Introducing Assisted Culling (Early Access) in Lightroom Desktop For providing feedback for Lightroom Classic, click here. TL;DR – Assisted Culling is getting faster, more powerful, and more accurate as we head to GA. If you tried in October 2025, we urge you to try the new version and give us feedback – especially for wedding & portrait photographers. We’re eager to hear your feedback! Assisted Culling has received several updates since Early Access launched in October 2025. If you tried it then, here's what's new: April 2026 Significantly improved handling of shallow depth-of-field for photos – a major customer ask. Images with intentional background blur are now more reliably recognized and kept rather than rejected as out-of-focus. We’ve retrained the “Reject model” so it has more accurate identification of reject-worthy images. Additionally, an image can now be flagged under multiple reject reasons simultaneously: Exposure Issues: includes a sensitivity slider so you can control the threshold Documents Misfires: ground shots and severe blur Culling scores no longer recalculate when you switch preview sizes (e.g., grid view to detail view). February 2026 Expanded support from individual portraits to multi-person scenes, including weddings, events, and group photos. Improved eye detection accuracy in dense group and wedding scenes Cleaner subject separation when multiple people are close together Fewer false "eyes closed" results on groups and portraits FAQs: Q: Where is Assisted Culling available? A: Lightroom Desktop and Lightroom Classic. Q: What kinds of photos work best today? A: Individual portraits and multi-person scenes, including weddings, events, and group photos. Q: Can I adjust how strict the culling is? A: Yes. Each criterion can be toggled on or off, and Subject Focus, Eye Focus, and Exposure Issues include sensitivity sliders for finer control. 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) Kwamina Arthur, Product Manager, Lightroom

Rikk Flohr_Photography

Question

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

Forum|Forum|8 months ago
September 24, 2025
82 replies
9259 views

Introducing Assisted Culling (Early Access) in Lightroom Desktop

For providing feedback for Lightroom Classic, click here.

TL;DR – Assisted Culling is getting faster, more powerful, and more accurate as we head to GA. If you tried in October 2025, we urge you to try the new version and give us feedback – especially for wedding & portrait photographers. We’re eager to hear your feedback!

Assisted Culling has received several updates since Early Access launched in October 2025. If you tried it then, here's what's new:

April 2026

Significantly improved handling of shallow depth-of-field for photos – a major customer ask. Images with intentional background blur are now more reliably recognized and kept rather than rejected as out-of-focus.

We’ve retrained the “Reject model” so it has more accurate identification of reject-worthy images. Additionally, an image can now be flagged under multiple reject reasons simultaneously:

Exposure Issues: includes a sensitivity slider so you can control the threshold

Documents

Misfires: ground shots and severe blur

Culling scores no longer recalculate when you switch preview sizes (e.g., grid view to detail view).

February 2026

Expanded support from individual portraits to multi-person scenes, including weddings, events, and group photos.

Improved eye detection accuracy in dense group and wedding scenes

Cleaner subject separation when multiple people are close together

Fewer false "eyes closed" results on groups and portraits

FAQs:

Q: Where is Assisted Culling available?
A: Lightroom Desktop and Lightroom Classic.

Q: What kinds of photos work best today?
A: Individual portraits and multi-person scenes, including weddings, events, and group photos.

Q: Can I adjust how strict the culling is?
A: Yes. Each criterion can be toggled on or off, and Subject Focus, Eye Focus, and Exposure Issues include sensitivity sliders for finer control.

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)

Kwamina Arthur, Product Manager, Lightroom

Feedback

This topic has been closed for replies.

Rikk Flohr_Photography

Author

This topic is now closed. Thank you for your feedback.

The New feedback thread, effective with 15.4, is being collected at: https://community.adobe.com/questions-680/assisted-culling-feedback-thread-lrd-1627465

Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org

AEGSB

Participant

I would love to see detection for partially open eyes, and a feature I have seen in other programs that is really helpful is a window to the side which shows a close up of all detected faces which makes it super easy to manually check if people have their eyes open and are not making a weird face. I would also, as other people have mentioned, love to see automatic grouping for similar photos.

photogibson

Participant

It seems like this is still a feature being sorted out. Would be nice to use this also for non-portrait photography (architecture, travel)

S

shahn78

Participant

Where’s the option to reject DUPLICATES? This would be the most common and useful usecase.

photogibson

Participant

Agree with this. Duplicates or images that are very very similar to each other, picking the best one.

M

Mitchell32370218ztfo

Participant

The subject focus is inconsistent on motorsport/vehicle photography, It’s mostly good but there’s some very clear rejects being parked as selects and visa versa

Tom1510

Participant

Hi, I have just tested the auto cull on photos from a recent motorcycle track day. The best results were from setting the subject focus at 70. Any higher than this resulted in many good images being rejected and I could not find any “keepers” in the rejects section. I never tried below the 70 setting. I will be using this again to speed up my post processing works.

For this to be 100% my first and only tool of choice, it would need to have a grouping tool. For instance, in each group on track there are between 25 & 40 riders. If there was an auto selection tool which grouped the individuals it would be perfect.

There are many other tools available which provide this service already but if it was available on lightroom and I could do all my work on a single platform then it would make my work process much simpler and quicker.

So in summary, my feedback is that it is a great tool and I look forward to future developments

S

sberley

Participant

functionality seems super rudimentary. classic shot through a window showing the frame is called an exposure problem. really?

mmurphs

Participant

this feature needs A LOT of work. it is basically unusable and untrustworthy. it puts perfectly focused images into the rejects bin more often than not. super frustrating

defaultk5cwt7bn0e8q

Participant

honestly i’m finding this feature incredibly frustrating. I’m trying to run assisted culling and bulk flag my selects, but continually it’ll only flag the first dozen before failing to continue. closing out of the feature sends me back to the beginning.

KristyLee84

Participant

As someone who is new to computers I found it confusing, I think its the sorting part...but this is only day 1 playing with it.

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