Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Adobe Lightroom Q&A => Topic started by: Mike Guilbault on March 18, 2011, 11:01:21 pm
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Just curious to how you use the star (*) ratings in LR. What do you define as 1*, 2*, 3*, 4*, 5*?
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For myself I rate my images on a per shoot basis with stars. Thus a given shoot might have one or more 5 star images (if Im lucky).
For me it lays out as follows:
0 - Its fuzzy or blown - delete it
1 - Its in focus and exposure is decent - Ill keep it.
2 - Its in focus and exposure and composition rate it better than a 1
3 - The pick of the bunch of '2's' - the best composition, exposure and depth of field
4 - The Best of the 3's - Probably an image I will process until completion
5 - Best of the day - a Keeper.
5+Color marker - a Portfolio shot.
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I use 3 stars for images I think are good enough to keep, and 4 stars for something I REALLY like. I've not yet shot anything I consider worth 5 stars.
Mike.
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I do think it's important to try to write down your own meanings for each rating so you can apply them more consistently. So I put mine into a panel end mark (there had to be some use for the feature) - you can put the attached in your Panel End Marks folder.
John
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I'm sure most people will give generally similar answers, but here's the list I have under my monitor;
No rating Record or test shot, no photographic merit
* Acceptable, nothing great, but may be usable in conjunction with others
** OK, usable, but no great headline shot
*** Good,
**** Very good
***** Excellent
Complete no hope'rs are deleted after import. Anything really good or interesting also gets a red label (other coloured labels are used for noting sets like panos, needing work or needing external PP)
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0 Keep, but no further post process
1 technically and visually ok
2 Good; might have a use and could be shown to others
3 Has everything: meaningful style, artistically and technically good, wants to be printed
4 These images have a defining style. They are part of a "life's portfolio"
5 Reserved for "once in a lifetime" images. I currently have four in this category over 16 years of cataloged images - apparently I've lived four lives so far ;-)
Similar to John I print this out and my wife and a few friends know what it means. If I'm not around, they could easily find my best images.
Anything > 0 gets processed, keyworded and converted to dng.
Dave
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I do think it's important to try to write down your own meanings for each rating so you can apply them more consistently. So I put mine into a panel end mark (there had to be some use for the feature) - you can put the attached in your Panel End Marks folder.
John
John,
Thank you for posting these!
I will upload them into my panels folder and keep them as a reminder.
Kind regards,
Darr
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Easy enough to make your own, too - they just have to be PNG files.
A little speed tip is to apply ratings with the keyboard's Caps Lock on - LR then applies the rating / flag / colour and simultaneously advances to the next picture. You can use the Shift key to temporarily stop the auto advance (conversely, if Caps Lock is off when you are applying a rating, holding Shift advances to the next picture).
John
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Easy enough to make your own, too - they just have to be PNG files.
A little speed tip is to apply ratings with the keyboard's Caps Lock on - LR then applies the rating / flag / colour and simultaneously advances to the next picture. You can use the Shift key to temporarily stop the auto advance (conversely, if Caps Lock is off when you are applying a rating, holding Shift advances to the next picture).
John
The 'caps-lock' tip is very helpful! I have the Martin Evening LR 3 book, but have not had a bunch of time to sift through it, partly because I spend too much time not using tips!! ;)
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I do think it's important to try to write down your own meanings for each rating so you can apply them more consistently. So I put mine into a panel end mark (there had to be some use for the feature) - you can put the attached in your Panel End Marks folder.
John
Fantastic idea John! I've been going through my images looking for printable work and your rating system is pretty much what I use. But with the Panel End Markers tip, this will make it actually work - cause I usually don't remember what I came up with.
Thanks!!
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0 Keep, but no further post process
1 technically and visually ok
2 Good; might have a use and could be shown to others
3 Has everything: meaningful style, artistically and technically good, wants to be printed
4 These images have a defining style. They are part of a "life's portfolio"
5 Reserved for "once in a lifetime" images. I currently have four in this category over 16 years of cataloged images - apparently I've lived four lives so far ;-)
I use something very close :
1 not to delete
2 showable to friends or relatives (documentary)
3 printable
4 goes to my 'portfolio' ie my website
5 not much so far.
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Using the panel end marks is like "101 uses for a dead cat" - only I've only come up with one use!
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Is there a way to change the Panel End Mark for each side? I'd love to have one side with star rating labels and the other with labels for the colours.
