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Author Topic: Star ***** Rating Your Images  (Read 12142 times)

Mike Guilbault

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Star ***** Rating Your Images
« on: March 18, 2011, 11:01:21 pm »

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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Mike Guilbault

Josh-H

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #1 on: March 19, 2011, 12:57:38 am »

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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wolfnowl

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #2 on: March 19, 2011, 02:08:55 am »

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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john beardsworth

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #3 on: March 19, 2011, 04:14:46 am »

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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Rhossydd

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #4 on: March 19, 2011, 05:24:19 am »

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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dchew

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #5 on: March 19, 2011, 05:46:48 am »

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

« Last Edit: March 19, 2011, 05:48:32 am by dchew »
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darr

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #6 on: March 19, 2011, 06:17:42 am »

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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john beardsworth

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #7 on: March 19, 2011, 06:46:40 am »

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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darr

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #8 on: March 19, 2011, 07:03:39 am »

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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Mike Guilbault

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #9 on: March 19, 2011, 10:35:40 am »

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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Mike Guilbault

NikoJorj

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #10 on: March 19, 2011, 11:13:44 am »

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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john beardsworth

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #11 on: March 19, 2011, 12:34:08 pm »

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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Mike Guilbault

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #12 on: March 19, 2011, 01:09:37 pm »

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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Mike Guilbault

john beardsworth

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #13 on: March 19, 2011, 01:39:27 pm »

No, unfortunately not.
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Mike Guilbault

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #14 on: March 19, 2011, 04:21:22 pm »

bummer... maybe should be a new feature request for LR 4 eh!
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Mike Guilbault

PeterAit

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #15 on: March 19, 2011, 07:48:44 pm »

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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john beardsworth

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #16 on: March 20, 2011, 05:10:58 am »

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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Rusty

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #17 on: March 23, 2011, 10:30:31 pm »

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.

solardarkroom.com

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #18 on: March 25, 2011, 06:06:05 pm »

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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bpsphoto

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #19 on: March 28, 2011, 05:05:50 am »

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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BH Neely
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