This feature is available in Capture One Pro 23 (16.0) and later. Face Focus requires 16.2 or later.
Image culling is a common term used to describe the process of selecting the most notable images in a collection, usually achieved by assigning a Rating or Color Tag to images.
Capture One 23 makes this process easier by introducing a set of features designed to Cull images from a larger group or collection, during import, or simply when organizing images already contained in a Catalog or Session.
Culling images
-
Select Import from the Toolbar.
OR
If you wish to cull images that have already been imported, then select Cull from the Toolbar.
-
Use the following available tools to Cull images:
- Group Overview
- Star Rating
- Color Tags
- Filters
- Face Focus -
Pick which images to import, by clicking the checkmark contained on the image thumbnail: (only applicable when importing images, not when using Cull view)
- Auto-advance when culling images by going to Select > Select Next When (in the menu bar) and choosing between Star Rated or Color Tagged to greatly speed up the culling process.
Tip: Consider using Smart Albums which intelligently collect images together based on criteria such as Star Ratings or Color Tags to group the culled images into a virtual location, without having to move files around on your machine. This is particularly useful when using Catalogs.
Culling interface explained
After clicking Cull or Import you will be presented with the following window, which can be displayed in two different ways: Grid or Viewer.
Grid (default)
- Group Overview: enables grouping of images based on content similarity. Drag the slider from left to right in order to adjust the level of content similarity.
Decreasing the similarity value will result in groups that contain more images, whilst increasing the similarity value will have the opposite effect. - Change between Grid and Viewer: this changes the layout of the culling window, allowing you to see multiple images at once, or have more of a focussed view on a particular group of images, similar to how images display in the main viewer when editing
- Change the sort order of images
- Adjust the size of thumbnails displayed in the Grid view
- Face Focus Settings – change the default level of zoom on faces contained within an image
- Filter images based on Rating, Color Tag, and various other sets of Metadata.
- See which keyboard shortcuts are available when navigating the culling menu.
Note that some standard Capture One shortcuts can also be used, such as the delete key (macOS) or the backspace key (Windows) to move the image to the trash.
Viewer
With Groups disabled:
- Enable or disable Groups – images are grouped together based on content similarity. The Viewer will change slightly when this option is enabled and it can take a moment for your images to be analyzed and grouped together.
- Change between Grid and Viewer: this changes the layout of the culling window, allowing you to see multiple images at once, or have more of a focussed view on a particular group of images, similar to how images display in the main viewer when editing
- Toggle Face Focus - introduced in Capture One 23 (16.2) - this allows you to see faces contained in your images at 100% zoom in order to check focus and overall sharpness.
Face Focus contains five different options for the zoom level:
50%, 100%, 200%, Limit to Eye, and Limit to Face.
The two options for limiting the zoom level (Limit to Eye and Limit to Face) will make sure Face Focus doesn’t zoom in too much if the eye or face of your subject are very big compared to the resolution.
However, Capture One will not zoom in more than 100% to make sure a proper sharpness evaluation is possible.
- Browse through your images and apply ratings and tags as you go along. Consider enabling Select > Select Next When and choose whether you want the next image to be selected when you rate or color tag an image.
With Groups enabled:
1. Enable or disable Groups
2. Browse through groups of images
3. Apply color tags and star ratings
4. Apply color tags and star ratings
5. Toggle Face Focus
6. Number of images contained in your group – will display as "1" if no similar images can be found
N.B. You may find that your images look different in the Import window or in the Cull window. This is due to the embedded preview being used, and not the RAW file – this provides a significant performance boost and allows you to scroll through thousands of images at a time.
Comments
13 comments
It is not clear how you actually cull, DELETE does not work and there is no context menu or shortcut key I can find.
Hi.. When photos are already on your system you just rate or tag your photos in the culling window. After that you can filter these and select and delete them as you would normally do.
When you cull on import you select them (just hit space) and it will only import/copy the ones you selected.
I do have a question.
I have the: Select Next When, option set to both Star Rated and Color Rated but when I am in the culling window these options are greyed out. And when I mark a photo with a Red (or other) tag it doesn't jump to the next photo.
Is this a bug or a feature which is has to be resolved or added?
I have wasted hours of my valuable time trying to find out how to cull images with Version 23.
OK, David Grover's video was informative, even so, I still don't know how to cull the images.
I thought one pressed the space bar to mark the images one wants to cull and then via the cull function just delete the selected images. This doesn't work! You cannot even select any images.
I am working with a catalogue / session of imported images. So how do you cull?
Reading Brian Satoer's post above, this makes culling a long-winded process, which I am sure the developers / Capture One didn't envisage.
So far, I can cull much faster in Photo Mechanic! Needless to say, I am extremely disappointed with version 23 so far!
My present subscription (v 22) expires in December, after which I had planned to subscribe to version 23*.
Capture One's documentation / instruction (above) on this subject is abysmal!
I am using the free trial in the interim period,
Could it be, certain functions are not available in the trial?
