im used to Photo Mechanic 5 thanks
Hi! This was great, Thank you! I use this system in Windows Explorer, but using the color system makes it so much faster! Any coupon codes for discounts? And where do you recommend downloading from?
I loved PM during the free trial but when I purchased the whole process seems so much harder for some reason. The system locks up and I have the hardest time exporting directly to LR. I have a brand new computer so I don’t know what the issue could be. It’s super frustrating though.
Hello, do you have update for comparing photomechanic and culling in imagen ai?
Hi Katelyn! How do You sort files now with CR3 files? It's not compatible with Photo Mechanic. Thank You
Thank you So much Katelyn, I recently purchased Photo Mechanic to save time culling horse shows (thousands of images). This video is SO helpful! Using it for the first time this weekend and it has cut down hours already. I am curious as a new user do you ingest directly from the card or save the card to the unedited folder directly first? I may have missed it on the video. Thank you again! Love your videos!
Directly from the card
Hi Katelyn,
When you import over to LR do your folders you created go over or is the huge lot of starred or kept image right? My folders did not go over to LR.
Thank you.
So once you have culled the photos from 5,000 to 1,500, do you delete the 3,500 that you didn't chose to use, or keep them "just in case"? I admit, I have a hard time deleting photos, unless there is something very obviously wrong with them (closed eyes, blurry, etc.). I guess I'm just always worried that someone will come back with something like, "Did you happen to get a photo of..." that may not have been one that I chose and edited, but that I could find and edit for them if I didn't delete it. Or do you wait for a certain time period (say 6 months) and then delete the 3,500 permanently?
I typically keep them for a year.
@@pbottomley14 That is smart--thank you for the idea!
@@KatelynJames Thank you!
I'm not a professional, and I shoot sports. But, I also need to cull up to 2k pictures for one event. I recently got the trial version, and I will absolutely buy it when my trial version expires. Such a time saver. However, I'm trying to figure out the difference between Photo Mechanic (6) and Photo Mechanic Plus. You mention the Plus version, which is actually $229 while the regular version is $139. What does that extra $90 get me? As far as I can tell, the Plus version allows for cataloging and managing photos...which could mean millions of images. However, aside from that, as an amateur sports photographer, I'm not in need of such functionality yet. I keep my images on an external drive and have a file naming system that keeps it organized and easily navigated. One can upgrade to the Plus version for $90, so there's no savings in buying the Plus version immediately.
Quick question about one of your images??? I have been trying to use a back light when the couple do a sparkler exit... Do you think it makes better pictures and how do you edit them when the bright light shows up behind them??
Where do you outsource a editor from??
I like it ;)
Thanks for watching!
What version are you using? Is 5 a good place to start?
Does this work for wildlife or landscape photos? I think it is only for weddings or portraits
Since updating to Ventura it's unusable. Way too slow and takes up most of my mac (macbook pro max) resources. Anyone else had the same issues since updating to Ventura?
Thanks for watching!
How is this different from what you can do in LR? perhaps its a bit faster?
Is it possible to use PHotomechanic plus to rename by date and capture time using a user chosen separator such as dash or underscore?
I am not sure!
GREAT workflow video! Thanks so much! One question: When you drag the tagged photos into the 5STARRED folder, is that a "copy" of the file? Or is it "moving" the file from the UNEDITED folder?
Not my place, but as a PM user I can say that when I drag images like that the photos are moving not being copied. (Only time that isn’t true, I think, is if the source and destination are on different drives.) If you have it set up to do so PM grabs the images and any xmp helper files (and jpegs if you shot both) as a set so it all moves over into that destination subfolder.
This video could've been fitted into a 4-5 minute video, to be honest