Relative Percentile Culling & Smart Thresholds

Relative vs. Absolute Culling

Traditional culling tools use fixed, static quality cutoffs (such as "Keep all photos above 70%"). In real-world shooting environments—such as a dimly lit candlelit reception hall or a rainy outdoor football match—static thresholds fail. They either reject entire critical moments because ISO noise was elevated, or they accept dozens of mediocre duplicates in high-contrast outdoor light.

BestShots solves this with a Hybrid Relative Percentile Model. Instead of judging every image against an arbitrary laboratory standard, the system evaluates frames relative to the actual lighting, optical conditions, and visual distribution of your specific shoot.

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Star Rating Percentile Distribution

Photos within a project are ranked relative to the overall quality distribution of the entire session:

This distribution ensures that your shortlist reflects a balanced, curated edit of the best moments captured throughout the shoot.

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Absolute Safety Overrides

While relative ranking adapts to challenging conditions, pure percentile math alone could produce anomalies: in an exceptionally sharp studio portrait session, a gorgeous photo might fall into the 40th percentile, while in a heavily degraded sequence, a blurry photo might rank at the top.

To guarantee zero false discards and zero false keepers, BestShots enforces two Absolute Safety Overrides:

1. Standout Keeper Override (Score ≥ 90)

Any photo achieving a composite score of 90 or higher is unconditionally awarded 5 Stars, regardless of its percentile ranking within the shoot. Even if you capture 500 tack-sharp portraits in a row, every exceptional frame receives top honors.

2. Quality Floor Override (Score < 35)

Any photo scoring below 35 points is unconditionally marked as 1 Star / Reject, even if it happens to be the highest-scoring frame in an accidental burst into the floor. The quality floor protects your studio reputation by guaranteeing that unrecoverable frames are never recommended for delivery.

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Studio Workflow Advantages

• Adapts to Mixed Lighting: Wedding ceremonies moving from bright outdoor gardens to dimly lit ballrooms receive balanced, fair culling across both lighting environments.
• Predictable Deliverable Volume: Relative thresholds help studios maintain consistent keeper counts without spending hours manually tweaking filtering sliders.
• 100% User Control: Initial AI percentile recommendations serve as a smart starting point. You can override any rating instantly using single-key shortcuts (K, D, or 1 to 5).