When you have lots of shots....

[AlanKlein]

I check off each shot I liked if I liked it within the first second I looked at it. Of those, I get rid of all duplicates or close duplicates. Using more than one becomes boring. Be brutal. They're only pictures; not your children. Your success rate will improve. Viewers won;t know or care about the ones that didn't make it. All they'll see are your best shots.

 

[Parker219]

When I did real estate photography and the client wanted 25 keepers, at first I was taking 250 photos while I was at the house.

Fast forward 2 years and I was taking 26 photos, just in case I messed up one!

Now before I even press the little clicky button, I think...do I REALLY want to edit this photo?!?

 

[robvasi]

So....I've been away for a few days for wee break with the Mrs who was very tolerant of me snapping away. 4 days away and a cheeky birding session today has seen me with the best part of three CF cards full of images I now need to process! Not having done much photography in the last two years I hadn't realised quite how out of practise I was. Soon got back into it though.

What's your strategy for editing big shoots after you've culled the stuff that's instantly not up to par?

I photograph High School rodeo. One rodeo on Friday and another on Saturday.

Two days at the Delta Rodeo resulted in 2,150 photos that I processed.

Lightroom:

Establish an upload preset
Design a preset for each venue and lighting condition.
For similar images use the Auto Sync feature in the Develop Panel.
Use standard aspect ratios and Auto Sync to crop.

 

[gmcase]

I photograph High School rodeo. One rodeo on Friday and another on Saturday.

Two days at the Delta Rodeo resulted in 2,150 photos that I processed.

Lightroom:

Establish an upload preset
Design a preset for each venue and lighting condition.
For similar images use the Auto Sync feature in the Develop Panel.
Use standard aspect ratios and Auto Sync to crop.

LR is the best way I have found to rapidly screen, cull, catalog and post process. Nothing comes as close in my experience.

 

[LCL999]

I'm a compulsive hoarder so have real difficulty deleting shots forever. Instead I have a file in LR for each year titled "Rejects". So all the doubtful shots go in there. It means I can be brutal without suffering permanent loss. Once in a blue moon I trawl through it if I remember there was something interesting I rejected.

 

[BillM]

Lightroom:
Establish an upload preset
Design a preset for each venue and lighting condition.
For similar images use the Auto Sync feature in the Develop Panel.
Use standard aspect ratios and Auto Sync to crop.

^^^^What he said ^^^^

The Lightroom presets are great. They save me sooooo much time. I have a profile for every gym/field/rink I shoot at. Even if I shoot there once I will create a profile just in case I end up going back. And many time when I go some place new one of my existing presets will work for it with minor tweaks. So once done importing I will do a quick cull and then it is minor tweaks/crop and upload. Because of the presets I can edit and upload a 400 to 500 shot (100 keepers) football game in an hour. When I started I was taking 800 to 1000 a game, and still ending up with 100 keepers lol

But if shooting the game for the paper I'll scan and give a 5 star rating to 2 dozen and edit those fast and get them FTP'd off before doing the rest.