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No, unfortunately not.
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bummer... maybe should be a new feature request for LR 4 eh!
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I find no utility whatever in rating images 0, 1, 2, or 3. That's the "horrid through mediocre" range and who cares if an image is "mediocre" as opposed to "bad?" They will never get printed unless I decide to fool around with one and the processing elevates it to a 4 or 5.
Technically excellent images that I really like and that I feel express my photographic "vision" get a 4 (95% of them) or 5 (the best 5%).
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I find no utility whatever in rating images 0, 1, 2, or 3. That's the "horrid through mediocre" range and who cares if an image is "mediocre" as opposed to "bad?"
Why even keep the "horrid through mediocre"? Once an image is worth keeping, then it takes little effort to operate a more fine-grained rating system - with only the tiniest proportion getting high ratings.
John
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I know I keep far too many and am starting to lable the duds with an x
no rating: I'll keep and burn to dng with everything else, from the post it on my monitor:
* pick
** like
*** Gallery short list
**** probable gallery material and card size print
***** exhibition printed
After import I'll run a slideshow of everything and make a one star pass
I may filter and then run a 2 star pass
Keyword
and come back later to consider higher or lower ratings of 1 star material, typically after a keyword search of stuff I'm interested in pursuing.
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I start by making every image a 3 and filter for flagged, unflagged and 3+. I have auto advance on as well and simply go through each image with the arrow keys. If its useless it gets an X and disappears. If it has parts that may be helpful in a stack it gets a 1. Possible alternate 2. These of course disappear from view. If exposure and focus are decent it remains a 3. If I have an immediate emotional response then 4. I generally only use 5 for client selections as the way flagging is gallery dependent never felt intuitive to me. Once I get to the end I (command) delete all the clunkers I X'd and raise the filter to 4+ and see what I've got. I can always take another look at the 3s and keep the 2s and 1s for pixel farming.
David
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My system on a quick scroll through a shoot is 3 for anything worth looking at a second time, 4 for possibly portfolio worthy and 5 for good enough to sell. Like one person said, why rate the ones that are horrendous, crappy and bad?
I don't delete anything. That would be like throwing away negatives or slides, and you never know when something might be useful for instruction purposes.
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The reason that sort of scheme is generally not recommended is because it results in a lot of 5 star images and makes it difficult to pull out your very best work.
Lightroom provides 6 grades, 0 through 5, so why only make use of three?
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I've found that I simply don't need that many gradations. I was very surprised to read that people use all six...I know at a glance which of my photos are worth a second look, and if they aren't worth a second look, then they aren't worth the time it takes to tap the 1 key before moving on to the next.
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... they aren't worth the time it takes to tap the 1 key before moving on to the next.
Caps Lock - apply star rating while moving to the next image.
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I only seem to have two sorts of photos - crap ones and good ones. So I don't really need stars, just the delete key.
John
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I only seem to have two sorts of photos - crap ones and good ones. So I don't really need stars, just the delete key.
John
Never was a truer word said John. :D Either keep it or dump it
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Simplistic....
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I use one star to indicate that I have worked on the image. If the image was no good then I would not have worked on it and if I did but it did not turn out OK, I would not rate it.
Other than that, I don't use stars for permanent rating. What seems stupendous to me today looks ordinary next week, so I would just have to change the rating if I rated it today.
I use the stars for temporarily culling the best of similar images. I compare two images, the best gets two stars, the other is left at one star. Then I compare the two star to another similar one star image. If the new image is better it gets two stars and the original two star is demoted to one star. Repeat until all similar images have been compared and there is one two star 'King' left. I keep all of these images, the crap has already been flagged and deleted.
As to my best images, they don't need a high star rating - their location is searingly burned into my brain as there are so few of them. And if I forget, I have keyworded extensively so that they are easy to find.
Another use for stars is in collections to keep track of images that have been submitted to a physical gallery. I have a hierarchical structure for gallery images. One folder is for 'candidates' - those to yet be printed. After printing, the image is moved to the 'printed folder'. It is then matted and inventoried but still in my possession. When this is done, the image is moved to the 'Gallery' folder with zero stars. This means that I still have the image but it is ready to be delivered. When the image is delivered, I rate it as three stars. If it is sold but I have not replaced the sold copy to the gallery, then I give it four stars. When I replace the sold copy, I rate it as 5 stars.
