Author Topic: Desktop software to automatically cull bad Images (Read 9704 times)

harshithdwivedi · « **on:** June 21, 2020, 17:20 »

Hi all, I hope that you all are doing well and staying safe!

I'm currently working on a desktop app that can identify and cull potentially bad photos from a photoshoot and help in shortening the image culling process.
It has built-in integration with Adobe Lightroom and instead of deleting any of the images, it simply star rates and color codes them.
More information about the app and a video walkthrough can be seen here: https://www.aftershoot.co/coming-soon

I wanted to hear the community's thoughts on this and know if this is something that you might be willing to incorporate into your workflow.

The software is still in active development and we are planning on a beta release this July that would be free for all.
If anyone's interested you can let me know via a post here or by emailing me and I'll be happy to share the app with you.

Thanks!

marthamarks · « **Reply #1 on:** June 21, 2020, 17:28 »

After decades of doing this, I trust my own eyes and my experience to tell me which images should be culled and which should not. So I'm afraid that I'm not a likely prospect for your new software.

However, I wish you well in your endeavor.

Tenebroso · « **Reply #2 on:** June 21, 2020, 17:39 »

Wow!!!!! x4

I'm in a very bad time. But thank you very much for sharing. I save your nick, I save the link to this thread and as soon as I have time I look at the topic. I do not think it works for me, I am an expert at being a novice.

I only have bad files and finding something decent is the hard part. Sharing your work seems a big thing to me. Sounds like a good initiative.

Thanks and take care of yourself too.

I could not help but enter the forum to congratulate you.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #3 on:** June 21, 2020, 17:40 »

Honest opinion. I wouldn't use it and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, even a beginner.

One of the things you have to be able to develop is the ability to "see" the problems with your own images and know what to do (either in editing or by shooting differently next time).

If you don't develop that ability - and there's no way to do it but lots and lots of shooting, reviewing, editing (repeat) - I don't see how you can ever learn or improve.

I'd also question how you could possibly have any definition of "bad". Whether it's lighting, focus or composition, how do you separate artistic choices from a blunder?

pics2 · « **Reply #4 on:** June 22, 2020, 03:23 »

The only thing that is useful is to select pictures that are not sharp. Even that is not useful. If a picture is really good, being slightly blurred won't stop me from using it. And sometimes it is even intentional. There is a Focus Mask feature in capture One, I guess there is something similar in Lightroom, too, which highlights sharp areas, so maybe a script that selects picture without the highlight could be useful. But what if focus is off, meaning it is on the picture but not at the right place, it wouldn"t be selected and it is still not useful. I don't know, I would like to see that program in action, I'm really curious.

pics2 · « **Reply #5 on:** June 22, 2020, 04:18 »

Ok, I just saw that video. Closed eyes detection looks good. Overexposure and underexposure can be heavily corrected with raw converters these days, it is good for jpg. Cropped faces can be on purpose. But, good idea.

whtvr2 · « **Reply #6 on:** June 22, 2020, 09:44 »

For a second i thought it was a new Adobe app! You are approaching the wrong audience here. By images in demo i guess you already know it will be extremely useful for event wedding or booths. Good luck! Always a pleasure to see people creating something new

harshithdwivedi · « **Reply #7 on:** June 22, 2020, 10:18 »

Quote from: marthamarks on June 21, 2020, 17:28

After decades of doing this, I trust my own eyes and my experience to tell me which images should be culled and which should not. So I'm afraid that I'm not a likely prospect for your new software.

However, I wish you well in your endeavor.

Hey Martha, thanks for the feedback! I agree that it might not be a tool that will give you your best shots but it can be used as a helping hand in getting rid of the bad shots.
With advancements in mirrorless cameras, the number of images captured for a shot is going to increase exponentially and that's where we aim to aid photographers with the help of recent advancements in Computer Vision and Machine Learning.

Thanks and happy to hear your thoughts on this!

harshithdwivedi · « **Reply #8 on:** June 22, 2020, 10:27 »

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on June 21, 2020, 17:40

Honest opinion. I wouldn't use it and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, even a beginner.

One of the things you have to be able to develop is the ability to "see" the problems with your own images and know what to do (either in editing or by shooting differently next time).

If you don't develop that ability - and there's no way to do it but lots and lots of shooting, reviewing, editing (repeat) - I don't see how you can ever learn or improve.

