I import all the culled images into Lightroom.Next, I select all the images 3 stars or higher and move them into their own folder called “culled.”.5 stars is a favorite I plan to blog, 4 stars are my next favorites, and 3 stars are the “good” images that I’ll use if I need them. I go through the session just ONCE and pick my favorites along the way.Then I open Photo Mechanic and drag that folder into Photo Mechanic.Next, I put all of the images into one folder on my hard drive.First, I take all of my cards and back up my images onto my external hard drive.The way I use Photo Mechanic is super simple!! I’m sure there are a lot more things I could be doing, but my goal is just to go through images FAST. Then just select the ones you want and choose Image > Edit Photos and BOOM. To edit photos in Lightroom, you’ll first want to set your default program for editing to Lightroom. There is a great YouTube video on how to do that HERE. Not only that, but you can also set up your default colors to match Lightroom’s colors. Any star rating you choose in Photo Mechanic will show up in Lightroom. And it only takes a few minutes to apply the changes! There are so many options for sorting in Photo Mechanic 5. You can give each client a different color label and easily rename the photos for each grouping. This is SUPER helpful if you like to give your images for your blog different names or if you’re working with several clients in one shoot. Once you’ve applied all your color or star ratings to the photos you want to edit, you can sort them by color and batch rename them. You can move photos or copy them to another location in a breeze. You can sort by filename, capture time, star rating, color, and MORE. You can flag them with star ratings or color labels. Depending on how you have your shortcuts set up, you just press a number key for the rating you want to apply and move on to the next photo. Selecting which images you want to edit is as simple as one push of a button. I can immediately flag images as picks and spend maybe half a second on each image. Going through 3500 images takes about 3 hours, not including any editing. 2-3 seconds might not sound like a lot, but as self-proclaimed over-shooter, it’s a NIGHTMARE. I can’t decide if I want to keep an image until I can see if it’s in focus. The problem with that is it takes 2-3 seconds for each image to load in Lightroom. Since I wasn’t having luck culling in Bridge, I switched to culling in Lightroom. But what frustrated me is that the images always appeared blurry unless I zoomed in! I just can’t afford that when culling because I want my images to be tack sharp. I would go through and choose the ones I wanted and then open them in Lightroom or (at the time) Photoshop. Originally I was culling my images in Adobe Bridge. Top Five Reasons I Love Photo Mechanic 1. It only takes a few minutes to install, AND they have a free 30 day trial. Check out their website for more information and how to download it! It costs less than $150 and it has literally saved me HOURS of work. Photo Mechanic is a program that allows you to organize, manage, and sort photos! You can also add metadata and keywords, rename photos in batches, and easily export them to your editing software of choice. Ready? Let’s dive in! What is Photo Mechanic? I’ll tell you how it helped me so much, talk about some of its features, and show you how to integrate it with Lightroom for the fastest workflow. So today I’m sharing about this little, unassuming program that made a massive impact on my business. If culling images is a pain point for you, it will change your LIFE. I am NOT kidding when I say that it literally cut my post-processing time in HALF. One of the biggest game changers in my business was when I started using a program called Photo Mechanic. Something that makes your life SO MUCH BETTER that you can’t even remember how you existed without it? In my 10 years as a photographer, I had several business game changers. Have you ever come across a game changer in your business? You know what I’m talking about.
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