Lessons

Lesson Info

Advanced Selecting, Rating and Culling Techniques

So this is another technique that you can use. Which also has a shortcut. So select by, rating or color tag when we get to this one in a minute. Notice that there is some default shortcuts for this. So if after you've gone through an enormous selection of images, you've tagged some as five stars. If I do edit, select by, five stars, for example, then straight away all the five star captures are selected. So I could then invoke another shortcut just to process them out if we've already adjusted them. We could drag them to an album if we wanted to. We could run some adjustments on them and so on. So that's just a really quick thing to do. So instead of going into that menu, if I just do command five, straight away it selected all my five star images. So, nice, and nice and speedy. That also works with color tagging as well. Again if we look at select by here, color tag, we use the same number. Seven, eight, and nine for green, yellow, red. But we just put the modifier in front command. S...

o, for example, if we just make this guy green, and this guy green for example. And we say command seven. Then it selects all the green images. A really nice, speedy way to do that. So that's select by. Rating and color. Now the other really nice thing, which you briefly saw was edit, select by, filename list. So let's say you've gone through all these images or you've shot hundreds and hundreds of images. You've exported some JPEGs and you've sent that to the client. And now you're going to return your list of the images that they want you to finish adjusting, processing out, and so on. So I have a list which I made earlier. Which is this one here, client selects. It's just a basic text file. So a list of filenames. Select all, copy those. Back to capture one. Edit, select by, filename list. Paste those in. They're on a new line. I want to ignore the extension. And we say "okay". And that selects all those images nicely in that filename list. So previously I would have to go through looking at my piece of paper, matching it up to Capture One. Very slow and laborious. This is an instant way to return that, those selects. Now before we do anything else, we've got that selection. 21 of 77 images. So if I right click I can go back to create albums from, and say create an album from the selection. The current selection. So that pops open a dialogue here. So let's call this client selects. We've got two check boxes here, let's zoom in so you can see it. Select the collection after we've created it. And add the selected images after creation. Which is exactly what we want to do. So if I tick this box and say okay, straight away down here we've got our client selects which has those images from that list. Nice and simple, nice and fast as well. Saves you a bunch of time without having to search through those shots. Let's have a look at another select by. Which is select by same. So if we go back to this one. So again, right click on any image and then you've got select by same. And you have four different things that pops up here as well. So what your saying is select by the same something. So select all the images that have the same rating. So it shows me the current image has a five star rating. So select all the other five stars. That's just another way of doing it. Again, there's lots of different ways of achieving the same thing. But it's good to know about all of them so you can pick the one that makes sense to you. If we got to this one, we can right click and say select by same color tag. So that will pick up all the other green color tag images. If we do select by same once more, we've got variant position. So this talks about when we have virtual copies of images. So let's say we wanted to have a black and white of all of these shots as a variation. If I select all, I can pop up here and we can say clone or new variant. So new variant will give me a virtual copy of the image with no adjustments. Clone variant will give me a virtual copy with the same adjustments. So if we just say new variant, straight away you'll see we have number one and number two of each image. And let's say we wanted to do, let's make variant twos all black and white for example. And then at some point we just need to select all the black and whites. So if we click on this one, we can right click and say select by same variant position. And that will pick up all the variant twos. So that's select by same. So select by, same, rating, color tag, variant. This one here, which is grayed out, sequence ID, that's specific to Phase One cameras. So that's why it's not available here. That's if we shoot something like a focus stack or a time lapse or an HDR sequence. Each of those in the Phase One camera gets a specific ID so we can select them as groups. So don't panic that it will be grayed out in your system if you're not using a Phase One camera. So, all kinds of different options there. The last one that we can look at. Let's collapse, select all, let's collapse all. So that would just hide all the variants so we can only see the one. The last couple of things that we can do with selection is something called sets. And a set is basically more than one image. So two images could be a set, three images could be a set, four images could be a set. Sometime when you do shoots like this, it's nice to look at images or more than one image at the same time to pick the best out of those images. So let's hide the tools cause we don't need those. And let's just select... Let's see, I'm going to put my browser at the bottom. Cause I think this makes more sense as a better work flow. Film strip mode as well. Let's make them small, like so. So if I select... How many should we go for? Can we squeeze three in? Let's try. So let's do three. Obviously with your screen real estate you'll be able