Are we thinking WRONG about AI Editing?

My last two videos had ChatGPT editing my photographs, first in Lightroom, where it went through a folder of my own edited pictures, worked out my style and then edited a raw file the way I would, and then in Photoshop, where it used Photoshop's own tools to remove a colour cast, add a long exposure effect to a sky and do a cutout, hair included.

In both of them it didn't generate a new picture. It moved the same sliders and used the same tools that you and I would, and every one of those adjustments was still there to change afterwards.

The comments on those videos have been brilliant and they've really made me think, but one kept coming up in different words, and the gist of it was this: so now every picture is going to look like yours.

When you watch what ChatGPT is doing in those videos, it's an understandable thing to think. I just don't think it's right, so rather than argue about it, I decided to test it, and the video above is the result.

Putting it to the test

I gave ChatGPT a folder of my portraits, with my edits on them, and asked it to work out how I edit. Then I gave it the raw file of a portrait I'd already edited myself and asked it to edit that in my style.

I'm not going to go through what I did to mine; the two results are side by side in the video, so have a look and see if you can tell which is which before I give it away.

Here's the thing, though. Whichever one you prefer, they both look like one of my portraits, and that's not because of the edit, it's because I took the picture. Everything that makes it look like one of mine happened before the shutter was pressed, and ChatGPT had none of that to work with; it just had my raw file.

The edit is the icing on the cake

The edit is the part of the process we can see on screen, so it's easy to think that's what makes a picture yours, but it's only one part of a much bigger process. I really enjoy editing, and it gives a picture its final look, but for me it's the icing on the cake.

The big part is what goes on between my ears: how I think about a picture before I take it and how I compose it. With a portrait, it's how the person looks in front of the camera and whether they're relaxed or not. With a seascape, it's what goes in the frame and what doesn't.

None of that is in the edit, so even if somebody had the exact colouring, contrast and tonality I use, their pictures still wouldn't look like mine. They'd look like theirs, with my colouring on them.

We can all buy the same kit, spend the same money on the same camera and lens, stand in exactly the same spot and point it at the same thing, and the pictures still won't look the same. There'll be something in each one that's uniquely yours, because of what you like and what you don't, how you were brought up and everything you've looked at over the years. All of that goes into a photograph, and none of it comes out of an edit.

An opinion, or a misunderstanding?

People have their own opinions about AI, and that's a good thing; having an opinion is part of being human, not something artificial. Sometimes an opinion just isn't right, though, and I know that sounds a strange thing to say. The idea that everybody's pictures are going to end up looking the same isn't really an opinion at all. It's a misunderstanding of what photography is.

Using the software, not replacing the picture

That's also why the way ChatGPT did those edits interests me so much. There's a difference between asking an AI to generate a new version of your picture and having it use the same software you and I would. When a picture's generated, you hand it over and get a new one back. When the AI works the sliders and the masks itself, you get your own raw file back at full quality, with every adjustment still there to change.

It's a bit like the difference between someone redrawing your picture and someone sitting next to you showing you what they did with it. Both have their place, but they're very different things.

Two very different photographers

Where it gets interesting is who all of this is for, because there are definitely two different audiences. Take Adobe as an example. On one side they've got working photographers, people with clients and deadlines, editing a shoot with hundreds of pictures that all need the same look. On the other they've got enthusiasts, people who take pictures because they just love doing it.

For the working photographer, imagine being able to hand an AI an actual part of your process. I don't mean something that makes a new picture; I mean something that applies the same look to a whole set of images inside the software, moving the sliders and making the masks without touching the originals, so you can go in and change whatever you want afterwards. That could be a massive time saver.

The hobbyist is a different story, because for them editing isn't a job to get through. They go out and take their pictures because they enjoy it, then come home and edit them with no rush at all, sitting in a room with a bit of music on and maybe a nice glass of something. For them the editing is part of the thing they love, and a one-click fix isn't for them.

However, some of what AI brings is. The Remove Tool in Photoshop has been a massive benefit; jobs that used to take an age now take moments. Anything that helps with selections, hair and fine cutouts especially, is going to be a huge help as well. None of that takes the enjoyment away. It takes away the tedious bits and leaves more time for the parts you actually enjoy.

How I use it

I use AI every single day, for the admin, the research and the writing that goes with running everything on my own. I'm a one-man band, so that's a lot of work it takes off my desk, and I'm not worried in the slightest that other people's pictures are going to look like mine.