Hey Jo, thanks for sharing your thoughts!
I agree that people shouldn't rely on software like these for helping them become a better photographer and our aim is not to do that either.
Instead, we just aim to be a helping hand for the photographers by getting rid of the redundant things and let them focus on the creative aspects of photography.

Quote

I'd also question how you could possibly have any definition of "bad". Whether it's lighting, focus or composition, how do you separate artistic choices from a blunder?

I agree that good and bad is a subjective topic and everyone has a different opinion on what's good vs what's bad for them.
When talking about bad, AfterShoot has some filters which we developed after months of interviews and feedback from photographers on what things they look for while flagging an image as a bad image.

These filters are:
1. Focus blur on the faces
2. Motion blur in the image
3. Grainy or Noisy image
4. Closed Eyes in the image (not intentional closed eyes in which the person is looking down or laughing)
5. Duplicate images
6. Badly exposed images

We also aim to learn by every photographer's culling style to effectively tweak the software for every photographer and provide additional features like Selecting the best image from duplicates, selecting the top 50 aesthetically pleasing shots from an event or a wedding, etc.

Apart from this, we are also working on some additional features like:
1. Detecting common objects in the image (this will depend on the type of photography). For example, in the case of wedding images, we can automatically detect the kiss, the bride, the cake, the ring, etc from the image and color code and mark those images separately.
2. Detecting type of shots. Again, we can automatically detect creative shots like silhouettes, macro shots, etc. and mark them separately.

These are some of the ideas that we have at the moment, but we plan on adding more things and refining the existing features according to the feedback that we receive!

Let me know what you think of this!

harshithdwivedi · « **Reply #9 on:** June 22, 2020, 10:31 »

Quote from: pics2 on June 22, 2020, 03:23

The only thing that is useful is to select pictures that are not sharp. Even that is not useful. If a picture is really good, being slightly blurred won't stop me from using it. And sometimes it is even intentional. There is a Focus Mask feature in capture One, I guess there is something similar in Lightroom, too, which highlights sharp areas, so maybe a script that selects picture without the highlight could be useful. But what if focus is off, meaning it is on the picture but not at the right place, it wouldn"t be selected and it is still not useful. I don't know, I would like to see that program in action, I'm really curious.

Yep, that makes sense. We're trying to add the focus-mask option in the app so that people can take a look at the images processed by AfterShoot and decide if the focus was in the right place or not (and if AfterShoot made the right choice by keeping/rejecting that image).

Quote from: pics2 on June 22, 2020, 04:18

Ok, I just saw that video. Closed eyes detection looks good. Overexposure and underexposure can be heavily corrected with raw converters these days, it is good for jpg. Cropped faces can be on purpose. But, good idea.

Thanks!
I'm glad that you like the idea. If you're interested, I'll be happy to share the initial beta with you. You can either send me a personal message with your email address or sign up on the website.

harshithdwivedi · « **Reply #10 on:** June 22, 2020, 10:37 »

Quote from: whtvr2 on June 22, 2020, 09:44

For a second i thought it was a new Adobe app! You are approaching the wrong audience here. By images in demo i guess you already know it will be extremely useful for event wedding or booths. Good luck! Always a pleasure to see people creating something new

Thanks! And yeah, our primary audience would be wedding and event photographers but I thought that it would be a good idea to share it here to see what other professionals have to think about it too!

And I agree with the app looking like Adobe's (I guess that's because of the logo haha!). But we're currently reworking the logo and that should help set it apart.

harshithdwivedi · « **Reply #11 on:** June 22, 2020, 10:41 »

Quote from: Tenebroso on June 21, 2020, 17:39

Wow!!!!! x4

I'm in a very bad time. But thank you very much for sharing. I save your nick, I save the link to this thread and as soon as I have time I look at the topic. I do not think it works for me, I am an expert at being a novice.

I only have bad files and finding something decent is the hard part. Sharing your work seems a big thing to me. Sounds like a good initiative.

Thanks and take care of yourself too.

I could not help but enter the forum to congratulate you.

I'm glad that this is something that you might be interested in!
If you want to use the app once it's out feel free to share your email via a direct message or by signing up on the website.

Thanks again and have a wonderful week!

