Saw a guy demo an AI photo editor at Fry's Electronics back in 2017 and it changed how I edit everything

It was at the old Fry's in Palo Alto. Some random vendor booth. He loaded up a blurry shot of a bird and the AI just... fixed it. Removed noise, sharpened the feathers, added detail that wasn't there. Blew my mind. I had been spending hours in Lightroom manually dodging and burning. That one demo got me to switch to AI denoising and upscaling for all my wildlife photos. Has anyone else had a random demo totally change their workflow?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_max1mo ago

Makes sense that it clicked for you, but I actually went the other way after a similar demo. I tried one of those AI sharpeners and found it fabricating details that weren't there, like adding extra branches that changed the whole composition of the shot. For me, that little bit of fakery made me double down on manual editing, even if it takes twice as long.

dixon.iris1mo agoMost Upvoted

Right, because who needs actual reality when you can have AI-suggested trees growing out of your subject's head? I swear, half these tools are just trying to turn my landscape photos into a fantasy novel cover without asking first.

matthewmartin29d ago

Stick with what works for you, that's the main thing. I had a similar demo with an AI sharpener and it did add garbage to my shots sometimes, but I learned which settings to dial back so it only cleans the noise without inventing new stuff. Found a middle ground that saves me hours and still keeps the photos looking real.