Catalog Preferences>Metadata>Automatically Analyze Photos in a Catalog.

​@Jim Wilde You said "Personally I have the first option enabled, but the second one disabled, which gives me the opportunity to run Assisted Culling on a specific source (folder or collection) whilst not wasting system resources on analyzing the entire library."

I get that and I didn't read the first option well enough because I can see using option 1 I would not want to use option 2 unless I was type of user with multiple small catalogs such as a wedding or portrait photographer who keeps separate catalogs for each client. However, if I did that I'd probably use CaptureOne instead of Lightroom Classic. 

Thanks for responding,

GEGJR 

P.S. A couple years back I tries out a new software named AfterShoot to cull images. However, since I'm no longer primarily a portrait and wedding photographer (I now take almost exclusively nature and scenic images, therefore auto-culling is not very useful.

​@Conrad_C ,

Yes I see that but why is that checkbox needed if assisted culling was used during import? Is the checkbox there for use after import in case the user forgot to run it during import or wants to run it on their catalog because it wasn’t available until just recently? However, I can’t see that being the reason. I only use 1 catalog, it is over 10 years old and contains tens of thousands of images including scans of prints and film. Why would I want to run automatic culling on so many images all at once? I could it see the option being more useful if I could run auto culling on a folder or on a collection but not on an entire catalog. Obviously I’m missing or don’t understand something so please help me understand.

I suspect it uses the Culling process to- “analyze ALL PHOTOS in Catalog”, rather that a selected folder of images.  A good chance that this process would take considerable time in a large catalog.

The [Learn More] link https://tinyurl.com/4hyzkz26 does not provide a specific answer to your question.

It’s connected to the new Assisted Culling feature.

The checkbox in Catalog Preferences is tied to the Assisted Culling run/pause switch in the Identity Plate status display, so if you toggle either, they both change together.