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Author Topic: Star ***** Rating Your Images  (Read 12144 times)

john beardsworth

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #20 on: March 28, 2011, 05:36:41 am »

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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bpsphoto

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #21 on: March 28, 2011, 06:42:26 am »

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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john beardsworth

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #22 on: March 28, 2011, 07:35:49 am »

... 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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John R Smith

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #23 on: March 28, 2011, 08:30:39 am »

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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Enda Cavanagh

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #24 on: April 02, 2011, 03:45:36 pm »

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

john beardsworth

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #25 on: April 03, 2011, 07:48:24 am »

Simplistic....
« Last Edit: April 03, 2011, 11:03:52 am by johnbeardy »
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leuallen

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #26 on: April 03, 2011, 09:39:59 pm »

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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John R Smith

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #27 on: April 04, 2011, 04:17:52 am »

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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NikoJorj

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #28 on: April 04, 2011, 05:36:10 am »

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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john beardsworth

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #29 on: April 04, 2011, 06:08:04 am »

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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John R Smith

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #30 on: April 04, 2011, 06:29:28 am »

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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Rusty

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #31 on: April 04, 2011, 11:33:27 am »

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!

Bill Carr

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #32 on: April 21, 2011, 12:16:45 am »

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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RikkFlohr

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #33 on: April 24, 2011, 08:46:26 pm »

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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Rikk Flohr
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Mark F

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #34 on: April 25, 2011, 10:10:55 am »

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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Bill Carr

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Re: Star ***** Rating Your Images
« Reply #35 on: May 02, 2011, 12:50:14 am »

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.
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