Photon Star
2010 February 11LOCATION: SECTOR 001 STARDATE: 11002.11 MISSION: "PROJECT FLOWRATE" OBJECTIVE: ENSURE PHOTON STAR READY FOR CIVILIZATION.
Photon Star lets you rate pictures with a surprisingly efficient workflow. Use your Mac's remote control or keyboard to enjoy rating photos from an iPhoto album. Just give thumbs up or down in each rating stage: up promotes a photo to the next stage, down holds the photo for that rating level.
Working through multiple stages might sound slow, but the consistent up/down decision brings you into a great flow. (Calf Trail can't claim full credit for this — the idea was inspired by part of this blog post by a fellow who makes some great Flickr tools for the Mac.) There are a few other workflows hidden in Photon Star, but this simple method remained our favorite.
Photon Star is still in beta, although you can already buy it at a discounted "early bird" price. Please try the demo and let us know what you think!