Cull here, finish in Lightroom
Some photographers will never edit outside Lightroom, and that's fine. CullTone writes an XMP sidecar next to every RAW with the stars, colour label and reason from the cull, plus a starting edit. One caution up front: we haven't yet imported them into Lightroom Classic ourselves, so test a few frames before you trust a whole wedding to it.
Inside each sidecar
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Star rating | Keep 4, Review 2, Archive 0 |
| Colour label | Keep green, Review yellow, Archive red |
| Description | The reason from the cull, e.g. "one of 6 near-identical frames…" |
| Develop settings | Your studio edit if you made one, otherwise CullTone's starting edit, as Camera Raw settings |
| Orientation | Only when you turned the photo a quarter turn |
Every sidecar passes exiftool's validation check, which tells you the files are well formed. It doesn't tell you how Lightroom will read them.
Which edits carry over
Exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, vibrance and saturation go to the Lightroom sliders of the same names. Tone curves, HSL, the black and white mix, colour grading (as split toning), vignette, grain, crop and straighten go across too, and white balance becomes a temperature and tint.
Expect similar, not identical.
Lightroom starts from its own camera profile and its sliders behave a little differently, so you'll see the same direction and roughly the same amount. The crop, the straighten angle and the exact temperature are the parts most likely to be off, and since any mistake would repeat across the whole wedding, a handful of test frames will show it.
Left behind
Face retouch, masks and the match to your camera's colour don't travel. A photo that leans on those will look different in Lightroom.
Getting them into Lightroom
Two ways. Download the sidecars as a ZIP from the cull's Export menu, one .xmp per photo with the RAW's name, copy them next to your RAW files, select the photos in Lightroom Classic and choose Read Metadata from Files.
Or, in CullTone Desktop, choose Send keeps to Lightroom and pick the shoot folder. CullTone writes only the .xmp files next to your RAWs (Keep 5 stars, Review 3, Archive 1 to start, and you can change them) and never opens a RAW for writing. If a sidecar from Lightroom or Photo Mechanic is already there, it asks first and then changes only the stars and label. The other choice puts the delivered JPEGs, with their stars inside, into a folder Lightroom watches.
Stars and labels are the part we'd rely on today. If your habit is to filter by four stars and carry on in Lightroom, that works from the first wedding. The develop settings are a starting point, and if your look lives in your Lightroom presets, CullTone's editing may be the part you skip.
It works the other way round too: CullTone can read the sidecars from your past weddings and learn how you edit.
Culled somewhere else first?
Stars, pick and reject flags and colour labels from Photo Mechanic, Lightroom, Bridge or Capture One are read from the files and their sidecars when CullTone reads your photos. CullTone asks once whether to use them as your picks: by default 4 or 5 stars or a pick becomes Keep, 2 or 3 stars Review, and 1 star or a reject Archive. Lightroom Classic keeps its pick flags in its catalog, so those never reach the files; save your stars to the files instead.
Finished a few in Photoshop
Bring the edited JPEG, PNG or TIFF files back and CullTone finds which photo each one is, by its name, its capture time or the picture itself, and says what changed ("+0.3 EV", "Cropped to 4:5", "Removed or changed 1 area"). Each becomes a version marked Edited outside that you can deliver. In CullTone Desktop, Edit in another app opens a photo in Photoshop or the app you pick and brings every save back by itself. A PSD isn't read, and we haven't tried the round trip with Photoshop itself yet.
Try it on ten frames
Run a wedding through the trial, copy the sidecars next to the RAWs, and see what Lightroom makes of them. If the crop or white balance lands wrong, tell us on the contact page.