SuperPhoto · « **Reply #12 on:** June 22, 2020, 11:07 »

Quote from: harshithdwivedi on June 21, 2020, 17:20

Hi all, I hope that you all are doing well and staying safe!

I'm currently working on a desktop app that can identify and cull potentially bad photos from a photoshoot and help in shortening the image culling process.
It has built-in integration with Adobe Lightroom and instead of deleting any of the images, it simply star rates and color codes them.
More information about the app and a video walkthrough can be seen here: https://www.aftershoot.co/coming-soon

I wanted to hear the community's thoughts on this and know if this is something that you might be willing to incorporate into your workflow.

The software is still in active development and we are planning on a beta release this July that would be free for all.
If anyone's interested you can let me know via a post here or by emailing me and I'll be happy to share the app with you.

Thanks!

a) I'd have to say it depends on the quality of the algorithm. I'd have to test it out myself to see how good it was.
b) While I focus mainly on video (I do some photos as well) - when I do photos - I tend to review the photos right on the spot (in the back viewfinder/zoom) - and delete ones I don't like, and/or retake shots I think retaking.
c) I'm not sure how much time it would really save me. (Might be good for some other photographers). But I have a very high end graphics system (actually very top tier/'lambourghini' system of computer systems) - so reviewing videos/graphics/etc is a fast process for me. It would literally take me about 1-5 seconds (with the current system I have set up) - to decide if I wanted to use an image or not. If I was taking 1000's of images on a weekly basis - maybe it would be something I'd find useful. As it is - I maybe only do 300-500/month, so I'm not sure how useful that would be to me.

Now - one thing that WOULD be useful - is software that identified WHAT kind of picture I have - titled it accordingly, & applied accurate keywords. Now I know (personally) it would be very difficult to write that kind of software - but that is actually something I would find useful. While I could (& should) outsource that - I haven't - so I know that is something that would definitely save me time.

harshithdwivedi · « **Reply #13 on:** June 22, 2020, 13:01 »

Quote from: SuperPhoto on June 22, 2020, 11:07

Quote from: harshithdwivedi on June 21, 2020, 17:20
Hi all, I hope that you all are doing well and staying safe!

I'm currently working on a desktop app that can identify and cull potentially bad photos from a photoshoot and help in shortening the image culling process.
It has built-in integration with Adobe Lightroom and instead of deleting any of the images, it simply star rates and color codes them.
More information about the app and a video walkthrough can be seen here: https://www.aftershoot.co/coming-soon

I wanted to hear the community's thoughts on this and know if this is something that you might be willing to incorporate into your workflow.

The software is still in active development and we are planning on a beta release this July that would be free for all.
If anyone's interested you can let me know via a post here or by emailing me and I'll be happy to share the app with you.

Thanks!

a) I'd have to say it depends on the quality of the algorithm. I'd have to test it out myself to see how good it was.
b) While I focus mainly on video (I do some photos as well) - when I do photos - I tend to review the photos right on the spot (in the back viewfinder/zoom) - and delete ones I don't like, and/or retake shots I think retaking.
c) I'm not sure how much time it would really save me. (Might be good for some other photographers). But I have a very high end graphics system (actually very top tier/'lambourghini' system of computer systems) - so reviewing videos/graphics/etc is a fast process for me. It would literally take me about 1-5 seconds (with the current system I have set up) - to decide if I wanted to use an image or not. If I was taking 1000's of images on a weekly basis - maybe it would be something I'd find useful. As it is - I maybe only do 300-500/month, so I'm not sure how useful that would be to me.

Now - one thing that WOULD be useful - is software that identified WHAT kind of picture I have - titled it accordingly, & applied accurate keywords. Now I know (personally) it would be very difficult to write that kind of software - but that is actually something I would find useful. While I could (& should) outsource that - I haven't - so I know that is something that would definitely save me time.

Hm, that's an interesting perspective.
About the software that could identify your images; how would you like it to behave? For instance, if it is an image of a person using a phone, should it detect the important objects (Person and phone) and mark them in the image?

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Author Topic: Desktop software to automatically cull bad Images (Read 9704 times)

harshithdwivedi

marthamarks

Tenebroso

Jo Ann Snover

pics2

pics2

whtvr2

harshithdwivedi

harshithdwivedi

harshithdwivedi

harshithdwivedi

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SuperPhoto

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