If you’re like me, you love shooting in RAW for the image quality — but hate dealing with the massive file sizes that come with it. My Fujifilm X-T5 RAW files average around 83MB each, and when you shoot hundreds of images in a session, that storage adds up fast.

That’s why I finally put together a workflow for quickly culling photos — deleting the out-of-focus or unusable ones — using just a game controller and two pieces of software: XnView MP and Xpadder. Here’s how you can do it too.

When you’re working with large batches of RAW photos, especially high-resolution files, loading previews and rating shots with a mouse becomes a slow, frustrating task. I wanted something faster and more comfortable — and since I already had a controller lying around, I decided to put it to work.

This is a powerful image viewer that supports RAW previews, ratings, metadata editing, and even XMP sidecars — essential for Lightroom users.

Xpadder lets you map your controller buttons to keyboard inputs. I bought it years ago, and it still works great on Windows.

This open-source option works similarly, but it’s a bit clunkier to set up. I may do a tutorial on it if there’s enough interest.

🎮 D-Pad: Navigation and Zoom

• Right: → (Next photo)

• Left: ← (Previous photo)

• Up: + (Zoom in)

• Down: - (Zoom out)

🎮 Face Buttons: Rating with EXIF Tags

These keys correspond to XnView’s internal rating system:

• A: Ctrl + 5 (★★★★★)

• X: Ctrl + 4 (★★★★)

• Y: Ctrl + 3 (★★★)

• B: Ctrl + 2 (★★)

I skip 1-star ratings — if it’s that bad, I’m just going to delete it.

🎮 Shoulder Buttons

• Right Bumper (RB): Delete key (to remove the image)

• Right Trigger (RT): Enter (confirm deletion)

This lets me navigate, zoom, rate, and delete photos — all without touching the keyboard. It’s a game-changer (pun intended).

Once everything is set up, just load a folder of RAW files in XnView, pick up your controller, and start flipping through your images. Zoom in to check sharpness, assign ratings, or delete the obviously bad shots.

You should start seeing .xmp sidecar files next to your images. When you import them into Lightroom (or another supported editor), the ratings will carry over automatically.

To make sure your ratings are saved in a way that Lightroom or other editors can read, you’ll need to enable XMP sidecar support in XnView.

🛠️ Steps:

1. Open XnView MP and press F12 (or go to Tools > Settings).

2. Go to Metadata in the sidebar.

3. Under the Export section:

   • ✅ Enable “Export XMP for rating, color label, and categories”

4. Under the Sidecar section:

   • ✅ Enable “Create or update XMP sidecar”

   • ✅ Enable “Update master file”

5. Make sure the format is set to filename.xmp — this is the format Lightroom expects.

This setup has streamlined my culling process dramatically. I can now breeze through a session and keep only the best photos — all from the comfort of my couch (or rolling chair).

If you’ve got a better alternative to Xpadder, or you’ve figured out how to use analog sticks to pan inside XnView, let me know in the comments — I’d love to try it out.

Thanks for reading, and happy shooting!