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Rikk Flohr_Photography
Community Manager
Community Manager
September 24, 2025
Question

(Early Access) Assisted Culling (Lightroom Ecosystem - Desktop)

  • September 24, 2025
  • 45 replies
  • 4609 views

Introducing Assisted Culling (Early Access) in Lightroom Desktop 

For providing feedback for Lightroom Classic, click here.

 

We’re excited to share an early look at Assisted Culling, an AI-powered workflow that helps photographers quickly review large photo sets and select the best shots with confidence. 

 

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: 

  • Open Lightroom Desktop. 
  • Find Assisted Culling in the left photo panel. 
  • 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. 

 

Giving Feedback: 

Please share your experience in this thread. Include: 

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

 
Your feedback helps us refine our models and user experience. 

 

Lisa Ngo / Kwamina Arthur – Product Managers, Lightroom 

 

Posted by:

45 replies

Participant
November 11, 2025

Very cool feature. Would love to ability to exclude photos I already have added a title or keywords to.

Participant
November 11, 2025

As someone just learning photoshop with a learning disability, may I say you just saved me so much time and energy with this feature. I beg you, never take it away!

Participant
November 11, 2025

I've been using the new Assisted Culling feature for real estate photography, and I can confidently say it's one of the best additions to my workflow. It's incredibly helpful for managing groups of photos efficiently.

One feature that would make it even better for me is the ability to automatically create HDR stacks. This would streamline my process even further and ensure the highest quality results.

Participating Frequently
November 15, 2025

Agree! That would be a huge time-saver.

Participating Frequently
November 10, 2025

Thank you very much for this feature.

 

I'd like to be able to easily navigate groupedstack made by AI culling and decide whether or not to keep that stack. As of now it seems that culling stack is separated by normal stacks.

Participating Frequently
November 10, 2025

I'd like to thank the addition of AI culling (keep working on it) and the improvements in metadata handling (better string management and visualization).

 

IDEA:

Now it would be great to have AI editing like imagen.ai.

 

WHY:

1 - It would be great to have it integrated in my favourite and most used tool

2 - Imagen AI works by pretending a lot of different pictures edited the same way while Lr could learn from many single editings and learn and evolve better, with less pain for the photographer

3 - It would improve by order of magnitude the time I spend on editing (mainly weddings, the most time consuming case and where the largest number of pics are delivered)

Participating Frequently
November 10, 2025

It would also be great to be able to have some sort of control over AI editing, like different presets or evolution...

Participant
November 9, 2025

I have just started using the assisted cull feature. One place where I am having a problem is in a senior photo shoot where the senior wanted some photos with their shades on. The cull feature accepted the focus for the subject and the eyes but rejected it as his eyes being closed. There should be a way to override the red Xs. Like be able to reject it and send you feedback to make the system smarter.

Rikk Flohr_Photography
Community Manager
Community Manager
November 9, 2025

@elegant_parent6556  If you click on the 'red 'x'' and choose "Mark as select," it will move it to the Selects. 

Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org
Participant
November 8, 2025

Hi,

 

I believe this feature is still new and need improvements, I think one feature that everyone would want is the ability to select the best shot from a series of similar shots and this will save a lot of time.

 

Regards,

Wilson

Participant
November 7, 2025

With all due respect for the team's effort, I find this culling feature of little to no value for my work. I have trained eyes, a clear vision, and direct my models deliberately. I tested the feature seriously in my field: portraiture as an artist — theatrical productions under difficult lighting, fantasy/DOP projects, boudoir, and commercial shoots with real people. I do not shoot weddings, sports, street photography, or documentary work. I create intentionally; I am not a novice and I do not shoot thousands of images to choose one.

My suggestion to Adobe Product Management (Lisa Ngo and Kwamina Arthur): make this an optional paid feature. I disabled automated culling because it offered me no benefit, and I have never missed such a function.

Participant
November 8, 2025

I would say not all photographers spend there time shooting the way you do, therefore saying this feature is usless to you doesn't mean its not an asset to others. As someone who spends a majority of the year shooting race cars that move at high speeds with multiple sibjects and I am working anywhere from 4 to 8 hours without the option to use a flash even at night time (it distracts the drivers and is a safety concern). I come home with more photos then the average and I have to cull my photos, edit and post with in 48 hours of shooting. Saying it should be a paid feature is a bit rediculous... just don't use it if you dont need it....

Participant
November 7, 2025

please make a version by which it will automatically choose between similar images. stacking is not doing it yet.

 

Participant
November 6, 2025

SO excited for the new feature! What would be really helpful it to be also to do assited culling on PARTS of a whole gallery. With bad wifi or low ram it can take a long time to run and to be able to use it in the places it would save me the most time would be really helpful. Also a pause, stop and save button would be really helpful.