This takes a lot of work and you have to keep it up to date but it is the only way I could think of to initially keep track of the images. I have to set up a database or spreadsheet for more complete information entry - for example the collection will let me know if it is sold but how many copies? If you know of a good commercial or shareware application that is good for this let me know.
Larry
Larry
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I think all of this is probably of relevance to people who take lots of photographs. You read about people who come back from a day's shooting with 1,000 frames or something crazy like that. Then, I can quite imagine that you might need some sort of system to rate them.
I just don't work like that. Even now I have digital, I will go out all afternoon and come back with maybe 5 or 6 shots.
John
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I just don't work like that.
That's just a question of work habits, and needs...
I don't shoot photos by the thousands or even hundreds, but having different uses for my photographes, from personal record, passing by showable to friends and relatives, and then capable of making a decent print, to showable in my portfolio, I'm glad to have stars rating from 1* to 4* corresponding to these needs so that I can set up a proof print session or web page effortlessly, just with the "N stars or more" filter in the bottom filter bar.
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I think all of this is probably of relevance to people who take lots of photographs. You read about people who come back from a day's shooting with 1,000 frames or something crazy like that. Then, I can quite imagine that you might need some sort of system to rate them.
I just don't work like that. Even now I have digital, I will go out all afternoon and come back with maybe 5 or 6 shots.
Yes, and that is exactly the point. You can't simply say "keep it or dump it" or I don't need stars without the context.
BTW, I work with someone who routinely shoots 1200 a day 5-6 days a week. Ratings? Who needs 'em?
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Oh, Lord.
Look, chaps, my comment was just a light-hearted bit of joshing around, then you have to go and take it seriously. I was not suggesting (and I never intend to) that others should do as I do, and I am not in any way criticising what you all do. I am sure that you all really need to take thousands of frames a day and need loads of stars and labels and flags and things when you get home to help you sort it all out. That's just fine, and I will carry on quite thankful that I don't have to worry about any of that.
Enjoy your stars ;)
John
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I recently went through many of my unrated images in LR and sorted into rejects and keepers. Most by far were rejected and deleted. They are still sitting on an external drive and on DVD though.
This exercise, however was a good learning experience for me. It showed both how my compositional eye worked and works. It has taught me to be much more selective when in the field, let alone later on first run through. It has also taught me a thing or two about ranking images on first pass after import as well.
I plan to keep the good bad and ugly for at least one year, then perform an annual cull over a short period to again review what my eye finds and considers to be worth keeping, or not. So in early 2012 I will go through all my 2010 images with this purpose and so on.
I've enjoyed reading this discussion, thanks all!
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Star Rating is for Quality
Color Rating is for usage
0 - Keeping for further review and possible deletion in future
1 - acceptable for web display only
2 - best of web display only
3 - candidate for website gallery and smaller prints
4 - excellent for website and larger prints
5 - fine art print quality
Red - currently on website Gallery page
Yellow - currently on website Stock Photo page
Green - processed and ready for decision: red or yellow
Blue - needs processing before going green
Purple - heavily cropped, suitable for web and gift cards print size only
No Color - keeping for further review and possible deletion in future
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I have taken a different tack.
Pick- Acceptable
Unflagged- Hasn't been evaluated
Reject - Unacceptable
0 Stars: Hasn't been evaluated
1 Star: Acceptable for Client
2 Star: Show to Client
3 Star: Client Selects
4 Star: Image for Commerce
5 Star: Portfolio Image
If a Client Select becomes a commerce or portfolio image it is made a VC and the VC becomes the 4 or 5 Star image.
Color Labels are used to designate do not delete images ie. Sets, Sequences, Do not delete Image for Teaching, etc.
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I agree with those who discard everything that is mediocre or worse, especially for personal work. I know people who have accumulated thousands and tens of thousands of images that will never see the light of day and when I ask why the answer seems to be that storage is cheap. (A whole other topic.) For commercial work (especially event photography) it may make sense to keep everything that is technically adequate as you never know when the client will ask for something that was not originally chosen.
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There are many reasons for using a particular rating system, depending on your specific needs. For instance, if you don't publish to a website, then my method (above) would not be applicable. Event photogs have completely different needs.
One thing I find very useful is using the rating system to create smart collections. Then every time you rate a photo, it plops it (you can hear it) into the appropriate collections. Example wolves red, wolves yellow, wolves green, wolves blue. Automatically provides me with a list of images that either need work, need a decision, etc.
just 2 more cents....almost enough for an andes mint.