8. VIEWING AND COMPARING IMAGES

COMPARING IMAGES IS another thing that I think trips people up when they’re trying to select the best picture. You have a filmstrip of images in front of you and you want to compare two of them. You select one picture and stare at it, then hit the right arrow to look at the second picture, stare at that, and then hit the left arrow to go back to the original picture and stare at that again.

You basically treated yourself to an eye exam using your own photography. This is probably good for one picture, but you don’t want to do this as you sort through hundreds of pictures. It’s just going to get a little frustrating, so it’s a good idea for you to learn how to view and compare multiple pictures to make the best selection.

If you you’re trying to decide between two pictures, single-click on the first picture and then Command-click (Mac) or Ctrl-click (PC) on the second picture to select them both. Once the two pictures are selected, press the letter C on your keyboard to enter the Compare View (Figure 8.1). You can also click on the XY icon in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, or select View > Compare.

Figure 8.1 In this shoot of my friend Mia, I want to compare other images in the take with the one I think is the winning shot of the series.

On the left you will see the selected picture (marked Select) and on the right you will see the Candidate—the one you’re trying to compare to the selected picture. You can zoom in and out of the pictures and make some critical judgments (Figure 8.2). The key here is to find a way to compare a picture you know you want to keep against all of the other photographs in your shoot. You’re basically looking for another shot that will “dethrone” the selected image.

If you find a picture that is better than the picture you originally selected, press the letter P, and you will promote that picture so that it becomes the main picture for comparison. Additionally, you have the option of swapping the selected picture and the candidate by clicking on the Swap icon (XY icon with two arrows pointing opposite directions) in the toolbar at the bottom of the window.

You can use your left and right arrow keys, as well as the arrows in the toolbar at the bottom of the compare window, to move the previous or next image in the series into the Candidate position and continue the compare process (Figure 8.3). You even have options at the bottom of each individual image to set flags and star ratings, getting you closer to paring this shoot down even further. Once you’re done, you can get back to the winning picture by pressing the letter C key.

One last thing to keep in mind is that Lightroom presumes you are trying to make a comparison between two pictures. If you do not have a second picture loaded, the picture that is selected in Lightroom will become the Selected picture. At that point, you’ll need to select another image in the series that will automatically be set as the Candidate for the compare process.

Figure 8.2 Getting in close to check the sharpness of the two pictures.

Figure 8.3 Checking other images in the series to see if there are any better ones.