Culling and Retouch Queue
Turn a finished shoot into one ordered list of the frames worth retouching, with the rest set aside on purpose.
Tools
Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop, Frame.io, PhotoRoom
Outcomes
One ranked keeper list per shoot • Notes stored on the frame, not in an inbox • Rejects kept in their own folder • Retouch closed only when the file is exported
Documentation
Instruction-ready detail below
What breaks
A 900-frame card gets retouched in whatever order the editor opens it, so one sitter ends up with three treatments and nobody can say which one shipped. Review notes sit in an inbox instead of next to the frame they are about.
What the workflow does
- Rank the picks from the shoot and put the retouchable ones in a single queue.
- Attach every review comment to its frame instead of to an email thread.
- Separate the rejects into their own folder rather than deleting them.
- Show the client only the frames in the queue, not the whole card.
- Close a queue item when the retouched file is exported, not when it is opened.
What a human still approves
The retoucher signs off on the order of work, and the photographer makes the final keep and reject call. No frame reaches a client without a person choosing it.