> Essentially a "bubble sort" to rank the images, however human nature does
> not often produce a simple binary output, e.g. ...can't decide, Peter
looks
> best in #123 but Mary looks best in #127
A year or two ago I learned a new editing technique which I absolutely
love. I've been adapting it a little bit with suggestions from others and
it's getting better and better.
1. Give all images from the shoot one star.
2. On your first pass through, delete or zero-star the out-takes. Blurries,
ID10T errors, etc. The stuff that won't ever be used.
3. With your filter set to one star, go through and two-star the best of
each pose, sequence, etc.
4. With your filter set to two stars, go through and three star what you
choose to present to the client.
This multi-pass system works great because it takes away the arbitrary
nature of trying to grade your work. This method removes the choice of the
client or even yourself regarding "which is better?"
So, what happens when you have the #123 vs. #127? Easy answer: "Oops, I
just deleted one." Basically, you pretend that one of the two doesn't even
exist. This delete is actually just a derating of an image. If client says
"I like this picture, but Mary has a scowl" you can promote #127 back up
and say "is this any better?"
Lightroom has added one nifty feature which works kinda like this now. You
can group or stack images together. So when you have a bunch of images of
a pose or sequence, you stack those together and then do your
pick-and-choose on another pass. I don't particularily care for this method
because I'm more of a "flat-file" guy who finds it too easy to lose images
in the piles.
About eight years ago I learned something from another local pro. We were
discussing workflow and wedding shoots. We both came from a film
background. He overshot the wedding and during the edit-down process he
pretended that he was shooting all over again. As an image came up on the
screen he was making the decision whether to shoot it (keep it) or not.
This method, though, was an undiciplined approach to what I describe above.
The advantage of my multipass method is that you don't assign "worth" to
any image until the last pass. At the end of my step three, the only images
there are printable and the best of that shot. I can pretend at this point
that I shot 100% perfect images without any dupes. There should be no dupes
at all. Worth is assigned in final step.
During the step 3, this is where 2-up or 4-up image display with
synchronous zoom ans scroll is so important. Of a sequence of shots, you
can instantly tell which one is sharpest and which one has all the eyes
open.
This sorting method gives us this:
0 stars = junk shots
1 stars = lower quality dupe
2 stars = Best of pose/sequence
3 stars = Selects for presentation
4 stars = Album our final output selection (client's selections)
AG (sorted) Schnozz
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