If you are anything like me, you get a little trigger happy and take A LOT of photos of your kids. It’s not a bad problem to have until you have to go through every single one of them and decide which to keep. In the post, I am going to be talking about culling. Culling is the process of go through all the photos you took and choosing the ones you want to keep and/or edit. This process can be a real pain, especially if you are shooting in RAW- which you should be. Check out this post of Why I Shoot in RAW to see all the benefits.  Let’s dive in to the Best Way to Sort Through Photos Quickly.

Want to see behind the scenes of how I cull, check out the YouTube video below.

 

Photo Mechanic

Have you ever tried going through the photos on your computer and realized they were loading so slow? Yea, me too. Photo Mechanic is the answer to this problem. Photo Mechanic is a software I use to sort and choose which photos I want to keep. It loads all images SUPER fast- including RAW images.

Photo Mechanic is the workflow tool used by professional photojournalists worldwide.  Cull raw files fast, add captions and copyright, use text shortcuts for complex metadata tasks, and lots more.  Try it free for 30 days at https://camerabits.com, with no credit card required. (Not an affiliated link. I just love it.)

Sorting Through Photos Quickly

1. In Photo Mechanic, while you are looking through your files, choose your favorites by assigning them a color. You can do this by clicking any key on your keyboard. I use the number 5 for the ones I want to keep. This marks those photos with a green tab.
2. Next, I go through all the photos marking my favorites as green (5), I then go to the sort menu at the top and choose “color class.” This brings all the files marked as green together.
3. Starting from the last photo, I work my way backwards to forwards. I mark any photos that are similar and that I do not want to keep as a 1 (magenta).
4. Once I only have my absolute favorites marked with a green tab, I choose sort by “color class” one last time to bring all the green images together.
5. Lastly, I now take all the green photos and drag them to Photoshop. You can read all about Why I Choose Photoshop Over Lightroom here.

So, there you have it, the best way to sort through photos quickly is 100% with Photo Mechanic. It’s hands-down one of the best and most used software I need on my motherhood photography journey.

Want to get my course Editing Essentials for FREE and 10% off Photo Mechanic (valid through May 2021)? Join my FREE training- 3 Tips to Get Your Kids to Smile at the Camera and find out how you can get it today!