The equipment and software we use are getting smarter and smarter every day. It’s amazing what our cameras can do today. And with the latest rounds of updates of Adobe software, we see the addition of artificial intelligence. The latest versions of Lightroom and Photoshop can literally learn how to best edit our images.
This was just a grab shot from our van during a workshop. On the light table, it looks pretty bland - and it's not a spectacular image. But this is the result of simply clicking the "Auto" button on the Basic panel in the Develop module of Lightroom. There is no other processing done.
What was fodder for science fiction only a few years ago, is now integrated into the mainstream of image editing software. For example, a feature enhancement in the latest Lightroom version - which would go unnoticed by most - is now powered by artificial intelligence (AI). The Enhanced “Auto” feature will automatically apply the best edits to your photos.
This is just one of more than 50 features across all of Adobe’s products to use Adobe Sensei, a technology that powers intelligent features using artificial intelligence and machine learning. The enhancements are not just based on your own image, but determined by an underlying neural net that has been trained with thousands of professionally shot and manually edited photos.
Adobe Sensei draws from massive volumes of content and data assets and decades of creative experience at Adobe.
I’m sure that some will click the Auto button and be totally unimpressed with the results. But remember, Adobe Sensei is in its infancy. As it learns more an more, the modifications will be honed and results will get better and better.
You really are witnessing a fundamental change in image processing and I’m confident that in the future we’ll look back at this time and realize that this was a significant milestone in the development of image processing systems.