Burst Selection & Quality Filter

In professional photography, burst shooting and bracketing often produce a large number of similar photos. Photocatalyst's burst selection and quality detection help you quickly eliminate low-quality photos and keep the best work.

1. Burst Selection

In sports, wedding, wildlife, and other scenarios, a single high-speed burst can produce dozens of nearly identical photos. The burst selection feature automatically analyzes the quality of each photo to help you pick the best one.

How to Use

Select a group of burst photos (2 or more recommended)
Right-click → Tools → Burst Selection
The system analyzes each photo and gives a comprehensive score ranking
Choose the best photo to keep, and move the rest to the recycle bin in bulk

The system considers the following factors for scoring:

Sharpness: Is the focus accurate and the image crisp
Exposure: Is the exposure reasonable
Composition: Evaluate composition quality via aesthetic scoring
Faces/Eyes: Prioritize expression and eye contact when people are present

Typical Scenarios

Scenario	Burst Count	Selection Value
Sports events	50~200	Pick the moment with the most dynamic pose and most accurate focus
Wedding ceremonies	20~50	Pick the ones with the best expressions, no blinking, natural posture
Wildlife	30~100	Pick the ones with the best animal posture and best lighting
Children's photography	15~30	Pick the ones with lively expressions, no motion blur
Product photography	5~10	Pick the ones with the sharpest focus and most even lighting

Aesthetic Comparison

After selecting multiple photos, right-click → Tools → Aesthetic Comparison to navigate to a side-by-side comparison page, where you can visually see the aesthetic score differences of each photo.

2. Quality Detection & Blur Filter

During indexing, the system automatically evaluates the sharpness of each photo and gives a quality score ranging from 0 to 1.

Quality Icon Guide

Each photo thumbnail may display a quality icon in the upper-left corner:

Score Range	Quality Level	Icon	Recommendation
0.9 ~ 1.0	Excellent	No icon	Suitable for printing, large display
0.8 ~ 0.9	Good	No icon	Fully adequate for regular use
0.5 ~ 0.8	Acceptable	Yellow warning	May be slightly blurry, barely usable
0.3 ~ 0.5	Poor	Yellow warning	Noticeably blurry, not recommended
0.0 ~ 0.3	Very poor	Yellow warning	Recommend deletion

Hover over the icon to see the exact value.

Quick Blur Filter

Select "Blur / Out of Focus" from the dropdown on the left side of the search box — filter all low-quality photos with one click, no input required.

Batch Cleanup Workflow

1. Search type → Blur / Out of Focus
2. Browse filtered results, manually confirm (prevent accidentally deleting artistically valuable out-of-focus photos)
3. Confirm those with no retention value → Select all → Move to recycle bin
4. Periodically empty the recycle bin to free up space

3. Aesthetic Scoring

The system automatically gives each photo an aesthetic score (0 to 10), considering factors such as composition, sharpness, and exposure.

Using Scores for Filtering

Need	Action
Find the best work	Sort by score in descending order on the search results page
Quickly discard bad shots	Use advanced search, score < 3
Portfolio selection	Score ≥ 7, then manually review
Client delivery	Score ≥ 5, exclude the obviously unusable ones

4. Duplicate File Management

It is easy to accumulate duplicate files in a large photo collection — multiple copies of the same photo, the same file imported multiple times.

Two Detection Modes

Exact Match (Content Hash):

Based on file hash values, finds 100% identical copies
Suitable for cleaning up duplicates from multiple imports or backup restorations

Similarity Match (Content Feature):

Based on image visual features, finds highly similar photos
Suitable for finding RAW+JPEG pairs taken together, or photos with similar compositions from multiple shots

Steps

Go to the "Duplicates" page (sidebar)
Select the detection mode
The system lists duplicate photo groups
Use the image comparison tool (right-click → Tools → Compare) to assist judgment
Keep what you need, delete the redundant ones

Auto-Deduplication

Set retention rules (e.g., keep the earliest/latest/largest/smallest file), and the system automatically selects duplicates to delete. Confirm and batch process.

Complete Culling Workflow

Below is a standard workflow for a professional photographer going from thousands of raw photos to final delivery:

Step 1: Deduplication
  → Duplicates page → Exact Match → Delete identical copies
  → Similarity Match → Manually decide what to keep

Step 2: Deblur
  → Search → Blur / Out of Focus → Confirm and batch delete obviously blurry photos

Step 3: Burst Selection
  → Sort by time → Right-click each burst group → Burst Selection → Keep one per group

Step 4: Score Filtering
  → Sort by aesthetic score → Mark/remove those below the threshold

Step 5: Curated Marking
  → Tag retained photos as "Curated"
  → Further classify by theme using semantic search

Step 6: Batch Export
  → Cross-page select all curated photos → Export together

Related chapters: Chapter 5: AI Smart Features | Chapter 6: Multi-Dimensional Browsing | Chapter 11: Recycle Bin Management