{"id":62660,"date":"2025-11-25T00:55:42","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T23:55:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/excire.com\/?p=62660"},"modified":"2026-01-26T07:16:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T06:16:58","slug":"lightroom-classic-ai-culling-vs-excire-search-plugin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/excire.com\/en\/lightroom-classic-ai-culling-vs-excire-search-plugin\/","title":{"rendered":"How Good Is Lightroom Classic\u2019s New AI Culling? Testing Against Excire Search 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
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AI-powered culling software<\/a> is not <\/em>new. If you want to streamline your culling workflow with AI, you have a variety of standalone programs and platforms available: Imagen AI, Narrative Select, Excire Foto 2025, and Aftershoot, to name a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for dedicated Lightroom Classic users, none of these options are ideal; they exist outside <\/em>of the LrC interface and require extra steps to integrate neatly into a Lightroom workflow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up until recently, that was the whole story. Lightroom Classic users were essentially stuck choosing between a variety of bad options. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then\u2026lightning struck. In October 2025, Adobe launched AI-assisted culling for Lightroom Classic<\/a>, a built-in feature designed to streamline photographers\u2019 workflows by automatically selecting the best photos from a batch and rejecting the worst. At the time of writing (November 2025), this feature is still in Early Access. But it\u2019s available to all Lightroom Classic subscribers for free, which makes it an obvious choice for Lightroom Classic users who want an easy way to spend less time on culling workflows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Lightroom<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, Excire\u2019s latest Lightroom Classic plugin, Excire Search 2026<\/a>, was launched several months prior to Adobe\u2019s release. Excire Search 2026 brings advanced AI-assisted culling directly into Lightroom Classic\u2014though you do need to pay for a lifetime license, which gets you unlimited access to Excire culling tools (in addition to various AI-powered search and organization features).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Excire<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This begs the question: Is Lightroom Classic\u2019s new Assisted Culling feature sufficient for most photographers? Or are Excire’s AI-powered culling tools worth the additional investment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To find out, I ran a direct comparison. I used Lightroom\u2019s and Excire\u2019s culling tools on two real sets of photos\u2014a portrait session and a bird photography outing\u2014and evaluated the results. Below, I share what I discovered, including comparisons of speed, user experience, control, and accuracy. And I ultimately reveal which AI culling program is best in 2025 (and why). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s dive right in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Culling in Lightroom Classic vs Excire Search: The Comparison<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Lightroom Classic needs little introduction. It\u2019s been an industry-standard photo organizer<\/a> and editing program<\/a> for well over a decade, and I\u2019ve personally used it for the better part of that period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this comparison marks my first real test of Lightroom Classic\u2019s brand-new AI-assisted culling tools. Since the feature only recently debuted, I\u2019m approaching it with fresh eyes and no preconceived notions about its effectiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Lightroom<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Excire Search 2026<\/a>, on the other hand, is a Lightroom Classic plugin<\/a> that offers a variety of AI-powered tools for photo-management, including automatic keywording, AI prompt search, duplicate detection, and smart culling. I\u2019ve been using Excire Search 2026 inside Lightroom for a few months now, so I\u2019m more familiar with its approach to culling. To avoid any bias, though, I tested both tools on the exact same sets of images and evaluated their selections from a fresh, side-by-side perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Excire<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now, both systems claim to identify the \u201cbest shots\u201d automatically, and they both do it non-destructively and <\/em>without ever leaving <\/em>Lightroom, but they differ significantly in approach. Importantly, both tools also process images entirely on your local machine. That means there\u2019s no cloud upload, no external server involvement, and no need to worry about sensitive data being sent off your computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, the comparison ahead focuses on how these two AI-powered photography tools<\/a> perform when asked to do the same job: find the best photos quickly, accurately, and reliably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How I Tested Lightroom and Excire<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Note: If you\u2019re eager to jump straight to the verdict, feel free to skip ahead to the results section below. But for those who want a clear picture of the methodology, here\u2019s the full breakdown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To compare Lightroom Classic\u2019s new Assisted Culling with Excire Search 2026\u2019s dedicated culling tools, I used real-world photoshoots in two very different genres:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Portraiture: Here, I used a couple\u2019s pre-engagement shoot from a professional portrait photographer; the batch contained 879 images.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Wildlife\/Bird photography: I captured these 1986 shorebird and wading bird photos on a fun visit to the Florida coast back in 2018. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    In both cases, the goal was to narrow the set down to a small collection worth editing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Now, Lightroom\u2019s culling is currently optimized for portrait images, so I didn\u2019t expect it to perform strongly on wildlife. But Excire\u2019s AI culling isn\u2019t explicitly portrait-centric, so I thought it valuable to observe how both systems handle non-human subjects in a traditional wildlife photography scenario (thousands of photos, many of them blurry, most of them shot in bursts).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The Lightroom Classic Setup<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    For both shoots, I imported the images normally into Lightroom Classic and then started the analysis by opening the Assisted Culling panel in the Library module. While Lightroom ran its analysis, I chose my selection criteria. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    For the portrait session:<\/p>\n\n\n\n