PICK YOUR BEST PHOTOS FASTER!
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- Опубліковано 6 жов 2024
- #photography #lightroom #photographytips
Choosing your best photos is hard, boring and time consuming, particularly if you have your camera out all day and take thousands of images. This video is a quick run through of how I use one of the simplest tools in Lightroom to sort my best from my worst.
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Update: The pigeon doesn't seem to mind water at all. The battle continues...
😂😂
James Popsys... the Scarecrow
My talents know no limits... 😂
Drone VS Pigeon
Maybe the pigeon just wants a star...
I'm more of a hundreds of pictures guy, and go through all of them and flag them in Lightroom by that time i'm left with something like 20 pictures.
Then i apply the auto settings for all of them and after a cup of tea i judge them one by one and start to edit them a bit and then I'm left with 2 - 5 pictures I like.
Sounds good 🙂
There are a couple of tweaks to this process I find helpful: with caps lock on, whenever you press 1-5 or x, the image is flagged with appropriate number of stars or marked as rejected and the preview advances to the next one. Once this phase is done, pressing ctrl+backspace deletes all rejected images. I am shooting mostly wildlife (sheep etc.) so i have a lot of images to review more often than not and i found those shortcuts very useful.
Nice tip :)
I believe this works without Caps Lock on as well. ☺️
@@jaywalker. It does, but with caps the preview advances to the next photo.
I agree on two of your biggest points: never delete anything (except maybe fully white overexposed or un-identifiable blur mistakes), and don't study your images immediately after the sortie if you can help it. If I wait a couple days, I am now looking at images with a graphic eye, not an emotional eye remembering the feeling of actually being there. I also tend to use the black-hand-frame marking scheme, but before and after panoramic series.
Love the taking of a black pic as a place holder for possibly a great pic!! My son and I really enjoy watching ur vids! We love how you do *NOT* make the editing 100% perfect or uptight feeling...so much more inspiring! EDIT: Thanx for explaining how to use the 🌟 stars 🌟!
If you don't delete any pictures, your next video should be about storage :D
Hi James, i just want to thank you for all the time and effort you put in these videos. I have started photography as a serious hobby six months ago and you helped me to improve my craft step by step, make sensible purchases (like getting my car serviced instead of buying another lens) and being motivated to get out with my camera on an almost daily basis and having a great time. And since you are wondering about this often: yes, you always make sense. :)
Thanks so much for the kind words, I really appreciate it :)
Omg that black frame idea is genius. So simple yet so genius...
Hope it helps Niki!
@@JamesPopsysPhoto and I didn't know you could filter by star rating... Honestly, mind blown. 🤣
I use flags and rejects on my first walkthrough, then delete all the Xs (completely unusable images) and go through the flagged pictures again now assigning stars or colours. 5 is for loving a pic and 3 for a pretty good, usable one. I usually try to end with 2 galleries from a shoot/trip - one that’s bit more extensive and tells bigger story to me and helps me remind me the trip and then the really small one that I can share with friends because no one likes to go through hundreds of images, even great ones.
Thanks for the tip on the way you define stars, def helpful!
Hey James, tnx! Finaly not someone who says "use stars" but actualy giving context and explanation with it.
I'm gonna try your system because , yup, thousands off pics....
THE...MOST...HELPFUL....PHOTO...HELP.... VIDEO......EVER!!!! THANK YOU!!!
Sorting and grading has baffled me ever since I began taking pictures. Cue the angels singing around my head.
This is your version of "inside the actors studio" for photographers.
I've followed you for a while now, and this by far has helped me more than any other.
That's great to hear, thanks so much :)
This black picture idea is fantastic. So is the other one.
I mark them in camera, batch file unloads the cards and puts in selects and others folders. Then I parse through the selects 1st... not often I find one on the second pass through the "others" folder though to be honest. I wish LR had a grid display option that would show the areas of best focus on images the way Darktable does, it really helps isolate focus issues in a set of files without having to full screen things and go 100% in and out... Oh and shorts and sandals where you live must be the definition of "optimist".
Haha, it did get up to 8 degrees, so the joke's on you..! 😂
@@JamesPopsysPhoto it's so confusing - we use the british system of measurement and the brits use the french... go figure. ;)
Rather than the hand trick, why not assign a function button to star rate your favourite images in camera? That way they'll import to Capture One/Lightroom and you can simply filter or sort to isolate them.
