Impossible Things is new software that uses artificial intelligence to determine the subject of an image and do complex adjustments automatically. The best parts about the software are that it's incredibly easy to use and it works inside of Lightroom. The downside is that you have to pay for every image you run through the software.
Impossible Things is not for every type of photographer. It basically can make the same adjustments a person can make in 10 to 30 seconds, automatically. If you have to edit a single shot, it would literally take you more time to open the application than it would for you to make the adjustments yourself. But, if you have hundreds or thousands of photographs to edit (like wedding and event photographers have to deal with) Impossible things might be perfect for you.
Let's say it takes you 15 seconds to edit an image and you have 1,000 images to go through. That works out to over four hours. Impossible Things can do it for you for $.06/image ($60). Would you pay $60 to have four hours of your life back? The answer for most event photographers is yes.
As you can see in the video above, the software is simple, fast, and much better than Lightroom's automatic options. That being said, it's still not perfect and will require one more manual pass before delivery. For this reason, photographers shooting only a few events a month may prefer to continue to do everything manually, but photographers shooting multiple events per week will probably see more value in the extra time savings.
I'm excited to see how Impossible Things and other AI-based software improve in the coming months. In the very near future, software like this will do a better job than a human, and when that happens, we are in trouble.
I simply don’t get why people are pursuing AI that will one day destroy all human input and human creativity, not to mention put billions of people in the creative industry around the world out of a job. I’m talking across the creative industry as a whole and not just photography. Humankind can be really damaging at times.
to put it very simply, it's evolution. If it didn't happen, we'd still have giant factories depending on manpower to produce all sorts of stuff. Look at how Ford built the T model and how Tesla makes its cars.
So AI that can recreate perfect photographs, write novels, write film scripts and write and perform music and put so many people out of a job is evolution? I’m simply talking about the creative industry, which revolves around human creativity and imagination, not factory machines making cars. What will be the point in removing the human creative element, just to have content created by a few algorithms? Save money for advertisers but billions of people will no longer be able to use their creativity to earn a living or create photographs, films etc for the enjoyment of others.
Sam Sims Lightroom and digital cameras put a ton of film processing shops out of business. Final Cut Pro and Avid put film editing shops out of business. Photography itself allows us to make a realistic image with the click of a button when, before photography, it took a skilled painter to do so. But, creativity lives on. There will be people who buy and enjoy AI made photos, art and literature. There will also be people who want to know the artist who made their art.... There are already thousands of mass replicated photos/paintings of Venice, Italy. And they sell, quite well. But, there's still that painter who has his little gallery in Venice that people buy from-- because they met the artist. He's from Venice. He has a little shop that they stumbled on while wandering through the little alleyways of the city. They remember asking him about how he made the painting. They feel a connection to it. This will likely be the case for decades more, if not centuries. AI will have it's place. So will creativity.
i understand you're defending the future of a lot of people. But if you leave out the personal feeling and stick to the rational side, you'll understand this is a train you cannot stop.
All I hope is AI won’t eventually take away the creativity, enjoyment and for some people a career in creating art. A future where algorithms replace the arts sounds very bleak.
it's a scary future for creativity, i fully agree with you.
I agree, but I also suspect that people were saying something similar when the printing press was created (this will destroy the creativity of calligraphers) or automation (mankind will grow lazy if we don't have to make flour from hand and we use machines to make it).
It might be as simple as we now are going to have to be photographers that know how to use automation and AI and those will succeed while those who don't, won't.
Alan Bailward, Stoopy McPheenis, Pedro Pulido .. I think these are all great points. I've always thought that photographers need to embrace new technology and use it to improve their work and/or their lifestyles.
Regardless of how technology changes, the keys to success will still remain the same:
1) Focusing on the full client experience (good communication, exceeding expectations, developing a relationship, understanding their true needs/desires).
2) Posing - AI still has a hard time fixing a bad pose or expression convincingly.
3) Compositions - AI can't efficiently and convincingly manipulate a bad composition into a good/creative one.
And at the end of the day, clients still want realism. They don't want to be transported to the Eiffel Tower when their shoot was in their backyard.
