# Automatic culling

Culling sorts a shoot into picks, maybes and rejects, so you start from a shortlist instead of every frame. It runs on our own servers with image measurements, and your own call always wins over the machine's.

## What it looks at

- Sharpness, weighted to the middle of the frame where the subject usually is, so a sharp face on a soft background scores well and a missed focus is marked down.
- Exposure: frames that are too dark, too bright, or clipped at both ends.
- Bursts and near-duplicates: frames of the same moment are grouped, the best is marked, and clearly worse ones are rejected as duplicates.

Choose strict, balanced or lenient for each run. Running it again gives the same result.

## The board

- Every photo with its verdict (pick, maybe or reject, in colour and in words), its flags, and bursts stacked to their best frame.
- Your verdict and star rating sit beside the machine's, and yours counts.
- Keyboard culling: P pick, M maybe, X reject, 1 to 5 stars, arrow keys to move, Space to compare with the next frame of a burst.
- Hide rejects from the client gallery in one step, and Copy picks for Lightroom as a line of file names.

## What it cannot do yet

- It does not see closed eyes, expressions or faces looking away.
- It does not judge composition or the moment.
- A deliberate pan or soft-focus frame looks blurred to it, and a silhouette is flagged dark (though not rejected for it).
- There is no XMP sidecar export; use Copy picks for Lightroom.

## Questions

### Are my photos sent to an AI company?

No. Culling runs on the platform's servers using image maths. No paid model is used and nothing is sent to another company.

### How many photos can I cull?

Each plan has a number of photos culled a month; see the pricing page. Past that, you can buy photos in packs, which carry over until they are used.

## See also

- [AI and your data](https://isodesk.io/ai): Where each AI feature runs and what it sends: culling and selfie search on our servers; help, chat and card wording as text to Anthropic; AI pictures to Google.
- [Client galleries and proofing](https://isodesk.io/features/client-galleries): Share a shoot with one link. Clients heart photos, comment and send picks up to a limit you set. Sets for each event, private sets, PIN and download control.
- [Candid and pre-wedding](https://isodesk.io/for/candid-and-pre-wedding): Cull long candid shoots by sharpness and bursts, share a proofing gallery, take the couple's picks into Lightroom, and sell prints from the gallery.

Page: https://isodesk.io/features/ai-culling. Updated 31/10/2026.