# Software for pre-culling?



## Allan Olesen (Jun 15, 2013)

I am looking for some Windows software for pre-culling and tagging before import to Lightroom. I would prefer to import everything into Lightroom and do the culling there - which is what I do now - but that is just too slow for me.

Since I always do raw+JPG anyway, I am looking for software which can:


Treat (mostly delete) raw+JPG as one file. 
View the JPG file (the embedded JPG in my raws is rather small). 
Auto-rotate photos taken in portrait mode. 
Write flags, rating and colour coding to an XMP sidecar file to be read by Lightroom. 
Be configured to use the same shortcut keys for flagging, rating, magnifying etc. as Lightroom. 
Be started with the selected photo or folder directly from Windows Explorer. 

Nice additional features would be:

"Sharpness overlay". Like the Focus Peaking feature that many camera have. 
Face recognition and tagging. 
Raw histogram. (Yes, that would mean reading the raw file too, so should be a selectable option to avoid slowness.) 

I downloaded and installed FastPictureViewer Pro, but it was only a 10 day trial, and the timing was bad so I didn't test it for more than a few minutes before it expired. It partially fulfilled my requirements:

OK. 
I think it used the embedded thumbnails and not the JPG file. But I am not sure. 
OK. 
OK 
Partially OK. But flagging and magnification uses other keys than Lightroom, and it doesn't seem to be configurable. It annoys me like hell that the space bar advances to the next photo instead of magnifying the current photo. 
Partially OK. I can open a folder from the context menu in Windows Explorer, but not a single photo. 

Any other suggestions?


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## Replytoken (Jun 15, 2013)

Allan,

It seems like a pretty tall order for one piece of software, but there may indeed be a program to fit your needs.  Have you looked at Photo Mechanic?  For years, it was considered by many to be among the best culling programs.  I use FastStone, but my needs are much simpler than yours.

Good luck,

--Ken


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## Allan Olesen (Jun 15, 2013)

Wow. That is the same price as Lightroom. That is a bit much for improving my Lightroom experience. I think the 50 USD of FastPictureViewer Pro is my limit.

But thanks anyway.


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