5D3 Rate button - Lightroom & CameraRaw

Well...like many, I was wondering what the heck I would do with the rate button on the new 5D3.....now I know.

Appears that CR & LR will pick up the star ratings from the RAW file and use it.

This is wonderful and can be quite useful if you want to do field review/rating.

John

I don't know about you, but I gave one of my shots 5 stars today!

I don't know if I'd ever use it. Lets face it what looks good on the 3" sceen can look like crap on your calibrated 23" monitor.

I will take a quick check to see if it looks OK but to give a rating seems a bit odd. I guess you could use it to flag an image for better look on the big screen, but to give it a star value? I like the option to protect an image, but I am sure i had that before.

mjmackinnon wrote in post #14152352
I don't know if I'd ever use it. Lets face it what looks good on the 3" sceen can look like crap on your calibrated 23" monitor.

I will take a quick check to see if it looks OK but to give a rating seems a bit odd. I guess you could use it to flag an image for better look on the big screen, but to give it a star value? I like the option to protect an image, but I am sure i had that before.

I was talking with another photographer about this over the weekend. He shoots sports and various events where he needs to upload pictures quickly to a wire service, publisher, etc. He said the rating system would be valuable for him to have a Lightroom workflow that only imported 5 star images so he could quickly get just those images off his card and uploaded without having to wait for hundreds of images to import. Anyway, that's just one view.

mjmackinnon wrote in post #14152352
I don't know if I'd ever use it. Lets face it what looks good on the 3" sceen can look like crap on your calibrated 23" monitor.

I will take a quick check to see if it looks OK but to give a rating seems a bit odd. I guess you could use it to flag an image for better look on the big screen, but to give it a star value? I like the option to protect an image, but I am sure i had that before.

I think I will find it more useful for rating bad shots that I am not certain 100% certain I want to delete than to rate anything as particularly good....

I think its value is in batch organizing before import, not necessarily in permanent curation.

I don't have the camera, only the maual... but it appears you might be able to reassign the Rate button to Protect images instead.... For some folks, that may be a little more useful.

I don't know if I'll use the star rating system on the camera or not. I have yet to see a camera's image playback monitor that's good enough quality for me to be able to differentiate between a 4 star and 5 star image! As of now I use the color codes and star ratings in Lightroom to sort images, not for quality ratings.

My quality rating system is much simpler... Best shots are flagged in Lightroom, less good shots that still might be usable are left unflagged, bad shots are trashed.

jrmy wrote in post #14156142
I think its value is in batch organizing before import, not necessarily in permanent curation.

Ooooo... you said it so much better and more succinctly than me!

I used it this weekend... It's really nice for downtime between shooting to preview and rate shots you think look like they have potential. I just rate 1 or 2 stars basically to tag it and it gives me something to look at right away when I get home. I definitely know there are times when i've shot something and i'm thinking I nailed it so I want to see it right away after uploading--it's perfect for stuff like that on shoots where you're shooting a lot.

I don't ever rely on protect images. I'm sure it's safe, but it gives me a very uncomfortable feeling just thinking about doing a delete-all on a card before I've ingested to my computer.

But, since amfoto1 mentioned it (protect), what I could totally see being useful is if there were a setting to automatically protect images at or above a certain rating!

Too bad it doesn't seem to have this. It's a logical extension of the feature.

I wouldn't trust 3" screen for sort of decision making. I might be fun if you're stuck on public transportation or have somebody driving you to use that down time to do some rating, but other than that, it'll be way more productive (and efficient) to do it on laptop screen at least.

It's just a quick way to narrow down a set. I don't look at everything at 100% even on my desktop to check detail when I do a first pass at shot selection. I can tell if the composition, lighting, posing, and expressions look good on a 3" screen EASILY. If I think those are worth giving a 2nd look, then I'll mark it. After that, I'll go in and do a 2nd round of closer inspection to pick the very best stuff out. This is my typical workflow on the computer.

I find it funny that people assume that the usage of this function is to flat out rate something PERMANENTLY and there's no going back if upon closer inspection it's not what you thought it was.... or at least that's the way it sounds people are thinking of it.

dho81 wrote in post #14156421
If I think those are worth giving a 2nd look, then I'll mark it.

Well for something that doesn't deserve a second look when it's apparent on 3" screen I've always had "Delete" button

bomzai wrote in post #14156511
Well for something that doesn't deserve a second look when it's apparent on 3" screen I've always had "Delete" button

Ha--fair enough. I don't like deleting on camera -- just in case I accidentally delete something I don't want to. I'd rather rate something and undo it than delete something and not be able to undo it

The rate button is great for sporting events like previous post mentions. With on site editors the photographer can tag an image and save them from having to review every shot which is a HUGE time saver. The higher grade models 1series also have wav tags so you can list what action was happening or make verbal notes about the image (slate).

I shot mostly weddings and engagements, so for me I will give a duplicate shot a 2 star rating and then use it for batch B&W 3 stars for something vintage etc. 5 Stars are for the wow shots that I'll hand retouch and probably use in a blog post or online preview gallery.

dho81, I think people get that it's not a permanent rating. And that there are some workflows for which this is a real time saver (see posts to date).

The point is that for some, why take the time to rate them if you have to reevaluate the ratings and rerate later, anyway? There's another concern, which is, if you rate from 1-5 in camera, how do you know which one's you've only rated on camera, and which ones you've done a final rating on after ingest?

I'm thinking that if I decide to rate on-camera, then it'll probably be a three point scale: bad = delete on the spot. unrated = maybes. 1 = the top ones to look at first.

Then, when I ingest, I can look at the 1s first and rerate. Then do the same for the unrated ones later. Ratings 2-5 are only applied after ingest, and I still get to triage a (single) group to look at first.