Interesting application, but the business model will drive people away. It seems that its primary goal is to analyze an image and effectively generate more intelligent auto settings for lightroom to use. The main issue is that this is a type of product that will likely end up being replaced by something that will be a "free" feature within lightroom, considering that Adobe already added AI detection of people and object detection, as well as background detection.
The next step in that process is making their "Auto" function individually adjust various parts of the image.
Hi Naruto Uzumaki ... I agree that Lightroom will continue to improve their auto features and functionality. However, the biggest thing they will likely struggle with is artistry and style. In other words, what they consider "correct" will get better; but will that align with the artist's tastes and overall aesthetics? Will they ever get to a point where their AI can get you to the dreamy, filmic look of Jose Villa? Or the bold, impactful vibe of Two Mann Studios?
This is where there will likely always be a significant gap ... because what is technically correct isn't necessarily what a professional photographer wants to deliver to their client or show in their portfolio.
If I'm wrong, then this (and the other AI photo editors) will likely all be out of business. But in the meantime, this is still be the best solution.
Adobe doesn't seem to be focused on implementing auto with a target style, thus that is definitely an advantage of the AI program where I don't see Adobe replacing anytime soon.
Beyond that, the AI seems to be doing rather well from the video. The main issue though is the business model, basically turning common functions into microtransactions, since it is entering a market where customers are used to spending $80 for an AI plugin where they ban batch process thousands of images with no additional cost, Or buying a video card, and getting to use the sub 100MB AI upscaler in the Nvidia drivers (trained on petabytes of content) to upscale games and video.
That will limit how people can use it. for example, if a user could run the software locally without incurring a per image fee, they could batch process thousands of images in multiple styles and examine which option results in the best look.
On the other hand, with a per image charge, it essentially imposes a financial penalty to experiment with different styles.
There are many concerns about submitting your software to AI or any other software as a service. Beyond the normal copyright issue, I would imagine that the AI algorithm would be cataloging your images for future use. They call training the AI. Thus I would not be surprised if concepts found in the images that have been submitted showed up in somebody else's images as part of the “improvement” or “fix" process.
The money is in the data, and if you willingly submit it to the cloud for analysis you might also be giving up certain rights. Beyond that they could be use three images to catalog, location, facial, recognition, etc.. It could be used to sell to a competitor, market to your clients, even track your habits, patterns, equipment and proceess. Wouldn't be surprised to get an inquiry from Sigma on potential future sales if I used Sigma lenses.
I'm not saying this is necessarily bad, but people willingly give up their IP and meta data to save time. I would definitely have to see the service contract, but I would never be able to determine if they used any component of my pictures on somebody else’s work.
Hi Terry Trippany ... Impossible Things only stores anonymized data and even then, it's limited to the bare minimum required to make improvements to the system. None of the images are stored in the cloud since it's 100% Lightroom native (images aren't uploaded anywhere).
I’m talking about AI in general. Even anonymized data can become part of a catalog of some data set. It could be Mona Lisa’s smile or Monet’s brush strokes.
We are already seeing what I am talking about in action with AI generated content. Photography is not immune to this.
It actually isn’t AI if it’s just applying a built in algorithm to tweak things like exposure, luminance and perspective. AI by its very nature is a combination of data analytics, and algorithmic improvement. AI can modify/improve its own algorithmic application through machine learning techniques.
I’m not knocking the technology at all as I work in the field. It looks great. Anything that can save me hours in my workflow is worth the look. Savings a shot that was lost is very cool. Just pointing out that people need to be mindful of AI’s potential for misuse.
Fact is I often make several great images from a single shot. Different versions that just look great. There are variations in how you treat the same original, Sometimes a mistake makes for a eye opening surprise. If you're simply into mass processing then so what. It's production work. Who cares if the software is a one click for a homogenized product. A useful tool is still a good thing. There is the auto setting on many devices. I use it sometimes when it makes sense. The rest of the time I am creating things I enjoy and for special people. AI is never going to do that. But don't throw it out with the bath water, as with everything else surprises will come with it. I'm excited... you should be too.