How to cull a shoot fast
To cull a shoot of hundreds of photos, go through it in three passes: reject what’s clearly out, pick what’s worth editing, then rate the best. In Lucarne, a free photo editor for the Mac, every photo is shown whole at whatever size you like. When you’re done, show only the keepers and start editing.
Three passes
- Reject first. Go through quickly and reject blurred shots, closed eyes, and near-duplicates. Don’t hesitate on this pass.
- Then pick. From what’s left, pick the photos worth editing.
- Then rate. Among the picks, give the best one to five stars.
In Lucarne each of these is one key: X to reject, P to pick, 1 to 5 for stars. Clicking works just as well; the keys are simply faster.
Every photo shown in full
Lucarne’s library shows every photo uncropped, at its own proportions, so you see the composition. Drag the slider: small to take in the whole shoot, large to check focus and expressions. It moves smoothly between sizes, so you keep your rhythm.
Only the keepers
When you’re done, show only the picks, or photos with three stars or more, and edit those. RAW+JPEG pairs show as one photo, so you decide once.
Then edit
Culling and editing are in the same app. Edit one photo, save it as a Look, apply it to all the picks, and export them together.
Let an AI assistant make the first pass
With an AI assistant connected, you can ask it to go through the shoot first, rating, picking, and rejecting by your rules, and then check its choices yourself. See Let your AI assistant edit your photos.
Questions
- Is Lucarne free?
- Yes. The library, culling, and editing are all free to use.
- What about RAW+JPEG?
- Lucarne shows each pair as one photo, so you rate and flag it once.
- What are the keyboard shortcuts?
- 1 to 5 for stars, 0 to clear the rating, P to pick, X to reject, U to remove the flag.