I've done that in the past, only to hit the function button by mistake all the time 😂
I will try this, thanks!
So great to see your content improving every time you upload. Your increased confidence in front of the camera is really starting to show through which makes for more engaging videos. Keep up the great work, learning a lot from you!
Great to hear Lee, thank you! 🙂
What an awesome vlog, makes so much sense. I’ve reviewed so many shots and deciding which is 3 or 4 or 5* and the reality is simple, lower the scope. 1* means it’s good and sharp... thanks mate, truly help my workflow..!! Cheers. Jase 👍
Sounds like a great system! 🙂
Holy sugar! Blank frame tip is wonderful. Chuckling at the simplicity and effectiveness. Thank you! 👏👏👏
Great video, very helpful! Picking out the best photos can definitely be exhausting when you take thousands of images.
Definitely Austin :)
Great video James excellent image organizing tips. I love the black frame idea, I have done that with panos, but only when I remember.....I'm a senior LOL
Thanks Wendy :)
Came back with 1,100 images from a running event on Monday. 3 star rated the ones I thought were o.k and then filtered them from the rest. Managed to edit 348 to a reasonable standard in around 5 hours. Thanks for your help James. Just wish that I had a touch screen monitor (?) to make it even quicker when picking out the good ones.
Nice work Steve! And me too :)
I am not a pro so I keep my workflow pretty simple: *I set my filter to hide rejects and I go through photos marking bad ones (technically or those I don't like) with rejects. *I flag any particular favorites (Optional, I don't do it always) *As I come to groups of similar shots, I display them is survey view and pick just 1 or 2 max for each group. *Finally I delete all the rejects and I am left with 1/ the ones I find interesting or 2/ that tell a story that I want to remember.
Can confirm you should do it when you're not tired. Once I picked photos when tired and edited those. Came back to that collection a few days later and found a bunch of good photos I missed
Infuriating isn't it! I find much the same thing happens after too much beer!
@@JamesPopsysPhoto actually come to think of it, I did have a bit of a drink, but not much at all 🤣 and now I'm trying to go through all my old photos to see what I missed! (Then finds my old idiot self shooting in jpeg only)
😂
I need to remember the black frame trick…. That’s genious
Mate you sold thousands of books of how it looks like. Congrats! That piles are incredible ... totally impressed. Awesome :) Can't wait for my book to arrive.
Thanks for the support mate, will be with you soon :)
Amazing! I just learned I have the same garden chairs as James Popsys. Oh and I use stars as well.
Many a nap will be had in mine this summer, hopefully yours too :)
Aah ! ... a morning at 'Winnats pass'.... wonderful ... Handy tips there thanks.. James.
Cheers David, always a treat even when there are 50mph winds!
I am the 1000 picture guy and I just rate them by stars in lightroom! Might not be the quickest way but it works for me! 2 stars is a keeper and 1 star is if I feel like a picture has potential and maybe need some tweaking
Sounds good! 🙂
I'm definitely a shoot hundreds of images everytime I go out type, so these tips are really useful 👍
Great to hear Gareth :)
I got thousands of photos and want to finally do something with them. This video helped a bit. Thanks
Very helpful information James.
Great to hear 🙂
Another quite useful video James. Thanka and thanks for not advertising darn squarespace in your videos lol
Cheers John 🙂
Hi James. Thanks for all your great content. It is reassuring for me that I am not the only one who takes bucket loads of photos each shoot. I thought I would let you know that on the g9 you can also add a star (or more) to your photo using one of your custom buttons. I find that to be more useful than taking the black picture. Hope it can be useful to you!
Cheers Conor :)
I concur. Pretty much same system with me. You can also utilise the colour tags and/or Collections if you need further “systemising”.
Although, to save space, particularly on my backup drives, I will go through & mark the rejects (using the X key) and get rid of them. RAW files are such big suckers! Lightroom is more powerful than most people realise. I find I’m going into Photoshop less & less these days. Cheers for the vid James ✌️
Me too 🙂
Great way to select your photo's, will give it a try after my next trip. Looking forward to your book !!!!!!!