What it gives me is time, and that matters to me more than anything, because I absolutely love doing what I do. I got into this creative world because I love being creative, and I love the freedom of it and the escapism it gives me. I don't want anything to replace that. If anything I want more of it, which is exactly how I'm using AI; it takes care of the jobs I'd rather not be doing and gives me back more time with a camera in my hand.

The mood of the moment

When I gave ChatGPT my Lightroom and Photoshop to use, it didn't edit my pictures exactly the way I would. It can pick up the things I tend to do, but when I'm editing I'm very much in the mood of the moment, chopping and changing as I go, and that freedom of just going with it is a big part of why I enjoy editing at all. AI doesn't know the mood or the feeling I want to give a particular picture, and creating that is what I've always loved.

The Photoshop side was different, because those were tasks. The colour cast, the sky and the hair cutout were jobs where I knew what the finished result needed to be, and what I found really interesting was the thought of handing those kinds of tasks to an AI to do by hand, using the software the same way I would, so I've got more time for the creative side. It was an experiment, but it's certainly one that's got me thinking.

Winchester, History and a Brilliant Worldwide Photo Walk

On Saturday the 3rd October I led the Winchester walk for this year's Worldwide Photo Walk, sponsored by Adobe, and what an amazing day it turned out to be.

An early start and a proper breakfast

I arrived early with my wife Anne and my great friend Brian Dukes, and we sat down for a bit of breakfast before anything got going, and from there it was over to the Guildhall to meet everyone. The turnout was great, with more people turning up on the day than had registered, which is just so good to see. We got everyone together outside for a group photo and then we were off on the walk.

A little bit of planning

Ahead of the day I'd put together a PDF for everyone with points of interest, a bit of a route, some safety notices and the refreshment breaks, along with my phone number should anybody go astray.

The plan was a loop of about a mile and a half from the Guildhall, down past King Alfred's statue to the City Mill, along the Weirs by the River Itchen, past Wolvesey Castle and up through Kingsgate and the Cathedral Close, before heading back along the High Street by the Buttercross. None of it is complicated, but when you've got a big group spreading out along narrow streets and riverside paths, it helps everyone to know there's a rough plan, somewhere to grab a coffee and a number to ring if you wander off chasing a shot.

My favourite capture from the day taken with my Fujifilm X100 VI fited with a 1/8th Black Mist Filter

So much history

What a fabulous location Winchester is; the whole place was just fantastic, with so much history everywhere you point a camera. We didn't go inside the cathedral, but we spent some time outside taking pictures, and it's just an amazing building.

One of the lovely things about the day was having people in the group who were local, because they could point us in the direction of certain things we'd otherwise have walked straight past. That's the sort of thing you can't put in a PDF, and it made a real difference.

Three hours that flew by

It was just so good to see so many people out on a glorious day, chatting and taking photos and really clearly enjoying themselves. Three hours flew by.

Food, bikes and a bit of Lightroom

Afterwards we headed for some food at the South Downs Social, a bike-themed café in Winchester, and we all gathered together on tables upstairs. We talked about the day and what everyone's up to, but we also went through a little bit of Lightroom editing on the mobile phone, which felt like the right way to round things off; you've just spent a morning taking the photos, so it's nice to sit down together and see what you can do with them.

It was just a fantastic day. Winchester is definitely a location I'm going to go back to, and the day was so successful and felt so good and positive that it makes me want to go out and do more of these.

Thank you

A huge thank you to everybody that came along. Here's just a selection of some of the photos from the day, and I'm also posting my keeper image as well.

Landscape vs Wildlife Photography: What Changes? | Ben Kapur

Sunday Night Live is back, and I couldn't have asked for a better guest to start the new series than my friend Ben Kapur. The replay is above, and here's a flavour of what we talked about.

I've only known Ben for a few months. We met on the Wex Summer Roadshow, where Ben was filming all the promo, and it was our mutual friend Mark Baber who introduced us. It turned out we live about fifteen minutes from each other and had no idea, and after a five hour drive up to Manchester together that felt like twenty minutes because we didn't stop talking, we've been good friends ever since.

Failing photography, and what came next

Ben grew up in Lyme Regis, and like a lot of us he started out with a GoPro at around 14, filming mountain biking and jumping into the sea. When it came to choosing his AS levels, photography was the only option left that wasn't biology or chemistry, so he took it, then dropped out in year 13 and, in his words, failed it.

