We've all been there - trying to win back some time through constant attempts to optimize our workflows.

Culling is one of the most essential parts of any photographer's workflow. Essential but also monotonous, tedious, and time-consuming. It is generally believed that the best way to finish a cull is to do it quickly and in a single session — which is often easier said than done.

It is Aftershoot's goal to aid you in improving your workflow, with our AI taking care of the menial and repetitive things, so you can focus on more important parts of your craft, business, and life.

Aftershoot is supported by both Windows and MacOS devices that are equipped with at least 4 CPUs and 8GB RAM.

When it comes to image formats, Aftershoot supports all leading RAW formats, as well as JPEGs.

Culling with Aftershoot is a four-step process.

Before we begin, sort the RAW/JPEG files of the images you wish to cull into a single folder.

In order to achieve the best results, it is preferable to ingest and cull your images with Aftershoot before importing them into Lightroom or Capture One.

Note: If you'd like to import your images into Lightroom or Capture One before culling them in Aftershoot, please read this blog post on alternate culling workflows with Aftershoot.

To begin, click on + New Album or Create Album on your Aftershoot's Home Screen.

What you have in front of you is the Import screen. Here is where you will add the images that you wish to cull. You have two options to choose from when adding your images:

Note: You can't cull Capture One/ Lightroom catalogs, those can only be edited.

On this screen, you can choose your Import Settings from the following:

Once you've set up your Import Settings and imported your photos, you can proceed to culling.

After your images are imported, you will see a screen asking you to select what type of shoot you will be working with today.

After choosing your genre, you can rename the album in the lower left corner.

Click here and type in the new name, it will be saved automatically.

Next, you will have the choice to proceed with only culling your images, by clicking on the Cull tab on the upper side of your screen. You can also click on the Culling button in the right-hand drawer.

There is also the option to cull and edit your images in a single go, by opting for One-click Cull & Edit in the same right-hand drawer. Find out more about how to set up and use this feature in this article.

Once you click on the Cull tab, you will see a Start Culling button on the right of the screen. After pressing it you will be greeted by the Culling Type screen.

With AI-Automated Culling Aftershoot will analyze your images and select the best ones for you to review. Alternatively, if you prefer to curate your own images, you can opt for AI-Assisted Culling. In this mode, you make the selections on your own but are assisted by Aftershoot with Duplicates Grouping, Key Faces Detection, and Image Scores to ease and speed up the process.

Depending on the Cull Type you chose, you will be presented with a Preferences screen to further customize your cull.

First, select between a standard Automated AI Cull and a Customized AI Cull.

An Automated Cull will apply default preferences based on the photoshoot category that you chose. The only thing you have to select here is the culling strictness level, depending on the amount of photos you'd like to receive.

A Customized Cull lets you tailor your preferences when it comes to how Aftershoot assigns the following filters to photos:

Most of these preferences and filters can be adjusted through a slider. As a rule of thumb, keeping the slider on the left side will give you more photos and keeping it on the right will give you less.

Find out more about setting up your AI-Automated Culling preferences by reading this article. You can also read about how to set up the perfect settings to cull your blurred images in this article.

Another thing that you can customize to suit your needs better is Stars & Colors. To do that, press the Change Stars/Colors button.

On this screen, you can assign filters with the Color Labels and Star Ratings that make the most sense for your process.

And of course, you don't have to change these Preferences if you don't want to and can leave everything on default or opt for the Automated AI Cull.

Learn more about setting up your Automatic AI Culling preferences by reading this article.

There is just one preference you need to set - how strictly you want the AI to decide which photos are similar, by choosing the amount and size of duplicate groups that you wish to receive.

After the Preferences have been set, simply click on Start Culling, sit back, and relax, while Aftershoot is importing and culling your images. Once it's done, you will receive a notification on your screen.
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Once Aftershoot is done culling your images it's time to review them. In this sense, both AI-Automated and AI-Assisted Culling are pretty similar, except for some features designed to improve the designated purpose of each culling type.

The first thing you see once culling is over is a Grid View of all your images, which lets you view multiple images at once and quickly make adjustments to Aftershoot's selection.

You can access Сull Filters on the right side of the screen to view photos sorted into different filter groups. You will notice that they are separated into two buckets - AI Selections, which includes Selected, Highlights, and Maybe images. And For Review, which includes Blurred and Closed Eyes. The last two filter groups do not have duplicates, and will include single blurred and closed eye images.

Above that is My Selections, a separate group for images you Flag using the P key shortcuts.

And below that are Duplicates and Unrated images. Clicking on the first one will display all duplicate images alongside the ones Aftershoot selected as the best. It will also display blurred and closed eyes images that are part of a duplicates set. Unrated is where the AI places images that you have removed all Stars and Color Labels from.

More options are available at the top of the screen, where you can choose to display photos assigned with a specific Color Label and/or Star Rating, and My Selections.

Right above, you can hide these filters by clicking on the Filter icon. To the right of that, you'll find the Sort Photos feature, which lets you decide the order in which your images appear by File Name, Capture Time, and Duplicate Count, in ascending or descending order.