Awesome! Thanks for the support 🙂
If you put caps lock on all while star-rating means that you move to the next image as soon as you hit a number key. Saves time...
That nugget of info will save me heaps of time. THX Ian
I love that, cheers Ian :)
@@JamesPopsysPhoto Let me know if you need any more help ;) Keep up the good work - it's great seeing your channel evolve into something so professional AND entertaining! Have you posted the books yet?
What a rational and good explanation. Brilliant.
Thanks so much :)
LOVE the black frame idea! Thank you!
I have a very similar system, but I like hearing you say it. it is much more fun
Cheers Michael :)
Oh, that's a great idea about the black frame after the good/best shot! Thanks!
Glad to hear it 🙂
I do mountaineering trips from 5-20 days. Above 10,000 feet, odds are I'm a little shaky so I don't always know how my shots turn out. I'll come home with thousands of images and had no idea where to start but I like this idea, thanks!
I just go through the days shoot and tag all that I like with 5 stars. 5 stars is a lot easier to see than 1 star. Then i use the color tags to decide which go to flickr and with get printed. Some get both and that's where I get confused. But the important point is I always PRINT those images that I really like. If they fail the print test then they lose their 5 stars. Printing may cost a bit but for me it is the true determinate of an image's value.
I do my first selection in camera, but I make sure that I lock the images I already love. Then I do my second culling in Lightroom, and only then I start rating them. But I live it as is for a day, and usually delete and re-rate some more photos the next day
Always a good idea to sit on them for a while :)
You give good advice and wonderful entertainment, thank you.
I use a green or red flag to sort keepers. But never quite managed to get to grips with the star system to further refine! Might take notes from the mighty James and implement this myself.
Thanks for the star suggestions and other tips!
Cheers James :)
Similar, before and after I take a multiple shot pano for later stitching I always shoot the floor as a “separator”.
Nice Nick :)
Was thinking about how other people do this. Definately the most tedious part of photography. I'll try your system out. Thanks.
Want to edit in the garden?,,,,,,,,,build a summer house (not that we get much summer in the uk) or a tent where you can sit, the pigeon will love it too
"It's sunny" he says while sitting in the shade.
...with a sweater on.
I really appreciate your star system, but your 4th and 5th stars are more subjective. Is there just an emotional reaction that you have to determine those finalists and ultimately the best one?
Yeah once I know they've got the important elements, it just comes down to which I like best 🙂
I have a very similar approach myself, I use more flags for initial selection and stars for the actual vote, but the result is the same. I also don't delete anything, apart the obvious crappy out of focus photos
Nice Alessio, always interesting to see how others approach it :)
@@JamesPopsysPhoto Another thing I've noticed is that sometimes I go back to see old photos, and I spot some photos that I've ignored back then for a reason or another while they were totally worth to develop.
I guess is when you have tons of photos, after a while you just get bored and start to skip far too easily...
Me too 🙂
I don’t take thousands of images, unless I’m on a holiday trip for week or more. But I do take hundreds even on just my daily walking commute. I’m more critical and don’t keep what I don’t find interesting to be worth the time, I don’t shoot professionally (yet) so I don’t have a reason to keep China level of images that won’t see the light of day most of the time. I try to get the best composition and look on the field but I do take sometimes more images of different perspectives, and lots of panoramas. I only use 2 rating types: 3 stars for common (not to shabby) images and 5 stars for what I would consider portfolio or my best/favourite. Being overly critical with your own work can have the advantage of pushing yourself to get better images every time the first time
Definitely, sounds like a great system :)
That is an amazing way to go through it! Thank you a lot! 👍👍
Great to hear Anton :)
I shoot street photography with manual lenses so the first thing is to mark as trash all the pictures that are way out of focus. Then I start wondering why the hell I took each picture, and then I hopyfully in future work more like you, but previously just went round by round to see how many four star images I get.
I know that feeling mate! :)
I'm taking just a hundred photos in a day, but I don't do series of photos. So, when I have to chose, it's less to chose from. And I now take more effort in taking photos right from the start. At home I use the stars. The best ones are slightly edited. I don't like to spend much time on Photoshop. My hobby is photography, not photoshop.
just hand deliver me one of your books when you come to Perth man. you need to see some of western Australia. the surf is good
I have been waiting for a good system to come along. WELL DONE. Really liked this one , James ***** (5 stars).