to get more in. Let's turn on my viewer labels as well. So that's gonna show the (mumbles) at the bottom. And also the star rating and the possible color tag. I'm also just going to select all for a second and clear all the color tags. And let's clear all the star ratings as well. So with all those images selected I could make them all five star, I could clear them all, we could make them all green, and so on. So remember that happens as a batch. So back to sets. So let's select four images. This is now a Capture One set. So using my hand just on the cursor keys we can easily blast through and look at kind of each one individually and think "As a set, which is the best image out of this set"? And I just use a simple color tag again. So out of these four, which one do I prefer? I'm gonna go for this one. Watch what happens when I press green. Unfortunately it marks everything as green, which we don't want. Cause I just want to tag one particular image as green. And that points us towards an interesting little toggle. Which sits up here on the tool bar of Capture One. And this toggles between editing everything and editing just the primary. So if you remember in an earlier lesson, we spoke very briefly about some terminology that we refer to images as variants and then we have the primary variant. So the primary variant, that's the one with the thick white border around it. So if i turn this toggle off, and I do the same thing and them tap seven for green, it only marks that one in the selection. So perhaps I might want two, so let's just grab that one as well for example. Now, I want to move to the next set. So if we look in the edit menu, you'll see select, next set, option, cursor key. So if I do option cursor key, we get to the next four images straight away, like so. And you can see that happening in the browser below. So now we can go through, and think "Well, out of these I like that one and I like that one". Option, right arrow, next set. Out of this I'm just gonna take that one. Option, right arrow, next set. Let's have this one and this one. Next set. Now we've run out of images. We couldn't make four so it drops that set down to three. That's the last three. So then out of these let's take that one. Now if I go back to a previous set, which you can guess the shortcut is option, left arrow, then it picks up four images again. So we can move through the set quite nicely, like so. So again, once we've done that selection you could use your shortcut keys, we could do command, sorry option seven. That's just gonna filter the greens in the view for example. So we've got a few different options like that too. Now in those sets, let's go to one set. I'm just looking at fit screen. But if you wanted to for example, and we went to say, 100%. Then we could look at all of them at 100% if we wished, if we wanted to check for focus, like so. When we go to the next set, it remembers my zoom value and goes to the next set as well. And if we go to the previous set, even though that's four 100 megapixel images, it's pretty quick to render cause again, we're catching that 100 megapixel data. So we can go through it and we can look at that pretty quickly. To zoom everything in a selection at the same time, shift on the keyboard and click fit screen or 100%. So fit screen or 100%, like so. You can have up to 16 in a set. So depending how big your screen is, we know this, we don't have as much real estate. But you see we can have a set like this. We can still see the color tag but we can't see the star rating, for example. Set, very, very handy for blasting through images like so. One thing to be aware of for more shortcuts to help you. If you're perhaps moving through different collections, like so, then you can also do that with a shortcut as well. So, in theory you could do a whole culling and rating session without ever having to pick up the mouse or the pen. So, we're on look one. Nice shortcut to get to the first image is this button here on the keyboard. Which if I show you select first, so the slanty up arrow. So it will only be on it in extended keyboard. Cause we could start here, tap this one, and that straight away selects my first image. Then we can go through my culling and rating. And then if I want to move to the next collection without having to pick up the pen or mouse, we can use a shortcut which is next collection. So we can step down to the next collection. If I do shift, command, down we're at our next collection. Shortcut to the first image. Do our rating and sets or whatever we want to do. Go to the next collection. The handy thing is here that no image is selected. So you're gonna grab for your pen, you think, and then select one. But if you tap first image shortcut, then it picks it right up. So you can do a whole culling and rating session really without ever having to pick up the mouse. Remember, all you're filtering you can do on shortcuts, and so on. So toggling filters on and off would be with your shortcuts. If we want to go back through we can just use the equivalent shortcut to nip back up and down into those different collections. So it's really worth mastering, select first, select previous, next, last, previous set, next set. Stepping through those collections as well. If you're in a selection, like so, and you just want to select the primary. So that's the one with the thick, white border. Let's say you're sitting with a client, and then we're looking at these four images, and they say "Well actually, just bring this one up. "I just want to see this one by itself". So there is an option here which is called select primary only. So you could add a shortcut to that if you wanted to. So if we tap that then it drops everything else out of the selection. So again, that's something I wish you could not have to pick up a mouse for if you have that selection. It would also work if you, let me