Sunday, April 18, 2010

Rate Your Photos

Step 1 right after I import in my images after a shoot is I rate my photos. I try and keep a consistent rating scale when I go through my photos (see below). I'll go into Full Screen Mode (F) and keep my fingers on the number keys. They correspond to the ratings (1-5).

★★★★★ : This photo is perfect out of the camera. It absolutely needs to be delivered.
★★★★ : This photo is pretty good. It might need some post-processing, but it most likely will be delivered.
★★★ : This photo is ok. It's on the line. I'll need to look at it a few times before I decide whether or not to deliver it. It will most likely need some post-processing before being delivered.
★★ : This photo is not that good, but it might be good to somebody else. I'm keeping it in the library in case I need filler.
★ : This photo is not good. I will most likely delete this photo after I've delivered the shoot.

As I go through the pictures, I'm also not shy about hitting the 9 key to reject a photo. These are the blurry, out of focus, random photos that I wouldn't show anybody. I'll use reject instead of delete at this point because delete takes longer. It's faster to just reject and then batch delete all the files at a later date.

I wouldn't recommend only selectively rating your photos. When you do that, you are basically saying that all the photos that you are NOT rating are not worthy to be rated. In that case, you might as well reject them since you don't plan on using them. By rating all of your photos, you are also making sure that you've gone through and at least looked at all of your photos.

1 comment:

  1. What do you guys use for your rating scale? I know to some people a 1 star is better than 0 stars. So what's the range for that?

    ReplyDelete