Mike
Great to hear Mike :)
Fantastic tips. Not a fan of Dropbox. Love the organizing by star and blank photo tips
Awesome Keith, great to hear :)
All solid advice! Thanks James
My method: 1 star = keeper; 2 stars = processed. Throw-aways are flagged with an X and deleted every now and then, otherwise they just take up disk space and screen real estate in Lightroom.
Nice!
Really like your "*" process.
Thanks, and good luck with the pigeon!
Cheers Eric, I'm slowly winning I think :)
Or instead of shooting a blank frame just use the star system that is already incamera... You know, the star rating that Lightroom uses... (I personally use the Fn2, GH5, to rate 5 stars, that I never use when rating on lightroom/bridge/elsewhere).
Sensible and helpful advice.
Thanks Robert!
Five-star video, and a very nice yard.
Thanks so much :)
I usually have other people pick for me after months of pondering =p
Great tip for when you are in the field to take your hand over the lens after a good photo. I will do that myself next time if I remember that :-)
Awesome 🙂
I don't even have a camera and not planning on getting one (coz I'm a broke high school student *sadness noises* ) but I still like to watch your videos :)
Thanks so much :)
great advice thank you.
Great tips James!
Cheers Jeremy 🙂
James I often struggle if I've taken multiple shots of the same scene, flicking back and forth, but might you know if there is there a way to auto filter the photo's that will confirm which ones are the sharpest?
Oooh good question, not that I know of but hopefully someone in the comments might have an idea 🙂
That would be the answer we would all want in an ideal world
This is very helpful, thanks!
Cheers mate :)
:D first of all: thanks for sharing your selection method (no first of all: Hi, mate!), really interesting! Congratulations on your books!!! And good luck with that pigeon! :D have a nice day!
Cheers Riccardo :)
I shoot few hundreds usually. First thing is to export jpegs if i shoot a model and give her. Then i have only a single selection of 5 stars (green label in Bridge) from which i edit a few or all and post. After a while i delete some of the obvious crappy ones and when my computer fills up i back them up and delete all. I try to get to only a few Gb of photos per session before storing, because storing is not cheap as you say.
I delete junk files. If I keep it, that's my "one star". I go through and either hit X for flag to delete (your 0 stars) or skip them altogether (your 1 star), then I'll give 2 or 3 stars to particularly interesting pics. That's just how I roll though.
Great tips and beautiful garden...why don't you do a video of how to take photos of wildlife in your garden.😀
Ooooh I like that :)
That was very helpful. Thx!
Great to hear :)
Great system
Being an amateur who is unlikely to have a client come back later wanting a rejected picture, I do delete with abandon. I like your system though but haven't been able to get myself into the habit. 😒
On the other hand, 🐑 😥
Going hunting for sheep this week, it's been too long 😂
Took 96, 3s exposures of a 12 min fireworks display last night, got my ooh
's! and ahh's at home. Mostly ooh's cos I was too far away but it took an age to look through just nearly 100 pictures especially as loads are similar. Black photo is genius by the way.
Did you check if you can rate the photo directly on camera? That's what I do normally, and I can rate my photo on my Fujifilm and my Canon, so I thought it was a standard feature
I've done it accidentally too many times :)
Your process is essentially exactly the same as mine plus likewise I don't delete any images imported into lightroom 😉
"Goes out for a day of photography and comes back with 3000 photos" Ah yes, there I am. I cull twice using a system I picked up from Scott Kelby. I go through the whole batch once and they either pass or fail. It's supposed to be quick and easy just to make the set more manageable. I use the "pick" flag. Those go into a collection called Picks, these are ones that passed enough for me to start editing them, though I don't necessarily edit them all. Then as I spend some time with them, I make another collection called Final Selects and those are the ones that make the final cut that I've decided are good enough to share.
Hi James, with my camera I can assign stars directly in camera , you might find that useful
Thanks Sabine, never got to grips with that in the past but might give it another bash :)
Just wondering if you have totally weaned yourself from photoing sheep, and have moved on to pigeons ---by the way thanks for this photo tip I do enjoy each and all.
