diff --git a/dreambooth/utils/image_utils.py b/dreambooth/utils/image_utils.py
index 197088bd..6525240f 100644
--- a/dreambooth/utils/image_utils.py
+++ b/dreambooth/utils/image_utils.py
@@ -255,16 +255,15 @@ def process_tags(caption: str, shuffle_tags: bool, drop_p: float, skip_first: bo
     tags = [t.strip() for t in caption.split(',')]
     if skip_first:
         first_tag = tags.pop(0)
-    if shuffle_tags:
-        random.shuffle(tags)
     if drop_p > 0:
         # Randomly drop more tags if there are a lot of tags in the image
         tag_cap = random.randint(10, 30)
-        if len(tags) > tag_cap:
-            drop_p = 1 - (1 - drop_p) * tag_cap / len(tags)
+        drop_p = max(drop_p, 1 - tag_cap / len(tags))
             
         tags = [t for t in tags if random.random() >= drop_p]
-    if skip_first:
+    if shuffle_tags:
+        random.shuffle(tags)
+    if skip_first and first_tag != "*" and not first_tag in tags:
         tags.insert(0, first_tag)
     output = ', '.join(tags)
     return output