Culling Photos
Categories:
Refer to Memory Pressure and Memory Caching. At max, RawCull uses about 5.3 GB of internal memory if all Cache settings are maxed out. If you experience a memory pressure warning, RawCull reduces its memory usage automatically. To ensure a smooth UI experience, keep as many 200 px thumbnails in memory and reduce the number of images to keep in memory. If browsing several thousand images causes lag, switch off (on toolbar) badges for sharpness and saliency info.
A photo culling application is specialized software designed to assist photographers in efficiently reviewing, organizing, and selecting the most suitable images from a photo shoot. RawCull supports Focus Peaking, Focus Points, Sharpness Scoring and Similarity Indexing.
Persistent Marking and Session Recovery
RawCull automatically saves your marking decisions as you work, allowing you to pause and resume your culling session at any time. Your marks, ratings, and review status are saved to disk, so if you need to continue later, simply reopen the same folder and your progress will be restored.
Thumbnail Performance
Thumbnails are generated and kept in memory during your session for fast navigation. RawCull also maintains a disk cache of thumbnails for previously reviewed catalogs, enabling instant loading when you return to the same folder in the future.
My procedure for Culling Workflow
The following culling process is based on my advice and my method for selecting a few images from hundreds in a few minutes. Please note that this is my process for culling, and you may have a different approach.
Double-click any thumbnail in Grid View to zoom in/out. Use controls in Zoom view for zoom. Rate directly by keyboard. Use arrow keys for navigation. Next image appears automatically in Zoom view. Next view is automatically selected when rating. In Zoom view, either extract JPG or use created thumbnail, refer to Settings Thumbnails.
- Scan catalog for RAW files and create thumbnails.
- Thumbnails for Loupe and Zoom views are stored on disk cache if JPG extraction is disabled.
- Thumbnails for vertical views in Loupe and Grid views are default 200px. If enough memory is allocated, they’re stored in memory for quick access and smooth scrolling in Grid View.
- Open Grid View,
Score Sharpness, and after thatIndex + Group Bursts.- Adjust the slider for grouping in
Index + Group Bursts.
- Adjust the slider for grouping in
- Select the most important group first. Double-click a thumbnail to view a Zoom view.
Two-Phase Culling Workflow - a second approach of culling procedure
RawCull also supports an optional two-phase culling approach that separates the initial triage from the final star rating.
Phase 1 — Pick and Reject
Use P and X to do a fast first pass through all images:
- P marks an image as a keeper (rating 0, shown as P in the stats bar)
- X marks an image as rejected (rating −1, shown in red)
The header bar shows live counts — ✕ rejected, P kept, and the number of unrated images — so you always know where you stand. Click the unrated count to filter and show only images you have not yet triaged.
Phase 2 — Star Rating
Once you have worked through the pick/reject pass, filter to keepers using the P pill in the rating filter row. You can then apply star ratings 2–5 to your selected images. Only images with a rating of 2 or higher are copied to the final catalog.
Sharpness-assisted classification
After running Sharpness Scoring, you can auto-classify the entire catalog in one step. Select a threshold percentage (20–80 %) from the Threshold picker and press Apply. Images scoring at or above the threshold are marked as keepers (P); images below are marked as rejected (X). You can then review and adjust before proceeding to star rating.
Keyboard
Use these keyboard shortcuts for efficient culling:
| Action | Key |
|---|---|
| Pick / keep (rating 0) | p |
| Reject (rating −1) | x |
| Default tag (rating 3, green) | t |
| Set rating 2 | 2 |
| Set rating 3 | 3 |
| Set rating 4 | 4 |
| Set rating 5 | 5 |
| Move to next | ↓ or → |
| Move to previous | ↑ or ← |
| Zoom in | + |
| Zoom out | - |
No images are deleted from the temporary catalog. Only images with a rating of 2 or higher may be copied to the final catalog for images. A rating of 1 marks an image as rejected, keeping it visible but excluded from the copy step.
The tagging commands also works in Zoom views.
Icons in the toolbar
Hover the mouse over an icon to see a help message. Icons from left to right:
- copy tagged files
- show all thumbnails in a grid
- show all tagged thumbnails
- switch between horizontal and vertical thumbnail view
- show saved files
- hide the inspector
Rating filter pills
The grid view header contains a row of coloured pills for filtering and sorting thumbnails by rating:
| Pill | Filters to |
|---|---|
| ● | Rejected images (rating −1) |
| ● | 2-star images |
| ● | 3-star images |
| ● | 4-star images |
| ● | 5-star images |
| P | Keepers (rating 0) — excludes rejected |
Tap a pill to activate the filter; tap it again or press ✕ to return to the full view. Filtering is non-destructive and does not affect saved ratings.
Step 1: Select Your Temporary Catalog
After copying images from your camera to a temporary catalog on your Mac, select that folder in RawCull. The application scans all images and generates previews for quick review. This process reads your photo metadata and creates a visual index of all images in the selected directory.
By default, the Sidebar is hidden. To access new catalogs, toggle the Sidebar via View → Show Sidebar. The Sidebar offers only one option: selecting new catalogs for scanning.
During scanning, you can monitor progress as the application indexes your images. Depending on the size of your library, this may take a few moments.
Step 2: Post-Scan Display
Once scanning completes, RawCull displays your full photo library with a thumbnail grid and preview controls ready for culling.
The inspector can be hidden by toggling the hide/show icon on the toolbar.
Loupe View
At this point, you can:
- Navigate through images using arrow keys or click navigation
- View the current image in the main preview area
- Rate images using keys 2–5, or press t to apply the default tag (rating 3, green)
- Use p and x for the two-phase pick/reject pass
You may also zoom in on details by using the + and - buttons. The image is either a 1024 px or 1616 px thumbnail, and for optimal results, a double-click on the image will extract the JPG file from the RAW format. This is particularly useful for viewing and focusing on specific areas.
Zoom view
A double-click on an image zooms in, using either an extracted JPG or a generated thumbnail. See Settings for details. Utilize the plus (+) and minus (-) keys to zoom in or out on an image, whether it is a thumbnail or an extracted JPG file.
When zoomed, the image will fill the RawCull view completely.
Culling by Grid View and Group Bursts
A double-click on an image in grid view also opens a zoom view.
Shows all thumbnails in a grid view. Use the number keys 2–5, p, x, or t to rate images, and arrow keys to navigate. Thumbnails are colour-coded by their rating for quick visual triage. Select Score Sharpness and after that Index + Group Bursts (my personal process).
The rating filter pills in the grid header let you narrow down which images are shown. Select any pill to display only images at that rating — for example, the P pill shows only your keepers, while the red pill shows only rejected images. Selecting P also includes all scored images.
Adjust the grouping slider to your liking.
Double-click a thumbnail to zoom in. Use rate keys to advance or arrow keys to navigate. Stay in Zoom view until you close.
Step 3: Copy tagged images
Only photos with a rating of 2 or higher are copied to the final catalog. Keepers (rating 0), unrated (rating 0), and rejected (rating −1) images remain in the temporary catalog and are not copied to your editing workflow.
Feedback
Was this page helpful?
Glad to hear it! Please tell us how we can improve.
Sorry to hear that. Please tell us how we can improve.