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

As a high-volume sports shooter, I’m genuinely disappointed that Adobe engineers could not implement a simple AI-assisted "ball-in-frame" detection feature and be the first to do so. 

When you look at the photographers who cull the most images, two groups stand out immediately, wedding and sports photographers. Seeing the below comment about culling 300 images is laughable to those of us who regularly cull 5000+ after a normal Tuesday.  Sports photographers, in particular, rely on burst shooting to capture the split second where the athlete, the motion, and the ball align perfectly.

The fact Adobe engineers hadn't figured or didn't prioritize an AI scan of images for a ball is wild to me.  The first major platform to that party, whether Aftershoot, PhotoMechanic, Imagen, Adobe, etc.....will dominate sports photography photo processing for at least the foresable future. Adobe might even win some customers they've lost form their constant price increases.  

Here are a few things for Adobe engineers to consider as to why to prioritze this feature moving forward:

• A modern sports camera can shoot 30–40 frames per second (not including the A9iii global shutter of 100+)

• Out of a 10-second play, you may have hundreds of frames with only a handful that actually include the ball.

• Manually culling those frames is extremely time-consuming and easily automated with AI because surely AI knows how to spot a ball right? 

This is not a complex ask. Adobe already has object detection in Lightroom and Photoshop for people, skies, backgrounds and now things like reflections. Extending that detection to identify “ball-in-frame” specifcally in this new culling feature would be an immense productivity upgrade. 

Frankly, it’s surprising Adobe hasn’t already prioritized this, especially given the recent price increases. Features like this are exactly what justify the continued loyalty of high-volume professionals. 

Adobe engineers,  add a “Ball-in-Frame” AI filter to this culling feature in the next update please! It would not only save countless hours for sports photographers worldwide but also reaffirm Adobe’s commitment to innovation and responsiveness to the real-world needs of its users.

Mac user here.
I've just updated, and unfortunately the Assisted Culling is not working at all. I have the folder selected with 200 images, side panel is open with criteria for selection and rejection ticked. It analyses the images, then nothing. Auto stacking does the same, I select to 'stack by virtual similarity', and it does absolutely nothing. Any suggestions, what could be wrong?

Fun idea, but it doesn't work. I think it ignored my selections when I told it just to look for misfires and decided to look for all the possible checkboxes (focus issues maybe). Anyway none of the shots it chose were misfires. They were straight down drone shots for a real estate propery asisgnment I did a couple years ago. And I'm pretty sure there ARE some misfires in my library, since I backup all of my originals to Lightroom.  So make it do as it's told and we will all get along just fine?

Wow, another button in the left column 🤦‍♂

Please give us an option to manage which buttons (Add Photos, Assisted Culling, Learn, Community, All Photos and suboptions) are shown in the left column and in which order, because -honestly- I never use anything but my own albums/folders and sometimes some 'All Photos' and two of its suboptions, and I hate having to scroll down for my own stuff, while some (to me) useless buttons take up space at the top.

This feature has been fantastic so far and has really helped me free up space. My feedback is about the "Subject Focus." I do a lot of landscape photography with slow shutter speeds. While it does a good job selecting the subject, it often places waterfalls and rapids in the rejects category. As the product evolves, could there be an "Overall Focus" option or a way to exclude waterfalls and intentional slow shutter effects from the search? Once again, great feature—looking forward to future updates!

Hi
A very nice feature - thank you.
I would like an option in the batch actions to be able to move the rejected files to another location on another drive. This will allow me to quickly perform an initial sort of the images and, when I have the time later, go through the rejected images one more time before deciding to delete them.
It will also mean only the good images get automatically sent to my chosen cloud location - saving me a lot of upload time.

Such an amazing and time saving tool! I love this feature, but I’m having a little trouble and I'm not sure if it’s user error. I have about 1,000 photos, so I’m not sure if that’s too many at once. The first time I culled them, it completed about one-third and then force-closed the whole app. When I reopened it, I had to re-enter my criteria. This time it finished culling, and at first I could view the selected photos in Develop. But after closing my laptop and coming back, all the photos appear to have been “unculled.”

There needs to be a way to filter action in the culling where you would want the blur at times... even at a lower sharp setting its rejecting ones that are sharp in face but have the motion blur.  I can see this being helpful in certain situations not all culling. but it is a nice start.