Assisted Culling Feedback Thread (LrD)

Assisted Culling is now generally available in Lightroom 
 

TL; DR: Assisted Culling has graduated from Early Access to General Availability. It gives you a fast, reviewable first pass on large shoots: it surfaces your strongest frames and sets aside the obvious rejects, so you spend less time comparing near-duplicates. You stay in control: review everything, adjust the thresholds, and override any call. If you tried it back in October 2025, it's substantially more accurate now, especially for wedding, event, group, and portrait work. We'd love for you to give it another look and tell us what you think in this thread. 

What it does 

Open an album or collection, run a cull, and Assisted Culling analyzes your images against the criteria you choose: Subject Sharpness, Eye Sharpness, Eyes Open, exposure, and more. It marks Selects and Rejects, shows you why behind every call, and leaves the final decision to you. 

How far it's come since Early Access 

• February 2026: Expanded from individual portraits to multi-person scenes: weddings, events, and group photos. Better eye detection in dense scenes, cleaner separation when people are close together, and fewer false "eyes closed" results.  

• April 2026: Much-improved handling of shallow depth-of-field, so shots with intentional background blur are kept rather than rejected as out-of-focus. Retrained reject detection that can flag an image under multiple reasons at once (Exposure Issues with a sensitivity slider, Documents, and Misfires). Scores no longer recalculate when you switch preview sizes. 

• June 2026 (GA) 

• Faces: per-face Eye Sharpness and Eyes Open scores for group and multi-person shots. Click on any face to see exactly how it was scored. 

• Scores always visible: see the criteria behind any photo without having to re-run a cull. 

• More reliable Eyes Open results in larger groups. 

• A clearer review of workflow and in-product guidance, so the assistive, reviewable nature is obvious from the first run. 

Getting started 

Open an album, then choose Assisted Culling › Cull. Full walkthrough here. 

FAQs 

Q: Where is Assisted Culling available? 

A: Lightroom Desktop and Lightroom Classic. 

Q: Does the AI decide for me? 

A: No. Assisted Culling makes a first pass that you review. You can adjust how strict each criterion is and override any Select or Reject at any time. Nothing is final until you say so. 

Q: What happens to my Rejects? Are they deleted? 

A: No. Rejects are simply grouped for your review and stay in your album. You decide whether to keep, label, move, or delete them. Nothing is removed unless you choose to. 

Q: What kind of photos work best today? 

A: Individual portraits and multi-person scenes: weddings, events, and group photos. 

Q: Can I keep working while Assisted Culling runs? 

A: Yes. While Assisted Culling analyzes your images, you can review, rate, and edit them as usual. Analysis stops if you turn off the culling filters or switch to a different album or source. 

Q: Does Assisted Culling re-analyze the same photos every time I run it? 

A: No. Once an image has been analyzed, its scores are cached and reused in future culling sessions. If you edit an image, its scores are recalculated the next time you run Assisted Culling on it. 

Q: Can I adjust how strict the culling is? 

A: Yes. Each criterion can be toggled on or off, and Subject Sharpness, Eye Sharpness, and Exposure Issues include sensitivity sliders for finer control. 

Q: Does it work for wildlife, sports, or landscapes? 

A: Assisted Culling is currently tuned for people-focused photography: portraits, weddings, events, and groups. You can run it on other types of photos, but results may be less reliable for now. 

Q: Do I need to pay extra? 

A: No. Assisted Culling is included in your existing Lightroom subscription. 

Feedback 

This is the place for it. We read every reply. When you post, please include: 

• App version and platform 

• System details 

• Example images (optional, but they help a lot) 

Kwamina Arthur, Product Manager, Lightroom