Manual · Chapter 10
Vision Culling
Vision Culling provides an additional local analysis layer for reviewing photo collections. It can identify similar images, analyze visual characteristics and create suggestions without automatically replacing your own culling decisions.
What Vision Culling is
Vision Culling is designed to support your own visual review rather than replace it.
ViolaScope analyzes photos and organizes the resulting information so that similar images and stronger or weaker candidates within a series can be easier to identify.
The result is an additional decision aid that you can inspect before deciding what should happen to a photo.
Local image analysis
Vision Culling is part of ViolaScope's local photo workflow.
The analysis is performed on the photos available to the ViolaScope project rather than requiring the photo collection to be uploaded to a ViolaScope cloud service.
This keeps the analysis integrated with the local project workflow on your Mac.
Choose the analysis scope
Vision Culling can analyze different scopes depending on what you currently want to review.
You can analyze:
- the current selection
- the entire project
A selection-based analysis is useful when you want to concentrate on a particular series or group of photos.
An entire-project analysis provides a broader view across the full project.
Similarity analysis
One part of Vision Culling is the analysis of visual similarity between photos.
ViolaScope can use image characteristics to determine which photos are visually related and organize similar images into groups.
This is particularly useful for sequences in which several frames show almost the same subject or moment.
Similarity distance
Similarity is not limited to a simple identical or different result.
ViolaScope can evaluate a similarity distance between analyzed photos.
This helps distinguish very closely related frames from photos that are only loosely similar.
Image quality characteristics
Vision Culling can also consider visual characteristics that may be useful when ranking photos within a series.
The analysis can include image-related quality signals and, where applicable, information associated with detected faces and face quality.
These values are used as analysis signals. They do not represent an absolute judgment about the artistic value of a photograph.
Faces and face quality
When faces are relevant to an analyzed image, Vision Culling can include face-related information in its analysis.
This can be useful in portrait sequences or group photos where small differences in facial appearance may help distinguish one frame from another.
Face-related analysis is one signal among several and does not replace your own visual judgment.
Series ranking
Within a group of similar images, Vision Culling can establish a relative series ranking.
The ranking helps you identify which photos the analysis considers stronger candidates within that particular group.
The ranking is relative to the analyzed photos and should be treated as an aid rather than a final selection decision.
Vision suggestions
Based on the analysis, ViolaScope can provide a suggested review result for a photo.
The result can indicate that a photo should be:
- kept
- reviewed more closely
- considered for rejection
These are Vision analysis results. They are separate from the manual culling state that you control yourself.
Vision Culling does not automatically overwrite manual culling
Running Vision Culling does not automatically change your existing Pick, Hold or Reject decisions.
This separation is intentional.
Vision Culling provides analysis and suggestions while your manual culling decision remains under your control.
Apply a Vision suggestion
If exactly one photo is selected, you can review the Vision suggestion for that photo and explicitly apply it when you agree with the result.
Only this deliberate action changes the manual culling state according to the Vision suggestion.
This gives you the opportunity to inspect the image and the analysis result before changing your own culling decision.
The analysis result is stored with the project
A completed Vision Culling result can be stored as part of the ViolaScope project state.
This allows you to return to the analysis results without immediately repeating the complete analysis.
The stored result remains separate from your manually assigned star ratings, labels, tags and culling decisions.
When an analysis may become outdated
Vision results refer to the photo set that was used for the analysis.
If the relevant project content changes afterward, the stored analysis may no longer represent the current state of the project.
ViolaScope can indicate when an existing Vision result is no longer current and a new analysis may be useful.
A new analysis replaces the previous Vision result
ViolaScope maintains one current Vision Culling result for the project workflow.
Starting and completing another Vision Culling analysis replaces the previously stored Vision analysis result.
This also applies when the new analysis is performed only for a selection rather than for the entire project.
Your manual ratings, labels, tags and culling decisions are not automatically replaced by this process.
Selection analysis and entire-project analysis can differ
The scope of the analysis affects the context in which photos are compared.
A group analyzed as a small selection may therefore produce different groupings or rankings than the same photos analyzed as part of the entire project.
This is expected because the analyzed comparison set is different.
Cancel an analysis
A running Vision Culling analysis can be cancelled.
This is useful if you started the wrong scope or no longer need the current analysis.
Cancelling the analysis does not mean that your manual project ratings or culling decisions are deleted.
Delete the stored Vision result
The stored Vision Culling result can also be removed when you no longer want to keep that analysis state.
Removing the Vision result does not delete the photos.
It also does not remove your manually assigned ratings, culling decisions or other independent project information.
Vision Culling does not modify the original image
Vision Culling analyzes image content but does not alter the visual content of the original photo.
Similarity information, rankings and suggestions are part of the ViolaScope analysis and project workflow.
Your image files remain separate from the analytical decisions produced by Vision Culling.
A practical Vision Culling workflow
One possible workflow is:
- Select a series of similar photos or choose the entire project.
- Start Vision Culling.
- Review the detected similarity groups.
- Inspect rankings and individual analysis results.
- Compare difficult candidates visually when necessary.
- Use the Vision suggestions as an additional decision aid.
- Apply a suggestion explicitly when you agree with it.
- Keep your own manual decision when you prefer a different result.
This keeps Vision Culling in a supporting role while the final photographic selection remains yours.
Next step
Once the photo review and selection are complete, the resulting images and project information can be transferred into the next stage of your workflow.
The next chapter explains the ViolaScope export workflow, including ratings, Rejects, XMP sidecars, transfer manifests and location-data handling.