My Photo Culling Method: The 2-Pick-1 Technique
Culling photos is one of the most underrated skills in photography — and one of the most time-consuming. Over time, I've developed a simple system that helps me quickly narrow down hundreds of photos to the handful worth editing. I call it the 2-pick-1-and-repeat method.
How the 2-Pick-1 Method Works
The process is simple. I go through my photos in roughly chronological order and compare them two at a time:
Look at the first and second photos, and pick the better one.
Look at the third and fourth photos, and pick the better one.
Repeat this pattern through the entire set.
Once I've picked the better half of all the photos, I repeat the same 2-pick-1 process on that smaller set to narrow it down to the better quarter. Depending on how many photos I started with, I'll repeat this two to four more times.
With each round, the pool of "good" photos shrinks quickly — which means I only spend editing time on the strongest images.
This is also easy to set up in Lightroom. I create a series of keywords (1-normal, 2-better half, 3-better quarter, and so on) and tag each photo as I go through the rounds.
Why Head-to-Head Comparison Works Better
The key to this method is that every photo gets a fair shot. I'm not just cherry-picking the shots I already knew were good while I was out in the field — I'm examining and comparing every single photo against another.
That matters because I often take photos in the field simply because it would be a waste not to, even if I'm not confident about them in the moment. Later, when I go through them properly, I sometimes discover a genuinely good shot hiding in there — a happy accident. Culling this way helps me spot those images I might otherwise overlook, and over time, it's taught me to anticipate them better in the field.
This process has also sharpened my eye for what makes a photo "good" in the first place. Because every photo in the comparison is mine, there's no bias from comparing my work to someone else's. And since I took every shot under the same conditions — say, standing in the cold waiting for snow — that shared effort doesn't skew me toward preferring one image over another. The comparison stays fair.
The Challenge: Defining "Better"
This method rests on one assumption: that between any two photos, one is better. That's usually easy to judge when the photos are similar. It gets harder when they're not.
Orientation is a good example. Given a portrait and a landscape version of the same scene, it's often tough to say which is "better" in isolation — it really depends on how the photo fits into the bigger picture. A portrait shot might work better in a project made up entirely of portrait-orientation images, and vice versa. Neither photo is objectively superior; it depends on context, which isn't always a reliable measure in the moment.
Timing is another wrinkle. Sometimes my earlier photos simply aren't as strong as the later ones. If I'm scouting a neighborhood while waiting for snow to fall, those first shots are often just test frames. As the day progresses and the light or weather changes, the photos tend to get better. Because the 2-pick-1 method compares photos in chronological pairs, an early (weaker) photo can still make it into the final selection — not because it's genuinely competitive, but simply because of when it was taken.
Final Thoughts
The 2-pick-1-and-repeat method isn't perfect, but it's fast, fair, and forces me to actually look at every photo I take — not just the ones I remember liking. If you're drowning in photos after a shoot, it's worth trying: pair them up, pick the better one, and repeat until only the strongest images remain.
How do you cull your photos? I'd love to hear your process — drop a comment below or reach out.