think. I think if you shift click a thumbnail, then it will also deselect everything else. So if we've got a set like this and I shift click a thumbnail, then it will deselect, like so. Also if I'm in a set and I shift clicked, not the primary, but the last one, I think then we can reduce the number in a set as well. But generally you're kind of set on how many you want in a set. Be comfortable with that. And then move through going through the various different sets, going to the primary, using the shortcut key. Going on to the next set using the shortcut key. And then using any of the techniques which we spoke about earlier. Like filtering down to the green arrows. Or we could hide our viewer for example. And then we could just, whoops. That was a double click. Right click, select by same, green tag for example. And then start processing, move to an album, etc. So sets a really, really, a nice sort of simple addition. And this was something that was added back in Capture One 9. Because quite often we sort of got the feedback, "Oh it's difficult to select in Capture One, "there's not enough tools". There's so many tools for selection that you just kind of have to decide on the right one. So the very, very last thing that we can do for selection, I think it's the very, very last thing, is something called the compare variant. So if we press shift, enter, like so. Then you see the image that was selected gets this border around it. And I'll just zoom in so you can see it. A push pin, like so. So that means it's the compare variant. It's locked in that position. So now if I just use any of my other techniques, if I just move through images like so, then that one stays locked. So it's kind of a good measure if you think "This is my hero shot, this one here. "Is there anything better than it? "Actually I prefer this one". If I do shift, enter again, then it now sets that one as the compare variant and then we can carry on moving through, like so. If we want to zoom both of them we could just shift click, remember? If we do shift with the hand tool then it will move both windows at the same time. So if you're just interested in comparing focus we can see that's not a great compare variant cause it's out of focus where this one is, for example. So now if I do shift, enter, I've got my new compare variant and then we can start moving through the other shots. So shift click again to zoom them back out. The compare variant also works with sets. So if i now just shift clicked to my three images, I've now got a set for the compare variant. So if I go to my next set then the compare variant locks like so. And at any point I could grab another primary variant and say shift, enter to then change that to the compare variant. If you want to clear all compare variants, just so you know where it is in the menu, you can see set and clear right here. So shift, enter, command, enter. Again of you're on PC, just look in the menu, or use if you've RSVP'd to the course, use the graphic that we've made to see those shortcuts. So if I want to clear that compare variant, command, enter. Compare variant's gone. So lots of different ways to select and rate in Capture One. Let me just check if I've missed anything. And when you've got the obvious shortcuts like select all and deselect all, you've also got the inverse of the selection, as well, which can sometimes be useful. So select by, to recap, that's select by the rating, color tag, or the super fast shortcut, the filename list. Select the first image, select the last. Next and previous, just moving through a collection. Next and previous sets. And then using those shortcuts to step through those collections in the library tool as well. And don't forget, if you're in a set, the all important toggle, this one here. So if you see this happening where everything gets a rating, you know this toggle is on. So clear your tags, turn that toggle off, then you're free to only affect the primary variant. Any questions on selection and stuff? David, we do have a couple questions from over here from the old internet. And if you guys have any questions feel free to chime in. Just remember to grab a mike. PC wanted to know, when you create a variant can you create a JPEG from it? You can export out to a JPEG, yes. Okay. But that's like a separate process. As I said earlier, the raw files in Capture One, we never edit. Capture One is a read only application. So if you want to make a JPEG that's an export process. Which you can do very, very quickly. With, funny enough, a quick shortcut. You can trigger an export process which is something we look at. That's the very last lesson that we do. Zolty would like to know, is there an auto stacking functionality? For example, stack photos into sets made with the continuous mode on a DSLR. No, there isn't, I guess is the easy answer to that one. So no, I guess something you'd have to manually do by placing them into an album or something like that. You might be able to do a smart album based on time. But I'm guessing a bit. That's more date. So, no. That's by date. So, the answer to that is no, I'm afraid not. But it's a good suggestion. And then would you mind reiterating really quickly how you make a set. Yeah, it's really as simple as grabbing an image, holding down shift, and then clicking to the right however may images you want to have. So let's say we want four, if I shift click, then I've picked up four in my set. If I do next set then it will pick up the next four. Previous and so on. So it's as simple as that. If you want to reduce the number of images in a set you can just command click. Will that be option click or hold click on the PC. And then you can just make the set bigger or you can make the set smaller like so. So very simple. Everyone thinks there's some complicated button you have to press or something, but it's just making a selection.