Streamline your Lightroom workflow with Assisted Culling

Take advantage of AI to quickly assess photos for subject focus, eye focus, open eyes, exposure issues, and more.

Published August 24, 2026

00:01

Introduction

[Glyn Dewis]: Assisted Culling in Lightroom uses AI to automatically detect issues with our images, such as being out of focus, eyes not being open, exposure issues, and more.

It even works with group photos, analyzing individual faces in an image to identify the qualities that you specify.

And all this means we no longer have to scroll through and manually check potentially hundreds, if not thousands, of images.

00:27

Choose specific settings to analyze photos

Hi, I'm Glyn Dewis, and in the next few minutes, I'm going to show you how you can use the Assisted Culling feature in both Lightroom and Lightroom Classic to automatically identify and deal with problem images, potentially saving you a ton of time.

Here I am in Lightroom, and Assisted Culling is located in the top left of the screen, in both the Cloud and Local tabs.

The controls for Assisted Culling are here on the left, but the Assisted Culling Info panel is over here on the right.

In Lightroom Classic, both panels are located together on the right side of the Library module.

01:08

Adjust criteria for selected and rejected images

Inside of the Assisted Culling, we see the Select options of Select Subject sharpness, Eye sharpness, and Eyes open.

I'll click Subject sharpness, and Lightroom analyzes the images, sorting each as a Select or a Reject based on the sharpness.

The Scoring slider runs from 0 to 100, with 100 being the sharpest, and it defaults to 50.

Think of it as a scorecard that you set - selects meet your score, rejects fall below it.

In the Assisted Culling Info on the right, you can see the Scores for the currently selected photo.

Out of this folder of 45 images, we have 43 Selects and 2 Rejects.

I'll click on Rejects in the Review section, and there they are.

Dragging the Subject sharpness marker to the right, raises the required score, so more images become rejects.

And dragging to the left, means fewer images are rejected.

Eye sharpness works the same way, but scores how sharp the eyes are, with an option to reject photos without people's eyes.

So, maybe someone wearing sunglasses where the eyes aren't visible, but you still want the image.

Lastly, Eyes open.

No slider this time because eyes are either open or they're closed, though you can also reject images where Lightroom can't tell.

02:33

Review results & override rejected images

If image is marked as a reject that you actually want, simply click the icon in the upper right of the thumbnail to override it.

You're the photographer; you get the final say.

These options can also be combined.

So, for example, Subject sharpness and Eyes open.

In the Reject section, we have options for Lightroom to automatically reject images if they're Documents and receipts, if an image appears to be a Misfire, or if there are Exposure issues.

03:04

Organize the Assisted Culling results

And in the Organize Results section, we can mark up all our Selects or Rejects at once with a flag, a star rating, or a color label, and then add them to an album or, in the case of Rejects, remove them entirely.

03:19

Use Assisted Culling with group photos

Now for the big new addition: Groups.

These images are from a wedding, and most have several people in the frame.

Previously, Assisted Culling was all about a single subject, but it now uses the improved Select subject detection to identify different people, meaning it analyzes every person in the shot.

I'll turn on Eyes open, and Lightroom sorts the images as before.

But here's the clever part: double-clicking on an image shows the results.

This image was rejected because of these two guests whose eyes are shown as likely closed.

If we click directly on a face, such as the one that has been marked as a reject, Lightroom zooms in so that we can take a closer look for ourselves, and we even see the Score that Assisted Culling gave.

Doing this clearly shows the eyes as they are on this person, and also this person is all part of their expression.

So rather than rejecting this one, I'll press G to go to the Grid view, then click on the red Reject icon in the upper right of the thumbnail, and then Mark as Select.

04:27

Speed up the review of large photo shoots

You could be thinking, if I still have to check the rejects, where's the time saving?

Well, out of this entire shoot, only a handful of images were flagged.

So rather than checking every face in every frame, I'm only reviewing those few.

But imagine if this was a photo shoot containing hundreds, if not thousands, of images; the time saving would be massive.

That's the improved Assisted Culling feature available in both Lightroom and Lightroom Classic, an incredibly useful feature for speeding up your workflow, helping you to get to the images that you want quickly and efficiently, whether you're photographing one person or a whole group.

Now go give it a try on your own images and see for yourself how much time it could save you.

Enjoy.

What you’ll learn

Choose specific settings to analyze photos

Assisted Culling in both Lightroom or Lightroom Classic, uses AI to automatically identify potential issues such as subject and eye sharpness, closed eyes, and exposure problems. Images are automatically sorted into selects and rejects for review.

Adjust criteria for selected and rejected images

Fine-tune how Assisted Culling analyzes your photos by adjusting scoring controls for subject and eye sharpness. Raising or lowering the threshold gives you control over how strictly Lightroom evaluates your photos.

Review results & override rejected images

You can review images that have been flagged as selects and rejects and manually change the culling status of any photo. Assisted Culling speeds up the review process, while you retain the final decision over which photos are rejected.

Organize the Assisted Culling results

You can choose different ways to organize both the selects and the rejects, such as applying flags, ratings, or color labels, adding photos to an album, or, in the case of rejects, removing them from an album or deleting them.

Use Assisted Culling with group photos

Assisted Culling can analyze individual people within group photos, checking the face of each person against your selected criteria. Quickly zoom in on flagged faces to determine whether an image should be selected or rejected.

Speed up the review of large photo shoots

Instead of manually reviewing every image and every face yourself, you can focus your attention on the smaller number of photos that Assisted Culling identifies. On shoots containing hundreds or thousands of images, this can significantly streamline your review workflow.

Instruction and photography by: Glyn Dewis
Adobe Stock Contributor: Vadym

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Cookies are small text files stored by your web browser when you use websites. There are also other technologies that can be used for similar purposes like HTML5 Local Storage, web beacons, and embedded scripts. These technologies help us do things like remembering you and your preferences when you return to our sites, measure how you use the website, conduct market research, and gather information about the ads you see and interact with.

If enabled:

We can improve your experience by tailoring the site and the content to things we think might be of interest
We can better keep track of your preferences — like what language you prefer to use
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View transcript

What you’ll learn

Choose specific settings to analyze photos

Adjust criteria for selected and rejected images

Review results & override rejected images

Organize the Assisted Culling results

Use Assisted Culling with group photos

Speed up the review of large photo shoots

Try these tutorials with Lightroom