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Get Your Culls into Lightroom Without Re-Importing

By Ingo D ·

You have done it a hundred times: import a full shoot into Lightroom, wait for previews to generate on a thousand frames, then spend an hour flagging the rejects you could have spotted in seconds. The import step is not the work. It is the tax you pay for not having a faster way to cull.

What if you could cull before the import, and have your ratings appear in Lightroom automatically?

The problem: Lightroom’s import bottleneck

Lightroom is a brilliant editor and catalogue manager. It was never designed to be a fast culling tool. When you import a shoot, Lightroom builds previews for every frame. On a folder with 1,200 RAW files, that takes minutes. Then you click through each frame in the Library module, hitting P for pick or X for reject, while the catalogue grows around files you plan to delete anyway.

The workflow works. But it is slow, and it chains you to your desk. For a wedding photographer who needs to deliver selects within 48 hours, or a travel photographer reviewing a week of shooting, those hours matter.

There is a better order of operations: cull first, import later.

The alternative: rate before you import

The idea is simple. Before you open Lightroom, go through your shoot folder and pick the keepers. Flag the rejects. Assign star ratings. Then when you do import, Lightroom already knows what you decided.

This only works if the ratings travel with the files. And that is where XMP sidecars come in.

How do XMP sidecars carry your ratings into Lightroom?

XMP is the Extensible Metadata Platform, an open standard maintained by Adobe. RAW files themselves are typically not written to directly (most cameras and tools treat them as read-only), so tools that add metadata write it to a companion sidecar file instead. The sidecar is a small .xmp text file with the same name as the RAW file, stored in the same folder.

When you assign a 4-star rating to DSC_4521.NEF, the sidecar DSC_4521.NEF.xmp records that rating. When you flag a frame as rejected, the sidecar records the rejection. Colour labels, keywords, and tags all go into the same sidecar.

Lightroom reads XMP sidecars automatically. When you import a folder, or synchronise an already-imported folder, Lightroom picks up every rating, flag, and label from the sidecars alongside each image. Capture One and Darktable do the same. The sidecar is the universal handover format between any tool that writes metadata and any editor that reads it.

Culling with CullKit: the workflow

CullKit is a dedicated culling and rating app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It reads your photo library directly from your NAS, network share, external SSD, or local folder. It does not import, catalogue, or duplicate anything. It shows your RAW files at full resolution, lets you decide keep vs. reject, and writes your decisions straight into XMP sidecars.

Here is the workflow step by step:

1. Point CullKit at your shoot folder. After a job, your RAW files are on a Synology NAS, a QNAP share, an external SSD, or a local folder. Open CullKit and connect to that location directly. Nothing is copied. Nothing is uploaded. Your files stay where they are.

CullKit is an independent product. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Synology Inc., QNAP Technologies, Inc., or any other storage vendor. It connects to these devices via standard SMB or the Synology Photos API, the same way any other client does.

2. Cull your frames. On iPhone and iPad, swipe right to keep a frame, swipe left to reject it. Tap a star icon to rate from 1 to 5. Use the quick-access bar for colour labels: red, yellow, green, blue, purple, the same Lightroom palette. On Mac, use the keyboard: number keys for star ratings, P to pick, X to reject, arrow keys to move. The interface is full-screen and built for speed, with nothing else on screen to distract from the decision.

For a 1,200-frame wedding, a first pass at 2 seconds per frame takes 40 minutes. A second pass over the 200 survivors, adding star ratings, takes 15 minutes. That is under an hour to go from memory card to fully rated selects, on the train home, on the sofa, or anywhere you have your device and a network connection.

3. Open Lightroom. Import your shoot folder as you normally would, or synchronise the folder if it is already in your catalogue. Lightroom reads the XMP sidecars. Your 5-star keepers are marked. Your rejects are flagged. Your colour labels are applied. No re-rating. No manual metadata merge. No export step between tools.

Your editing time starts at the rating pass, not at the import.

Why does the sidecar approach matter?

Ratings survive outside any single tool. The sidecar is a file in the folder, not a record inside a Lightroom catalogue. Copy the folder to a different Mac, archive it to a backup drive, send it to a second shooter or editor: the ratings travel with the images.

RAW and JPEG pairs are one frame. A common pain point is rating the same shot twice because the camera recorded both RAW and JPEG. CullKit groups the pair and writes a single sidecar, following the Lightroom convention, so your rating applies to both.

No cloud dependency. The metadata is stored on your own storage, in folders you control. There is no intermediate server, no sync service, no additional account. For photographers who deliberately keep originals local for client confidentiality and data control, this is essential.

What about Capture One and Darktable?

Capture One reads standard XMP sidecars on import. When you open a session or catalogue and point it at a folder with XMP files alongside the RAWs, your star ratings and colour labels appear. Darktable, the open-source RAW editor, also reads XMP sidecars natively.

The workflow is the same regardless of your editor: rate in CullKit, open your editor, the ratings are there.

How do I import only my keepers into Lightroom?

Once your ratings are on disk as sidecars, you can keep your catalogue lean by importing only the frames worth editing:

  1. In Lightroom’s Import dialog, point at your shoot folder. The grid shows every frame with its rating already visible (Lightroom reads the sidecars during import preview).
  2. Use the Attribute filter bar to show only frames at, say, 3 stars and above — or only picks. Uncheck everything below your threshold.
  3. Import just those. The rejected frames stay on disk, untouched, but never clutter your catalogue.

If the folder is already imported, use Library → Synchronize Folder or right-click → Read Metadata from Files to pull in the ratings you set in CullKit. Either way, you never re-rate a single frame.

What if Lightroom doesn’t show my ratings?

Lightroom reads XMP sidecars, but it doesn’t always re-scan a folder automatically. If a rating you set in CullKit isn’t showing:

  • Run Metadata → Read Metadata from Files on the selected images (or the whole folder).
  • Confirm the .xmp sidecar actually exists next to the RAW in the folder — same base filename, .xmp extension.
  • Check Catalog Settings → Metadata: “Automatically write changes into XMP” governs writing, while reading on import is automatic. A manual Read always wins.
  • For RAW+JPEG, make sure Lightroom is set to treat them as one photo if you want a single rated entry.

How is this different from culling inside Lightroom or Photo Mechanic?

Lightroom can cull — its Library module has pick/reject flags and star ratings — but it has to import and build previews first, and the interface is a catalogue manager, not a dedicated triage tool. Photo Mechanic is the long-standing fast culler of choice for many pros, and it’s excellent, but it’s a desktop application tied to a Mac or PC.

CullKit’s distinction is where it runs and what it writes. It culls on the iPhone and iPad as well as the Mac, directly against your NAS, SSD, or folder, with no import step — and it writes the same standard XMP sidecars Photo Mechanic and Lightroom both read. So you get a fast, mobile first pass that hands off cleanly to whatever editor you already use. It isn’t trying to replace your RAW developer; it replaces the slow, desk-bound cull that happens before it.

A note on what CullKit does not do

CullKit is a culling, rating, and organising app. It does not edit or develop photos. There are no exposure sliders, no crop tools, no colour grading. That work belongs in Lightroom, Capture One, or Darktable. CullKit handles the first pass, the sorting decision that turns a thousand frames into the ones worth editing.

Try the workflow

CullKit is available on 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, tags, XMP sidecar writing, and folder organisation.

There is also a built-in demo mode with sample data, so you can try the full culling workflow before pointing it at your own photos.

Download CullKit on the App Store

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

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