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Rating and Flagging Images
Ever since I started working with image management programs I’ve been trying to find the system by which I could consistently use a specific rating to mean specific things. I still am not so sure I’ve done that, so I thought I’d put my “system” out for your consideration and to see what we could learn from one another’s feedback.
Picks/Flags
When you’re “thumbing” through your downloads for the first time, you can use these to say “yes/no/maybe” by pushing P for a Pick, X for what should become an ex-photo, and U for “uh, let’s wait and see”…that is, no flag at all. In my opinion, it’s a good system for the first run through. These aren’t the “picky” picks…they’re just not rejects yet. Great for the very first run through, either with large thumbs or by pushing Shift - P while in full-screen mode.
You can get rid of a lot of useless stuff just by setting the Attributes to Rejected Photos Only, selecting all of the thumbs that are still on screen, hitting the Delete key, and pressing return. All that useless stuff is then immediately removed from your hard drive. Then you can call up everything that’s flagged and unpick anything else you really don’t want and do the deletion thing for the second round.
Repeat as many times as you like and then you’re in a position to get really picky when you start using star ratings.
Stars
Here’s what I do with the stars. I only do them one at a time. The first star is given after I’ve done all the culling with the Picks. Each of the other stars is added after a review or presentation stage:
1 star: Acceptable. If it has a star, it’s worth some serious consideration…though maybe it still needs cropping or some other modification that will make it earn another star. Or the one star photos might only be suitable for a special purpose, such as an object to be incorporated into a composite..such as a background or knockout. Later, you’ll want to be able to call up the one-stars and be sure to put that purpose into the keywords.
2 stars: Show it to the “committee.” By committee, I mean all the others who were involved in or have an interest in the shoot.
3 stars: Send it to the client for final feedback and editing.
4 stars: Up for final consideration. This is the last collection before making your very final choices for this run.
5 stars: Publication or Sale.
Color:
For designating a broad purpose. Everything but purple is temporary and usually used just for images within a folder or collection. So If I’m just starting a project, I’ll find all the colors and delete all those that don’t match the purpose of that project. I try to use only one color for a specific type of project. That way, I can keep some colors reserved for future projects. Also, I sometimes find colors very useful for designating shots that belong in various types of collections when I’m winnowing something like a travel shoot that may have many different types of subjects. I try to use colors that emotionally remind me of the project…for instance:
Red: Women, fashion, glamour.
Yellow: Expressions, candids
Green: Anything having to do with nature
Blue: Water, Sky, Backgrounds
Purple: Stock. I’m constantly looking to grow my stock photo collections.
Comments (6)
I use the colors for the technical quality. Green is perfectly sharp, yellow is acceptably sharp, red is unsharp, blue is underexposed, magenta is overexposed.
I like that. Makes a lot of sense. I'm hoping to get lots of other ideas from readers, too. Then we'll see what comes out of the "boiling pot." Gracias.
When I want to delete my ex-photos I just use Ctrl-Backspace. Rather than going through and selecting them myself it does it for me. Then it just has me confirm the delete.
I use the flags in a similar way... quick cull. I usually forget to clear all the flags after the culling though and the white flags become visual noise.
As for the numbers:
1. Don't delete. May not be any good, but all that can be said is it isn't trash.
2. In the context of the shoot, may have some merit.
3. In the context of the shoot, good. I usually filter on 3 stars and above when building the an initial collection from the culled import. I only dig into the twos for spare parts.
4. Objectively a good photo. I should be able to filter across shoots and collections (e.g. all 2007) and all fours are worth showing.
5. Portfolio material.
Haven't used colors yet.
When I'm reviewing a large photoshoot (hundreds of photos), I've found the "caps-lock" trick indispensable. with caps-locked and my (left) four finger tips on (1234) and my right hand toggling the Loupe/100% with the "Enter" key the selections skip to the next photo automatically after I assign my "four-star" rating.
Pretty cool (and fast).
I don't have the time to use colors and flags... that borders on micro-management! :)
Happy Shooting.
I default to two stars on import... less than but not throw away shots get reduced to one star... Three, four and five stars are my own objective rating. Out of about 40,000 images, I only have about 50 five star shots.