Hi guys! This is Janine from Pangolin. Welcome
back to my Lightroom course...and today we're talking about how to choose keepers. I know it is
incredibly difficult to part from your own images, especially if you've been to a special place...but, if it comes to wildlife photography, we just tend to shoot too much. We can't
choose them all, and we can't show them all. So, let's get down to how to choose your
best? Which ones are you going to show... All right...if you haven't yet, please
download the three sequences, that you could find on our home page, as an
example of how to choose your images. You would all agree, that if we look at a
sequence of 14 pied kingfishers, we really do not need to keep all of them. I know it's very tough
to choose, especially if you had a special holiday... but I am sure if you've been to Africa, you will
come home with hundreds of elephant photographs. So, now you need to become very specific which
one you're going to choose...and which one are you going to show. How are we going to do that without
letting the emotions get in our way? Number one: it really helps to know what we wanted from an image.
Let's try and grow beyond just point and shoot... and let your image tell a story. What message did
you want to get across, and what atmosphere did you want to create. If you know what you wanted from
your image, it will be a lot easier to choose from the 14 images down here. Secondly: it really helps to
have composition rules in the back of your mind. So, you're going to check all the general
suspects...like, do we have a sparkle in our eye. Is the head turned towards us? Is our
background clean enough? Is the subject sitting in the center? If so, do we have enough
space to crop it into a pleasing composition? Are any areas of the image way too dark? Are any of the areas of the image way too bright? If I look at the histogram, you will see that a lot
of the histogram is pushed to the left. It is a very dark image, but big parts of the bird are
white...and I am pleased to see that our histogram is not touching the right hand side. Meaning...none of these white parts are blown out! If you want to learn more about histograms please
check out our Lightroom tutorial with Danielle on YouTube. Before we make a choice of which image we need to keep, you need to get an idea what is there. So, in the first step, you make your images large. If you view them on full screen...by pressing 'f'... you get a much better idea. If this is still not
enough, you can left click on the image, and we will zoom in with the crop factor that you have chosen...
in your navigator here, on the top left hand side. So, in the first step...we go through all our
images...and I want to encourage you to press 'i' for information. Not once, but twice...in order
to see your settings. It will give you a very good idea what to expect. At 1/3200 sec, I shouldn't see motion blur. I had a decent depth of field, and my ISO wasn't too high. So, let's
get started. One quick go...to give you an idea what we're having, and what we're dealing
with. We have a pied kingfisher with an excited crest, slapping his fish on the log to
tenderize it. There we go! Now you get a good idea of what is there. The most important factor, after
that, is testing for sharpness, which is why it is a good idea to zoom in a little bit. If your image
isn't perfectly sharp, it doesn't deserve to be shown, or it doesn't deserve to go into the best
of folder. It might pass through as memories. i really like this shot because he's got the
crest at the end. It also comes down to personal taste...what you like. But we have the sparkle
in the eye. We have the fish looking at us. It is all there. If you're not sure which image is
better, because they're so similar, you can have an x on y comparison - down here - only if
you're in your library chapter. So, let's compare these two, and you can see immediately that
the right hand picture, which is number two, is way sharper than the left hand image. Therefore, number
two, clearly won over number three. Easy as that. Number three isn't good enough, so I am going to
click it. It will receive a white frame. The side that holds the white frame can be replaced with
different and new images. Always comparing to our original image, giving you a very good idea. So, here we cannot see the eye of the bird,
even though we can see the fish very well. On this image, we have the white of the eye showing,
which I don't like. This looks a little bit out of balance...from a bird's perspective. The right hand
picture is way sharper than the left hand picture. Here we're getting a bit closer, but the right
hand picture is still sharper than the left hand picture. These two are pretty much identical, except
that the left hand picture is slightly larger. That means you will have more information in this image. So, I am going to choose this picture over the other one now. I like these two. It doesn't really
matter. I think the right hand one might be a touch sharper, so we're going to choose the right
hand one...and exchange the left hand one. There we go. So, now that you have gained a
good idea...either by looking at them straight forward within your full view, or by comparing
them directly against each other. You now have two options. 1. you
have the option of a straightforward portrait - nice and neat. Everything looking
great. Or 2. you have the option of showing a little bit more of a storyline, because the
pied kingfisher was busy swallowing his fish down. So, this picture explains exactly what was
happening in that moment...we don't just have a sparkle in the eye of the bird, but also
an eye of the fish, with a wide open mouth. So, in my eyes this is clearly the winner. If you
would like to keep a nice portrait for memory purposes...you can keep two out of
the sequence. That makes it eleven and fourteen. So, now we can go ahead. We can grab the first
picture. We can grab the tenth picture, and just press X for reject. If you have your auto sync
locked, it will reject all of them, while you're looking at them individually. Otherwise, you can
only reject in bulk, if you have your matrix view. We will quickly reject 12 and 13...and there we go.
