Adobe Sensei Changes your Selfies to Professional Looking Shots

There isn't a lot of information about this Adobe App and whether this technology will be added to the desktop software yet, just that it's called Sensei and they have this video to show its potential. It uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to make your selfie or basic smartphone photo look like it was taken by someone who knew what they were doing. It can change the image to look more like it was taken with a professional lens, from a distance that is more common in portrait photography, and, to a degree, you can change the direction and angle of where the image was taken from. 

Portrait masking allows you to blur out the background and get some eye pleasing bokeh, which isn't currently something you can do on a smartphone. It can also use color styles of images you find online and it will apply it to your selfie. This seems to be using the technology Adobe developed with the Cornell University

We don't know when this app and technology will become available, but it's an interesting peek into the future of what our mobile phones will be able to do. For us portrait photographers, we're going to have to up our game.

[Via thenextweb.com]

Wouter du Toit's picture

Wouter is a portrait and street photographer based in Paris, France. He's originally from Cape Town, South Africa. He does image retouching for clients in the beauty and fashion industry and enjoys how technology makes new ways of photography possible.

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8 Comments

re: "For us portrait photographers, we're going to have to up our game." oh no you don't. you just need to buy a bigger phone case and download this app and charge your clients double for your new skillz. ps: we should all troll adobe with job ads for 'professional phone photography portrait sittings'

You've made me laugh. Skillz and a bigger phone case. The gear you need to be successful.

Where is the Adobe research to make Lightroom faster and better??

This looks nice, but Adobe must work hard for other new products like Adobe Experience (XD), etc. etc.... because every 6 months they release new product full of bugs and for the rest 2 years is in alpha release with no updates at all... What's the point?

"... make it appear as if the picture was captured from a distance of more traditional portrait shot."

I've actual found that people are becoming so used to "selfie" aesthetics, clients will sometimes prefer wide-angle portraits shot close. One client said that it "has more personality".

Go figure.

I suppose the selfie-trend has conditioned us to think of it as the normal portrait, the way someone must be photographed.

This is just the very front-end of what Sensei will bring. For me it will get exciting when Sensei is embedded in Lightroom or Bridge, allowing me to search an entire catalog or series of local hard-drives and have image tags added based on colours, subject, mood etc.

...which is already how Sensei is being used on Adobe Stock for searches. It's only a matter or time before that power comes to the desktop.