I recently started shooting street running events as a sports photographer, and I’m trying to optimize my Lightroom Classic workflow as much as possible.

Hey everyone!
 

We usually have a very short window between shooting, importing, editing, exporting, and uploading the images, so speed is extremely important.

Right now, I’m using a Canon R10 and shooting JPEG at medium quality. I may eventually move to RAW, but before doing that, I’d like to make my current workflow faster and more straightforward.

1. Automatically applying edits based on reference images

I usually shoot from one location during a race, so the lighting conditions are relatively consistent. However, I still have situations such as:

• Clouds temporarily covering the sun
• The sun changing position because events start early in the morning
• ISO changing as the available light changes
• Shooting runners from different directions

What I’d really like to know is whether Lightroom Classic has a way to define a few reference images for different lighting scenarios and automatically apply the appropriate Develop settings to similar photos.

For example, imagine I’m photographing runners from two directions:

• One direction is backlit / against the sun
• The other direction has the sun behind me

I’d like to edit one reference photo for each situation and then have Lightroom automatically recognize which photos are similar and apply the corresponding adjustments.

Is there currently a good way to do this?

2. Automatically selecting the best image from bursts

For culling, I’m already using Lightroom’s Assisted Culling to remove bad or unusable photos.

I also limit myself to around 7 photos per second while shooting.

I know Lightroom can group similar photos into stacks and select what it considers the "best" image, but I would love to have more control over what "best" means.

For running photography, for example, I strongly prefer photos where both feet are off the ground.

Right now, I still have to manually go through almost every burst/stack and choose that frame myself, which takes a significant amount of time when dealing with thousands of photos.

Is there any way to give Lightroom a reference image or some kind of preference so it learns that I prefer this specific running position?

Or is there another AI culling tool that can do this better?

3. Improving export speed

Finally, does anyone have any particularly effective tricks for improving Lightroom Classic export performance?

My laptop specs are:

• Intel Core i9-14900HX
• 32 GB RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU — 8 GB VRAM
• 954 GB SSD storage

Despite that, exporting around 2,500 JPEG images, totaling roughly 4 GB, takes approximately 40 minutes.

Tested with GPU on LCR on and off

I’m wondering if this is normal for Lightroom Classic or if there are settings, hardware bottlenecks, workflow changes, or "hidden" optimizations that can significantly improve export speed.

My main goal is basically:

Shoot → Import → Cull → Automatically apply the right edits → Pick the best frame from bursts → Export → Upload

with as little manual work as possible.

I’d really appreciate hearing how other high-volume sports/event photographers handle this workflow.