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Rikk Flohr_Photography
Community Manager
Community Manager
September 24, 2025
Question

(Early Access) Assisted Culling (LrClassic)

  • September 24, 2025
  • 45 replies
  • 63081 views

Introducing Assisted Culling (Early Access) in Lightroom Classic. 

For providing feedback for Lightroom Desktop, click here

 

We’re bringing Assisted Culling to Lightroom Classic as part of the MAX 2025 release! This AI-powered workflow helps you quickly narrow large photo sets to the best shots using objective signals. 

 

What is Assisted Culling? 
Assisted Culling is one of the most requested features from advanced photographers, consistently topping feedback at customer events. It streamlines the process of identifying top photo selects from large sets—hundreds or even thousands—based on attributes like eye openness, sharpness, and more. 

 

Assisted Culling saves photographers countless hours of manual review, letting them focus on creativity instead of sorting. 

  • Eyes Open – Detects whether subjects’ eyes are open. 
  • Eye Focus – Measures the sharpness of the eyes. 
  • Subject Focus – Evaluates overall clarity. 
  • Clean Up – Identifies likely rejects (e.g., blurs, misfires, exposure issues). 
  • Stacks – Groups images either by visual similarity or time for easier selection. 

 

Why Early Access? 
Assisted Culling launches as Early Access at MAX 2025 with a narrow, high-confidence scope prioritizing portraits and headshots. This focused approach ensures reliability for these scenarios while we gather feedback and iterate. From here, we’ll expand to broader use cases like weddings and events before GA. 

 

How to Try It 

  • In Lightroom Classic, Assisted Culling is available in the Library module and Import dialog. 
  • Select your criteria, adjust the settings, and apply batch actions, such as flagging selects or deleting rejects. 

 

FAQs 

  • Q: Where is Assisted Culling available? 
    A: Lightroom Desktop and Lightroom Classic as part of the MAX 2025 release. 
  • Q: How fast is it? 
    A: Our testing shows an average of 0.18 seconds per photo on modern devices (≈2000 photos in 8 minutes). 
  • Q: What kinds of photos work best today? 
    A: Individual portraits and headshots. 
  • Q: Do I need to pay extra? 
    A: No. Assisted Culling is included in your existing Lightroom subscription. 

 

Feedback 

Please share your experience in this thread. Include: 

  • App version/platform 
  • System details 
  • Example images (optional) 

 

Lisa Ngo / Kwamina Arthur – Product Managers, Lightroom 

 

Posted by:

45 replies

Participating Frequently
November 9, 2025

I hate this. Please tell me how to get rid of this nag screen.

john beardsworth
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 9, 2025

As the message says, go to the Catalog Settings dialog and enable AI Analysis. It's on the Metadata tab.

 

Or click Enable now.

Participating Frequently
November 9, 2025

I dont want it. I have disabled it. I dont want to be reminded repeatedly when I dont want to use it.

Participant
November 8, 2025

When I try to import new photos the Assisted Culling box pops up and locks my screen.  I can't import....I have to go to Task Manager and close Lightroom.  Can't exit from Lightroom.  Help!

Known Participant
November 7, 2025

While analyzing photos,

the behavior of potential candidates appearing and disappearing on grid view is uncool.

It should be displayed only after it has been confirmed as rejected.

Participant
November 7, 2025

A princípio acreditei que fosse me ajudar a economizar tempo, mas na verdade não. Até o momento já identifiquei muitos erros ou bugs dessa ferramenta que tem MUITO potêncial para nós fotógrafos de eventos. Um dos erros foram que as fotos com a pontuação máxima de foco nos olhos, olhos abertos, estavam justamente o oposto, desfocadas e com olhos fechados. Não sei se é um bug por ser catálogos com muitas fotos, mas é algo que pode ser aprimorado. Uma outra sugestão que eu daria também seria de selecionar as melhores fotos de uma sequência de fotos repetidas, isso seria um adianto enorme. 

Participant
November 7, 2025

Posso estar equivocado, mas no meu computador todo o processo foi executado exigindo bastante da CPU e memória RAM, enquanto minha GPU tirava uma soneca. Meu lightroom já está configurado para usar a GPU, todo o processo de renderização e exportação é feito suavemente com ela, mas o Assisted Culling não. Se houver alguma forma de mudar isso, me avisem. Caso não seja possível ainda, tá aí algo que a Adobe pode providenciar para a próxima atualização.

I might be wrong, but on my computer, the whole process ran heavily on the CPU and RAM, while my GPU was taking a nap. My Lightroom is already set up to use the GPU — all the rendering and exporting runs smoothly with it — but the Assisted Culling doesn’t. If there’s any way to change that, please let me know. If not, that’s definitely something Adobe could add in the next update.

Participating Frequently
November 7, 2025

For some reason, it's not working on my MacBook Pro. It analyzes my photos, but stays inactive. Work well on my desktop. Any idea what I can do?

macOS Sequioia 15.6.1

Participating Frequently
November 6, 2025

Anyone able to point me in the correct direction, I'm on 6.8.0.821 in creative cloud on both my mac and windows yet I'm still missing the 15.0 update. Highest I can go up to is 14.5.1. Any help would be great!

john beardsworth
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 7, 2025
Participant
November 6, 2025

I take culling super seriously and cull over 500k photos a year. Will have more and more feedback going forward, but within 5 minutes, I'd say that my first thought is that it's too fast. I don't need it to look through 2000 photos and provide mediocore result within 2 minutes. I'd much rather wait 15 mintues and have sliders that will let me dynamically adjust the number of selects based on criteria unique to said shoot. This will let me dial in selects that actually work for a shoot. E.g. I shoot in some scenes where the exposure issue setting would be really helpful, others not, some scenes the eye focus, some not, etc. To this end, auto scene selection based on camera and lens and the scene itself would be helpful. For events we usually shoot different shots with different camera lens combos, that meta data can be leveraged to present the user with "scenes" to confirm for futher analysis, and then culling for each scene. Running the software on some older shoot where I didn't delete the outtakes, it's rejecting delivered photos at a high rate. At the end of the day AI may never be able to cull perfectly, but I'd at least like it to make the process faster.

Participant
November 9, 2025
Yep after using this I’m the same I would rather go through the pain
staking process of sorting my photos myself. This update don’t work for
me.
Participant
November 6, 2025

I'd like to take what assisted culling gives me (rejects and selects) and further cull them within the Library module. If I could apply the reject flag to the rejects and the flag to the selects or perhaps star ratings to both groups this would be very handy. What if the rejects are inaccurate I have no way of knowing and don't want to go through them all one by one at the Import screen. I'd like to do this in Library with photos that have acquired attributes from the Assisted Culling analysis.

Participating Frequently
November 5, 2025

Assisted Culling seems to be working well for me.  I do have a suggestion:

I like reviewing my auto-rejected images zoom in / full screen instead of thumbnail view.  However, if I come across an image that is rejected, I have to back out of full screen and return to the thumbnails in order to mark it as accepted instead of rejected.

My suggestion is allow us to choose the red X and green checkmarks while zoomed in / full screen so we don't have to keep backing out to thumbnail view.

Other than that, this feature is working pretty well for early access.

john beardsworth
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 5, 2025

Do you mean the Full Screen mode (press F) and not the simple Loupe view?  If so, you have always been able to use the keyboard shortcuts like P, U, X.

Participating Frequently
November 5, 2025

Loupe view I guess ... with the side bars visible.

Yes, those keys would do as a work-around.  I would prefer to use the red x and green checkmark that assisted cullingn is using, since that is what it is designed for.   Should not be a big deal to add that to LR when while assisted culling in loupe view.