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How to Cull Photos on an iPad: A Faster Workflow

By Ingo D ·

The iPad has the screen, the speed, and the portability to be a brilliant culling device. The hardware is there. The software, for most photographers, has never been.

You can view photos in the Files app. You can tap through thumbnails. But you cannot rate them. You cannot reject them. You cannot swipe through a shoot at speed and have your decisions recorded as usable metadata that your desktop editor will understand. The iPad sits between your shoot and your edit as a device with potential but no workflow.

CullKit turns the iPad into a dedicated culling station. Not a photo viewer. Not a file browser. A tool purpose-built for the single most repetitive job in a photographer’s workflow: the first-pass triage.

Why is the iPad a good device for culling photos?

Three things make a device good for culling: a large, colour-accurate screen; a fast, tactile input method; and portability that lets you work where you want rather than where your desk is.

The iPad has all three. The display is excellent for judging sharpness, exposure, and composition. The touch interface is direct: you touch the image you are evaluating, not a trackpad or mouse that proxies your intent. And you can cull on a train, in a cafe, on the sofa, while tethered to your camera during a break in shooting, or standing at a studio counter with the iPad propped on a stand.

What it has lacked until now is an app that turns those hardware advantages into a real rating workflow, with metadata that survives the session.

The iPad culling workflow

Connect to your library. Your photos live on a Synology NAS, a QNAP or TrueNAS share, an external SSD plugged into your iPad’s USB-C port, or a local folder on the device. CullKit connects to any of these directly. For NAS devices, enter the SMB address or use Bonjour auto-discovery. For a Synology NAS, you can also connect via the Synology Photos API to browse Personal Space, Shared Space, and Albums. For external drives, select the folder and go. Nothing is copied or imported. Your files stay where they are.

CullKit is an independent product. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Synology Inc., QNAP Technologies, Inc., TrueNAS / iXsystems, UGREEN Group, or any other storage vendor. It connects via standard protocols, the same way any other client does.

Start a culling session. Open your shoot folder. CullKit presents a photo grid you can pinch to adjust: zoom out to see many thumbnails at once for an overview, zoom in for full-screen review. Tap a frame to enter the culling session, or use the dedicated culling mode that queues every unrated image in sequence.

Swipe to rate. The culling interface is full-screen and gesture-driven. Each frame fills the display. Swipe right to keep. Swipe left to reject. A quick-access bar at the bottom gives you star ratings (1 to 5) and colour labels. You can configure what each swipe direction does: one direction for a 5-star rating, another for a reject flag, a third to clear. Auto-advance moves you to the next frame immediately after each action, so you never need to lift your thumb from the rating zone.

For a wedding photographer with 1,800 frames, this turns an hour of clicking at a desk into a 40-minute session on the iPad Pro, with the display at full brightness and nothing between you and the decision.

Undo and recover. If you change your mind, a rewind gesture undoes the last action. If the app closes mid-session (low battery, a notification swipe), crash recovery picks up exactly where you left off when you return. No lost progress. No re-culling frames you already decided on.

Ratings travel automatically. When you finish a session, CullKit writes every star rating, reject flag, colour label, and tag to XMP sidecar files alongside your RAW images. The sidecars are stored in the same folder as the originals, on your NAS or SSD. When you open Lightroom, Capture One, or Darktable on your desktop later, your ratings are already there. The iPad session hands off seamlessly to the desktop edit.

iPad culling vs. desktop culling

Desktop culling (Lightroom’s Library module, Photo Mechanic, or similar tools) works well if you are at your desk. But every photographer knows the feeling of putting off the cull because it means sitting down at the computer after a long shoot. Moving the culling step to the iPad changes the psychology: you can do it anywhere, in smaller sessions, at times that suit your energy rather than your schedule.

The iPad is also the best device for showing selects to a client or collaborator. Hand them the iPad with the culling session running in review mode. They swipe through the keepers. You both agree on the final selects before a single frame reaches Lightroom.