To the right of that you get another set of filters, which let you decide which images to display based on File Type, Orientation, Capture Info, and Others.

Now that we’ve covered sorting and displaying images, let’s proceed to interacting with and adjusting Aftershoot’s selections. Like we mentioned before, once a cull is done, all images will be displayed in Grid View.
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By default, Aftershoot will show Selected and Highlights/Maybes, with Duplicates stacked. This way you can review the images the AI deemed best first without getting distracted.

Click on the image you wish to interact with to highlight it. Change or remove the Star or Color rating by clicking where they are displayed below the image.

Below the Cull Filters you’ll find the Key Faces of the image you selected. Zoom in or out to check their sharpness, by adjusting the slider above them.

If an image has duplicates, they will be displayed below the Key Faces screen, in the Duplicates panel. In Grid View, images with duplicates have an icon and a number in their upper left corner.

You can cycle through duplicates by clicking on the left and right arrows at the bottom of the image, any by using the , (comma) and .(period) key shortcuts.

If you’d like to review Selected images alongside their Duplicates, all you have to do is click on the respective tab under Cull Filters.

This will make the Duplicates unstack and be displayed on the main screen. Note that with the stacked view disabled, the Duplicates panel will also disappear. To bring it back, just click on the Duplicates tab again.

Now, look at the top left side of the screen, you’ll see three icons. Click on the one in the middle, this will transition you into Loupe View. You can also do that by pressing on the E key or Enter key shortcut.

In this view, instead of focusing on multiple images at once, a single image is brought forward and centered. Similar to Grid View, you'll see Key Faces on the right side of the screen.

At the bottom of the screen, you will see a carousel with all the other images in your culling session. You can switch to another image by clicking on it or by using the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard.

Duplicates will be displayed in a Filmstrip below the main image. You can switch between them by clicking on them or by using the . (period) and , (comma) keys.

Please note that if you entered Loupe View with the Duplicates unstacked, this Filmstrip won’t be displayed – just like with the Duplicates panel in Grid View.

Quick Filters can be accessed by clicking on their icon at the top of the screen, to the right of the Stars and Colors filters.

To the right of the Loupe View icon is the Survey Mode icon. You can also enter Survey Mode by clicking on the N key shortcut.

In this view, you can compare multiple duplicates side by side. Aftershoot will automatically detect duplicates and stack them for you to review. The rest of your images will display in the carousel at the bottom of the screen and you can sift through them using the same controls as in other views.

If you wish to do so, you can unstack Duplicates in Survey Mode by clicking on the respective icon in the lower-right corner.

Aftershoot has a multitude of keyboard shortcuts to change ratings, circle through, and select images. Check them out by clicking on the Keyboard symbol to the right of the Duplicate Stack symbol.

Find out more about using Keyboard Shortcuts in Aftershoot to improve your workflow in this blog post.
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AI-Assisted Culling is designed in a way that gives you complete control over your image selections while enhancing and speeding up the experience with AI tools.

By default you will see your images in Loupe View and with Image Scores turned on.

But you can of course change to Grid View or Survey Mode the same way that you would in an AI-Automated AI Cull.

AI-Assisted Culling doesn’t place images into Cull Filter groups, it only assigns Star ratings and Color labels. Neither does it have automatic ratings for Blurry Images and Closed Eyes.

It is best paired with using Flags, about which you can find out in this article and Spray Can Mode in this article.

You're done with your culling session and now it's time to export your photos. That's if you don't want to edit them inside Aftershoot first of course. If you wish to do that check out our Culling & Editing Workflow article.

First, choose which photos you'd like to export. To do that, head over to Cull Filters and click on Selected, Flagged, Highlights, or any other filter. This will choose the photos marked under that filter to export. Then simply click on the Export Photos button on the bottom right corner.

A new screen will appear where you will have the choice between exporting your photos directly into Lightroom, Lightroom Classic, Capture One, Bridge, or Photoshop. You also have the option to export the photos into a folder of your choice on your device.

If you opted for exporting your images directly into an app, Aftershoot will open that app on the Import Screen with the selected photos already being chosen.

Note: If you're using Aftershoot on Windows, it's not possible for us to have the "Selected Images" preselected on the Import Screen. Instead, Aftershoot will let you import all your photos into Lightroom or Capture One.

Then simply click the Import button and let Lightroom or Capture One import the images. Once it's done, you should be able to see your Star Ratings and Color Labels applied inside Aftershoot, here as well.

Importing images manually is just as simple. Head to the folder that contains the culled images on your device and drag and drop it directly into Lightroom or Capture One. This will have the same results as exporting All Photos from Aftershoot directly into the apps.

If you encounter issues while using Aftershoot or notice that something doesn't work as it's supposed to, consult our Troubleshooting blog to see how to solve common issues with the app.

If that doesn't help, feel free to contact us at [email protected] - it will be our pleasure to help you out!

Make sure you join our Facebook Community of like-minded photographers and creatives who are dedicated to winning their time back by using Aftershoot!
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