Pick/Reject
Many times, I’ll end a shoot with dozens (hundreds?) of pictures, which can feel a little overwhelming. After playing with using a star rating system or color-coding my photos, I’ve found the fastest way to sift through the images and quickly sort the keepers from the losers is by using the status flags. Here’s how:
- Import your images and make sure you’re viewing unflagged images only. This ensures your picks and rejected photos will be automatically removed from the filmstrip upon selection. I find this helps me keep track of images I’ve already addressed.
- For each image, click P to keep it or X to reject it. I am fairly ruthless at this stage — if an image is out of focus or I don’t like to composition, I will go ahead and reject it. If several images look good, I will use the Compare and Survey views to make sure I’m picking the best image of the bunch.
- Now switch the flag so you’re viewing rejected photos and delete all of these. No use in wasting space on lackluster images. Once finished, I turn off the status flags so only my picks remain.
I find this simple keep/reject system enables me to quickly sift through large numbers of photos without getting stuck on arbitrary star ratings.
Quick Black & White Check
This one is really easy. From the library or develop modules, select an image and hit the V key. The image will be converted to grayscale. Hit V again to switch back. This is a super easy way to quickly gauge how an image will look in black and white before performing a more thorough conversion.