What about RAW files?

The iPad handles RAW files directly. CullKit reads and displays RAW images from your NAS or SSD at full resolution, with progressive loading so you see the frame immediately while the full detail resolves. RAW and JPEG pairs are grouped and reviewed as a single frame, a critical detail for photographers who shoot both formats simultaneously. HEIC files, videos, and Live Photos all render in the same session.

Is it safe to cull on public Wi-Fi?

Yes. Because you may be culling on public Wi-Fi, in a shared workspace, or in a client’s studio, privacy matters. CullKit processes everything locally on the iPad. No photos are uploaded to a cloud service. No metadata is sent to a third-party server. Your library stays on your NAS or drive, and the iPad acts as a remote viewer and rating tool. Credentials are stored in the iPad’s Keychain, protected by the device’s own authentication. (See the privacy FAQ for more.)

Getting the most from iPad culling

A few practical tips:

Use a stand. Propping the iPad on a stand or folio case at a comfortable angle keeps your swiping hand free and reduces fatigue during long sessions. The device becomes a dedicated culling screen, not something you have to hold.

Go full brightness. For judging exposure and sharpness, run the display at full brightness in a dim environment. The iPad’s display is well calibrated for colour; you can trust what you see.

Cull in passes. A fast first pass rejects the obvious discards (blinks, misfires, duplicates). A second pass adds star ratings on the survivors. The session structure in CullKit supports this: start with all frames, then switch to unrated-only mode for the second pass.

Sync with your desktop editor after. The workflow ends on the desktop. Cull on the iPad. Write XMP sidecars. Open Lightroom on your Mac. Import the folder. Your keepers are already marked. Your editing time begins at the rating pass, not at the import.

Which iPad is best for culling?

Almost any modern iPad works, but a few things help. A larger display (the 11” or 13” iPad Pro / Air) makes judging sharpness and composition easier and shows more thumbnails in the grid view. A USB-C port (every recent iPad) lets you read an external SSD or a card reader directly. A high-brightness, colour-accurate display — the Pro’s tandem-OLED or the Air’s laminated panel — gives you more confidence in exposure decisions. None of this is required: an entry-level iPad still culls perfectly well over the network from a NAS. The screen size and the input speed matter more than raw processing power, because culling is a decision task, not a rendering task.

Do I need an Apple Pencil or keyboard?

No. The core workflow is touch: swipe to keep or reject, tap to rate. That said, if you pair a Magic Keyboard or any Bluetooth keyboard, the same Mac-style shortcuts work on iPad — number keys to star-rate, P to pick, X to reject, arrow keys to navigate — which some photographers prefer for long sessions. The Apple Pencil isn’t needed for culling; your finger is the fastest input for a swipe-based decision.

Troubleshooting iPad culling

  • External SSD not showing. Confirm the drive mounts in the Files app and is formatted as exFAT or APFS. Bus-powered drives generally work; a few high-draw drives need a powered hub.
  • NAS unreachable on the iPad. Check you’re on the same Wi-Fi network as the NAS and that SMB is enabled on it. Public or “guest” Wi-Fi often blocks local device discovery — use your own network for NAS culling.
  • Session interrupted by a low-battery warning. Crash recovery restores your place; nothing is lost. For very long sessions, keep the iPad on charge.
  • Ratings missing in Lightroom. Finish the session to write the sidecars, then run Read Metadata from Files on the folder in Lightroom.

Try it

CullKit is available on the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The free tier lets you browse any connected library. The Pro tier (7-day free trial, then monthly or yearly) unlocks culling, star ratings, colour labels, XMP sidecar writing, and folder organisation.

A demo mode with seeded sample data lets you try the full swipe-based culling experience before connecting your own library.

Download CullKit on the App Store

CullKit is an independent product. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Synology Inc., Adobe (Lightroom), Capture One, Darktable, or any storage vendor. Compatibility claims only.

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