Due to this short-coming, I am not prepared to invest in v 23.
*PS, Affinity Photo have just presented their upgrade, Affinity Photo 2.
I have tested this. Capture One will have to dress up very warm.
I am very tempted indeed, especially as the purchase price is less than €50.
Hi Desmond,
The spacebar is the way to go if you are importing from a memory card. You're then just selecting the photos you want to import and all the others will remain on the card. That way you don't need to delete photos.
If you have the photos on your harddrive already then you can set Red flags (or something else) for the ones you do not want. When your finished you can filter on the Red flagged photos, select them all and delete them.
This isn't that much different from Lightroom where I tag them as Pick or Reject and them afterwards delete the Rejected files.
Photo Mechanic is a nice tool for culling and if that is what you are used to then I would say, do the culling with PM before importing into C1. I found the lack of an "advance to next photo after setting a flag" feature very annoying so for culling I will stay in LR until C1 fixes this.
I found that the new Smart Adjust feature is a great reason to use C1 more and keep my subscription but if you don't do any Wedding, Event or Portrait work it might not be a reason for you.
There is no difference with the trial and the commercial version of C1. So you are not missing any functions.
Regarding Affinity Photo 2... I don't think you should compare this with C1. Affinity Photo is a Photoshop alternative not an alternate for Capture One or Lightroom. They are totally different programs. You would't use Affinity Photo for culling, editing of multiple photos. There is no way to sync settings over multiple photos. I shoot weddings and it would be impossible to only use Affinity Photo in my workflow. It would take weeks to do edits on 600+ photos. In C1 or LR the same job could be done in hours. For some photos I do need to make a roundtrip to Photoshop but that is just for 5% of the photos.
Programs like Affinity Photo are great if you just need to edit some individual photos.
Hi Brian,
Thanks for the reply and the info therein.
My subjects are portraits, fashion, beauty wedding and events, including press conferences. Architecture is also in my repertoire.
I shot a wedding exhibition a couple of weeks ago and thought version 23 would be great to cull the images of the models on the catwalk.
Quite honestly, I could have managed this 10 times over in Photo Mechanic, and I still didn’t achieve the task in CO 23!
I originally bought Photo Mechanic for my press work. I am also an accredited photojournalist.
Not only that, but I have been a CO user since version 7 or 8, it is so long here, I cannot remember. I was always very happy with it, but when new functions are introduced, it bugs me when they don’t work.
Furthermore, I am still unsure whether I will subscribe in December? €209 is too expensive for me now.
My problem is I am very short of clients, people here in Germany are far more concerned where the next meal is coming from, or if they can pay the rent, electricity and heating bills.
They have no interest whatsoever in having pictures taken. As a rule, friends of the bride and groom take the wedding pictures with their cell phones.
BTW, Affinity Photo 2 has a raw engine included, therefore, there is no difference to capture one.
Well, that’s all for now.
Best
Desmond
I have a desk saving keyboard with no arrow keys and so intend to adjust the relevant shortcut keys in preferences.
This does not appear to work.
I create a profile and adjust the keys in question to something suitable and yet these changes do not apply when in the cull modes window.
I've double checked the changes to shortcuts have correctly applied. Is there an isolated list of culling shortcuts similar to speed edit shortcuts?
Is it not possible to show the pictures in the culling window with adjustments? I often cull with my customer present and sometimes need to show my photos in black/white or with a few adjustments, and when i cull it shows the original unedited photos.
I just upgraded to 23 and am exploring this in my dual monitor Mac Studio. it does not seem that I can use both screens while in the Cull function? It would be nice to have the thumbnails on one monitor and the larger view on the second. Is this something that might be available soon?
It looks like there is a bug with using dual monitor, when this is activated and culling is attempted, the system locks up the second monitor with the last image frozen on the screen. If this cannot work with dual monitor settings, then it should not allow the cull function while in dual monitor mode. I would be happy to discuss this with someone.
Is the dedicated Cull view only available in C1P 23, but not in 22?
With fuji xh2 files i noticed it looks like the jpeg in the cull but once i switch to editing it changes the color. Is there a reason for this?
This comment is applicable to the iPhone version which I am using.
I am extremely disappointed with this app on the iPhone so far! What purpose does it serve apart from a crop function and one or two menial tasks.
It is impossible to treat an image ready to send to a client!
Take a look at Lightroom (on my iPhone)!
I can treat the image in post as if I was sitting at my desktop.
Capture One, what were you aiming at when you created this app?
In its present form, it is of no use to me!
Sorry for the harsh comment, but it is better to pass on the facts than tell fairytales how good it is!
Regards
DAStagg
I find dissappointing that in order to delete the non desire pictures you have to do it one at a time, compare this with Lightroom it is discouragingly intolerable. If I have to delete 1000 pictures it takes me more than 1 hour, in light room less than a minute. If this is an error on my part, please show in your tutorials how to delete unwanted pictures. This is a very important feature that is not properly covered.
Please sign in to leave a comment.