Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Step Two:
Now that I've mentioned star ratings
and labels, I want to talk you out of using
them. Here's why: they're way too slow.
Think about it—your 5-star photos would
be your very best shots, right? The only
ones you'll show anybody. So your 4-star
ones are good, but not good enough. Your
3-star ones are just so-so (nobody will ever
see these). Your 2-star ones are bad shots—
not so bad that you'll delete them, but
bad—and your 1-star shots are out-of-
focus, blurry, totally messed up shots
you're going to delete. So what are you
going to do with your 2- and 3-star photos?
Nothing. What about your 4-star photos?
Nothing. The 5-stars you keep, the 1-stars
you delete, the rest you pretty much do
nothing with, right? So, all we really care
about are the best shots and the worst
shots, right? The rest we ignore.
Step Three:
So instead, I hope you'll try flags.
You mark the best shots a s Pick s and the
really bad ones (the ones to be deleted) as
Rejects. Lightroom will delete the Rejects
for you when you're ready, leaving you
with just your best shots and the ones
you don't care about, but you don't waste
time trying to decide if a particular photo
you don't care about is a 3-star or a 2-star.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen
people sitting there saying out loud, “Now,
is this a 2-star or a 3-star?” Who cares? It's
not a 5-star; move on! To mark a photo
as a Pick, just press the letter
P
. To mark
a photo as a Reject, press the letter
X
.
A little message will appear onscreen to
tell you which flag you assigned to the
photo, and a tiny flag icon will appear in
that photo's grid cell. A white flag means
it's marked as a Pick. A black flag means
it's a Reject.
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