I'm still on the hunt for sheep John :)
in big boy camera's from like nikon, canon and such you can rate the pic in camera. Upgrade to Nikon James,. LOL. btw, good video again.
Sony has it too ;)
@@_rhapsodist guess lumix isnt a big boy camera yet,.
@@RobJorg he used to shoot with a D750...
I used to always rate accidentally so I had to stop that 😂
Flip Flops!!?? You've been to Australia & New Zealand and you're still calling them flipflops?!? Nice tipping on your photo weeding too. I've been putting my hand in front of my lens when I want to find the shot later in LR. Maybe a black pic will help me better, tah thumbs up.
Haha, can't help it Peter!
Have you thought of rejecting and then just removing from lightroom but keeping on the disk. If you need it it is still there.
I have found that lightroom is slow to open i assume because I have a gazillion photos.
Can you talk about mechanical vs electronic shutter please?
Good idea :)
Ah! How did I miss the books!?
There are still some left on my website if you want one :)
Thanks for this video, so many useful tips (Espesh the hand on the lens) so thanks, you’re a star! (Get it!?!)
Video idea if I may (forgive me if you’ve already done it...) would be interested in seeing your Lightroom process in editing a chosen image. I saw a video this week from American photo editors (sorry to have cheated - I thought about you the whole time) and they said they never touch exposure before highlights and shadows..?!? Is this something you do? This video today suggests you do exposure first...
haha, cheers Greg! That's definitely a video I can cover :)
1000 of images. I can't even image taking that many in a mont. For me 100 to 200 max in a day is how I work. But then again I'm not in some god for saken(?) place. Though Palm Springs in August just may qualify. The reason I commenting is to ask you how many RAW images do you get on a SD card. And what size cards do you use. Myself I restrict myself to 32MB cards and get about 660 images on them. Bigger cards scare me. Not just having them fail but also losing them.
Cheers John, I use two 128gb cards that back each other up, and I get about 5000 raws on them in the G9 :)
Another great and useful video for us that are on the start of the photography journey, 1 question that did crop up, I fully get the hand over the lens tip to spot potential 4* images more easily, but why the need to switch to manual?
wow, that's a lot of books, congrats ;)
Thanks, such incredible support 🙂
Lol. “It doesnt take all that long to import photo’s” - because you dont shoot on a sony fullframe. - But yeah I try to not delete much either. Even my personal projects, at times I was able to come back to some in the future.
I don't agree that storage is cheap. If you keep absolutely everything and you back things up properly then you need to have at least 3 copies. And ideally you need to replace one of the external hard drives every year because they do eventually fail. That's not cheap at all. BUT having said that, the reason 4 of the last 11 years still aren't finished (when I've exported the best of the year as processed jpegs from Lightroom and have made myself a photobook I consider it finished) is because I've spent far more time trying to cull photos than flag the keepers.
I still laugh when a remember a former colleague saying her husband could help me with my website. I have never needed website help. It's unfinished culling and editing and not knowing which of my photos are the best that is the issue.
How much space do you have to store that many photos? I was thinking of getting a NAS with maybe 40 to 50 TBs would that be overkill?
Also, this video has perfect timing. I just got back from my first big adventure (a trip to Hong Kong) and I have about 600 photos to go through. I've been working on them since 10am this morning and it's now 7pm and I'm not even halfway done.
Nice Rob! I'm looking into NAS but right now I just load up 5tb drives :)
But how do you choose between photos that are nearly identical and would all get the same star rating?
This is like a super long movie that you know at least third of it could be cut out. Don’t want to come across negative but even on 1.5x it felt a little too long since the core message is about 2 minutes...
Hey James, got a question not directly related to the topic of your video, if u don't mind. I use zebra assist so that I do not overexpose. As a result, I mostly get kind of low light raw files. Now, in relation to what you said about changing the exposure, do you think I can sacrifice a bit of overexposure for a bit brighter raws? Hope that makes sense really. Thanks a lot!
Hey Michael! As a rule of thumb it's always best to underexpose a little to protect the highlights :)
Hi James! great video once again, am really learning a lot from you! Question though: if you have many photos of the same subject, taken about at the same time, does one still go trough the process of one/two/three stars? or pick your favorite of that batch, and mark only that one two/three stars?