I love using my last name in a forum post (haha, kidding). My last name is Cull in case you didn't catch that. I found I couldn't call my business "Cull Images" because, well, it didn't give a good first impression.
Anyway, I *just* got my new computer in and noticed that my editing time for my second e-session was 1 hour instead of, say, 8 hours like it was for the first. I have only spent an hour or so on my last wedding on this computer, but I've noticed I'm still having a hard time culling images. Decision making is difficult for me and I find it even harder to decide which photos to nix and which to include during editing. I take roughly 100 pics/hour, and if you add my husband's shots that can be a LOT of photos. Especially when I'm there for 12, 14 hours.
During my first pass through I erase all blikies, blurries, and "blockies" (photos where someone just magically got in the way). I erase any photos I hate. Gone. Off the hard drive.
My second pass through? Well, let's just say I can get stuck deciding between three cake shots and it could take me 5 minutes or more.
So I need some help on the culling issues. Editing is a breeze on this wedding -- as per ksmahgrts' advice, I changed WB each time I changed location so WB and exposure are spot-on for 80% of the photos. I just gave everything a stronger curve and I'm good to go. But it's the culling and then cropping that's killing me. Any suggestions on how to make it faster? I need to get rid of more photos. Like my husband said, they won't know if they don't see it. But I know ant it's hard for me to let some photos go.
The way I do it is run through on the first pass, toss everything thats garbage, that will never be used. Then I rate everything thats a keeper as 2 stars (I use lightroom). I take a break, then run back through with an outside perspective. You may have 14 shots of cake, but one should shine above the rest. Take an approach as if you're looking at someone elses photos, what you would want to see, and what you would breeze over.
If it's eye catching, I bump it to 3. If its a dupe of possibly lesser interest, it goes down to 1 and disappears from my view (BUT its not deleted. Theres always a chance it may be used later). Then from there I proof them up, edit in flow, theyr'e bumped up to 4. I bring in an outside eye for the 5's, the best of the best of the best, for which ones should go in that beautifully crafted album.
Lightroom 2.1 has a few ways to do it. I just got it. Their tutorial is easy. I shot 75-100 shots for our christmas card and had it down to 6, first pass and 2 second pass. You can drag keepers left in a bar, and put photos side by side quickly.
I like where you select keepers, maybees and rejects. You can do it by stars, or even by colors, and any combination. You might want to look up Lightroom on here as I remember a wedding photog color coding for client preferences.
For culling, this is the best workflow I've seen. Get it on Ebay for under $200, retail anywhere for $299. Integrates easily with Photoshop.
I used to use DPP - look at images one at a time.
With LR I do it like I do my view and choose sessions with my clients - Survey Mode. Kick up the three cake shots and pick one. Usually for people shots the first or last are the keepers so I look at them first on formals and such.
This is quicker for me, but I'm also finding I cut more images out.
I've done two weddings completely in LR. I still shoot 900 ish shots but I'm left with 350 to give a bride instead of 500-530 range. And now all the proofs are stright, teeth are white, etc, stuff that I'd not bother with on proofs cause I'd have to takethe images into PS one by one.
Well, it looks like i found my problem - -I just started working on the wedding photos on my new computer and I plowed through 400 in just 2/2.5 hours. So I think a big part was being able to work faster (the old computer was more than 5 years old and SLOW). Plus my husband sat there and helped me decide which of the double/triple/quadruple sets to keep. I found that he agreed with my gut, so i'll probably go with my gut.
If you are on a 5+ year old computer switch! It's SO much easier!
