Comments on: Free Super-Fast Culling of Your Images Before Importing Into Lightroom

By: Justin Kaplan

Justin Kaplan — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 16:11:01 +0000

I have wanted to stick with LRC as my everything app to avoid clutter but now debating trying PM. My main issue using LRC even with embedded & sidecar the images do not import in order DURING the import. This makes it close to impossible with sports photography when you have sequences where one image may shine over another. Because of this you stil have to wait for the importing to end before culling at least for me.

Is this the same with PM? Everyone says you can start culling as soon as the first image is imported but if not in order same problem.

The mention above that Image Edge is just as quick as PM is very interesting to me if true.

Thank you in advance!

By: Yolanda Turnquest

Yolanda Turnquest — Wed, 16 Feb 2022 02:46:31 +0000

Great insight here. Thanks for the info! I used to think it was just my system lagging didn’t realize that it’s a Lightroom flaw.

By: Rudi

Rudi — Sat, 12 Feb 2022 08:16:15 +0000

In reply to James Cygnus. I use PM for years. It does anything from import to metadata to culling. NS in addition is too expansive for me to justify.

By: Pia

Pia — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 10:31:42 +0000

A great alternative to PM is Fast Raw Viewer. Works with both Mac and Win and is much cheaper than PM.

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 23:12:08 +0000

I installed it so I can answer some of the questions I asked above. Yes, the pro features are limited only if you do more than 6 projects a month and these seem to be more or less limited to AI type things: detecting similar images for “scenes” and looking at eye and face focus. Really useful, but not critical for me.

The ingesting leaves something to be desired. PhotoMechanic will happily copy every single file from your card into the destination, whether it knows what to do with it or not (e.g. GPS log files). Narrative Select ONLY does images, so if you’ve got video or something else you want to pull off the card, you’ve got to remember to do it. Furthermore, NS appears to finish copying before beginning any preview generation or analysis. So unlike PM, you can’t start culling immediately, especially if you have a large shoot.

The face detection features look quite nice, though. If I was shooting people often, I’d probably use this as my first line of culling. As it is, it might be nice to keep around to point at such folders, but I suspect I will stick with PM for rapid ingest.

I also love that NS comes out of the box with LrC like keyboard shortcuts (0-9, X, U (p is Purple not Pick))

Fix the ingest weaknesses and I am a convert!

By: James Cygnus

James Cygnus — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 05:10:10 +0000

Unfortunately another Mac only niche product.

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 08 Feb 2022 16:11:07 +0000

For Sony Shooters: Use the free Image Edge Desktop Viewer Program (not sure if it’s available for mac but windows) to cull your files as fast as with Photo Mechanic 😉

By: Raj

Raj — Tue, 08 Feb 2022 14:07:26 +0000

Scott, it should be mentioned right at the start that this software is Mac only. I wasted a few minutes of whatever is left of my short life in reading this and then finding that out the hard way! 😉

By: labro

labro — Tue, 08 Feb 2022 04:25:45 +0000

Hi Scott, thanks fo sharing this info.
For years I hesitate to buy PM because I have a lot of pictures with wrong exposure and in LR, even if slower than PM for card reading, just one click on “auto” in develop or just one click on standard preset (I use Vfpresets packs) makes miracles to keep images. In PM you would need to import in LR to see if a candidate or not. Correct ?
what about Excire AI as standalone ( or as LR plugin) ? it seems to have a nice preview with all images sorted by keywords we can export as xmp,… no idea if as fast as PM ; Not intended for card reading I think.

By: Scott Kelby

Scott Kelby — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 21:05:19 +0000

In reply to Eric.

Hi, Eric. Look at the list of features of free – I believe the six projects are if you use their AI features (like finding which images are in focus, etc.); not just using it for culling like I’m doing. You only get a limited number of the AI stuff with the free version (at least, that’s what it looks like to me), but the culling part is all free (again, that’s what it seems like). Maybe they can clarify – it did throw me off at first.