The other two images are worthy of editing and I personally would place them in my best of
folder. If you want to know more about my workflow, check out my other module on how to
get a quick workflow going for a busy schedule. Let's give this another try, now that we know what
we're looking for. We have a baby elephant playing in the water. The cuteness factor always makes it
double difficult to delete. We're going through them one, by one, by one...he was clearly playing with
the water, so a picture with a decent water splash would be preferable. We want to see as much of his
face as possible. I believe this was a splash of the mother, not of the baby. We would like a
preferable trunk position, because some positions can look a bit funny. I don't like it when he
crosses over his mother's leg. However, I like it when he is very close to the mom...because it gives
you a very good size relation between the two. That is the first impression of this sequence. So,
what we would do now is, go through them one by one. You can either compare them x with y, or you
look at them individually. I am going to put my caps lock on. That way I can go through
them much quicker without having to press my right hand arrow. I press reject for the reasons
I have stated...no water splash, I can't see the eye... oh, there we see a bit more. As soon as you have an
image you sort of like, the first thing you do is you check for sharpness. It was shot at 1/2000 sec. That's when we start freezing water. So, it should be fairly sharp...but baby
ellie isn't as sharp as I would like him to be. By the way, this shot is much
cuter, because you see the tip of it's trunk. Anyway, we can keep it for now. Nope
we can't see enough of the trunk. Big splash but no trunk. There's a little bit of tongue,
which is incredibly cute, but not enough splash. He's turning more towards his mother, which
is really nice...and if we zoom into this image, you will see all the water droplets really
nicely...coming off its mouth...and you will agree that this image is a lot sharper than the
first one we checked out with the water splash. So, we want to see all the little individual
hairs. We clearly want to see the eyelashes... So, do not settle for an image that
isn't entirely sharp. It's simply not good enough! So, going back to our sequence...it's touching mummy. Not enough zoomed in. I am going to choose a
different zoom factor. Not sharp enough... the splashes in the background took too much of
the focus. When you have both...the splash, the face. He is pretty close to mom...not enough
splash...he's touching mommy...he's crossing mommy... there's a nice splash...and I feel this is a more
natural pose. So, we were able to bring it down to six images, which is a pretty good job...but in theory, still too much. Do you really need to show this baby elephant
six times? So now you go back and choose which one of these you do prefer over the other ones?
I really like how he touches mommy's leg... and you have a little bit of the water droplets. Here he has got a beautiful smile on his little face...and it's sharp enough. So, you have the
connection between the mom and the baby. You have a bit of the water splash. You have his
face. For me, that is one of the better ones. This is pretty much up to your personal taste. It gives you a very good idea how you can approach it. A direct comparison between them might help you,
but at the end, it's up to you what you really like. Let's move on to our last example, number three.
It's an elephant throwing dust. We are on the Chobe... and we work a lot with elephants...and I am going
to have a quick check at my settings... we have a nice fast shutter speed. At 1/2000 sec
we start freezing that movement with the trunk... and the dust. f/8 gives us a bit more depth
of field, in order to get the whole elephant face in focus. It is quite a high ISO...because it is
a dark elephant. If I zoom in, I immediately see that my focus seemed to have
been somewhere on this area... so slightly off...even though
I feel that my eye is still sharp enough for my liking. So again, we go
through the sequence. It's only six images. It tells a story of the elephant dusting, so
obviously we want as much dust as possible... but at the same time, we want the
eye. The eye is sort of crucial. The eye vanishes in this image, because he's
got his trunk pretty much wrapped around his face. So, I wouldn't go for the images where you
cannot see anything of the face. This is probably the image with the most beautiful
dust...but also the image is covering too much of the elephant. I still want to see some of
the elephant, so at the end, it pretty much boils down to the image...where you can still create a
connection to the subject by looking at the eye... and I believe this is the image where
you can see the eye the best, because the elephants trunk is still above the eye. You
have a lot of detail on the trunk, because the dust isn't so thick yet, however we can clearly
see the story unfolding. In my eyes this is my preferred image. From a compositional point of view,
it's horrible...how those legs are cut off. You will have to work on that composition afterwards...in the development mode...by choosing a different frame. Alrighty guys. I really hope this gave you
a good idea on how to choose between your images. Maybe by downloading my images, and deleting
my images, it wasn't as tough on you emotionally... but it gave you a good head start. The more images you are able to delete, the easier it is to manage your photographs afterwards. I know there's a lot of
photographers out there that say they want to keep all their photographs they've ever
shot...except if they're really blurry... because they hope that our editing technology
improves so much so, that they can still save them. But...be frank...do you really need hundreds
and thousands of the same subject? If you have 14 pied kingfishers - irrespective of
the technology out there - you will want to choose the one with the best pose...and you don't need the
others. Relieve yourself of that burden. Make your data in front of you more manageable...and
i know it's a lot of work, but if you take a little bit of time each day, or each
week, you will you'll get there...slowly but surely... and then editing becomes so much more fun, and
you will actually find the really good images. The last advantage of going through your images and
deleting, is that you become a lot more critical. You are going to start looking at your settings
a lot more....because your settings are the answer to what went wrong, or what went right. You will learn so much out of your own images... and therefore also improve your own photography.
Give it a try. Don't be too hard on yourself... In general, wildlife photographers should delete
between 80% and 95% of their photographs. It's a rough one, isn't it? Let's start
off with 75...and you're doing good. Bye bye!
