Two cards, one evening, one gallery

The card goes in

Choose the card in CullTone Desktop. Every file is copied into a library on your Mac, one folder per card and date, and checked against the card before it's given its real name. The card itself is only read.

Your second shooter's card goes into the same project. Each photo remembers who added it, and the two camera clocks are lined up so the vows from both angles sit together. Two identical bodies are the one case it can't separate yet.

No internet at the hotel? Carry on. The import and the cull work offline and sync when you're back.

Three piles, and the one that needs you

The cull starts as soon as the copy is checked. Thumbnails fill in while you watch, with a plain stage name such as "Preparing review previews" and a time estimate. The first decisions show up within seconds, so you can start looking before the last card is done.

Every photo lands in Keep, Review or Archive with a sentence saying why. Bursts appear as stacks, duplicates are archived and brackets stay together. The ring exchange can't be emptied out, because every scene keeps some photos even if they're all a little soft.

If a few bursts are too close to call

The project shows how many bursts are a genuine toss-up and what an optional paid second opinion on them would cost, and waits for your yes. Skip it and you settle those yourself.

Where your time goes

Start with Review. That pile is the cull admitting it isn't sure, and it's where your eye does the most good. Use single keys for Keep, Review and Archive, read the reason when a call surprises you, and undo anything. If two different moments got stacked as one burst, split them. If a frame has to reach the couple whatever its faults, mark it must-keep and nothing will move it.

Then flick through Archive. On your first few weddings, look properly. Once you've seen where it disagrees with you, you'll know how hard to look.

You don't need to re-check every Keep. Each one carries its reason, so a quick scroll tells you what made the cut and why.

On a big family wedding, mark the grandparents in People with a minimum number of keepers and the next cull finds their best frames. A Person filter shows every frame with one face in it, and Added by shows one shooter's work. A reviewer can also cull on a phone by swiping, since the web app installs to the home screen.

Your decisions always win.

Editing the keepers

Open the studio and every Keep is already edited: matched to your camera's own colour, corrected for exposure and white balance, with the project's look on top. Adjust one photo, then copy its settings to the rest of that scene. Masks for people, sky, faces and skin are ready, and face retouch leaves bindis, kumkum and nose pins alone.

Press Render changes and your Mac renders only the photos whose edit changed, at full size. What you saw in the preview is what you get, and every render is a new version; the RAW is never touched.

For the frame with an exit sign behind the couple, paint over it and use Remove, which is free. A new sky or background costs about $0.10 to $0.14 a photo, after you approve the price, and those photos are labelled as AI-edited, including in the couple's gallery.

Editing needs an internet connection, so plan it for somewhere with wifi.

The link you send on Tuesday

On the Deliveries screen, build a gallery from the approved photos. Your Mac makes the final JPEGs, the couple's ZIP is built as they download it, and you get a private link to send however you usually talk to the couple; CullTone doesn't email it yet.

They open it on a phone without an account, heart favourites, approve, ask for a redo with a note, comment, and download if you've allowed it. Redo requests point at the exact photo: fix it in the studio and run it through the check again.

The gallery expires after six months unless you set another date, with an option to extend near the end, and your edited photos stay in the project after it's gone. Finishing in Lightroom instead? CullTone also writes an XMP sidecar per photo with the stars, label, reason and edit (what carries over).