He told us he could never get his head round aperture, shutter speed and ISO back then, and the structure of the course didn't help, because just as he was starting to understand what an ND filter did for a long exposure, they'd moved on to something else.

The best bit is what happened years later. Ben's younger brother went to the same school, and his tutor turned out to be Ben's old photography teacher, who asked what Ben was up to now. When he heard Ben was a full-time photographer, his answer was that there was no way. I'll be honest, I loved that.

Photography properly took hold when Ben was 19 and met his fiancée Primrose, an actor and influencer who needed photos for her blog and Instagram, and whose dad is a photographer as well. Taking her pictures got him behind a camera regularly, and living on the Jurassic Coast did the rest, because when you've got compositions like that on your doorstep, landscape photography is hard to resist.

The Storm of Storr

In 2020 Ben won [FILL IN: the competition's exact name, it came up on the night as Scotland's Photo of the Year] with a picture he called the Storm of Storr, and the story behind it is a good one.

It was February 2020, just before lockdown, and Ben and his friend Paul had driven up to the Old Man of Storr on the Isle of Skye. It's about an hour's walk up to the viewpoint, and it was raining at the bottom and snowing further up. Paul sensibly sheltered behind a rock, but Ben carried on over the brow of the hill into sideways snow and something like 70 mile an hour winds.

He lasted a couple of minutes before deciding it was daft to be up there on his own, and on the way back down, with the snow freezing to his glasses so he could barely see, he just kept the camera pointed at the Old Man with the autofocus on and fired away. That's the frame that won.

He was shooting on a Lumix S1R at the time, back when he was a Panasonic ambassador; something he gets a bit of stick for, having changed systems a few times since. I'm hardly in a position to comment on that, and as I said on the night, it's about what's fit for purpose.

Kingfishers, and a lens that's older than you'd think

Wildlife is where Ben switches off, and right now that means kingfishers. His idea of a day off is getting up early to go and photograph them, which I completely understand; a follower once told him to leave the camera at home on holiday, and as Ben said, he'd rather book a trip somewhere beautiful and take it with him.

What I really like is how he talks about wildlife sharpening everything else he does. You never know what you're going to get, and with something as quick as a kingfisher you can't be fumbling around for settings, so knowing the camera inside out becomes second nature, and that carries straight into his client work.

He's moved from Sony to Canon, now using the EOS R5 Mark II and the C50, and for the kingfishers he's using the older Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II, adapted onto the R5 Mark II. He tried it, along with an EF 400mm f/2.8, when Dave, one of the photographers on one of his workshops, brought them along, and he couldn't see any difference in the autofocus compared with a native lens. For something like a third or a quarter of the price of the new RF version, he's getting the look that only a long prime gives you.

He also showed us a clip of a kingfisher landing and shaking off the water, caught with the R5 Mark II's pre-record. He hadn't pressed record when the bird came in; he pressed it afterwards, and the camera had kept the five seconds before. If you've ever sat waiting for something to arrive with the camera recording the whole time, you'll see why that's such a big deal.

Golden eagles at minus 35

Last December Ben went to Sweden with Jack Lodge, [FILL IN: check the spelling, Rhiannon Lawler?] and Paul, looking for golden eagles from hides built by Conny Lundström, who has spent years photographing them. With two brilliant wildlife photographers already there, Ben decided to shoot video instead, and the short film he made, which we played on the night, was shot in a single afternoon at minus 35.

He edits everything himself in DaVinci Resolve, and he made a point I think a lot of photographers will recognise; you can create so much emotion with video and music. He came back to the cabin that night feeling sorry for those eagles, out in that barren landscape trying to find food, and that's what he cut the film to show.

Video is now most of what Ben does, and he describes himself as a videographer and photographer, in that order. Automotive work makes up a big part of it, with clients including Carwow and work for Ferrari through Joe Hayes at Kindle Creative, and he doesn't niche; he does everything and anything, which is clearly working for him.

Speak to people

Two pieces of advice from Ben stood out. The first was about honeypot locations. He's shot the Cobb hundreds of times, and his view is that the conditions are never the same twice, so go and shoot Durdle Door or Corfe Castle as often as you like, because you're learning every time.

The second was his one piece of advice for anyone starting out, which was simply to speak to people. Ask the photographers you look up to how they did something, and ask if you can tag along. After one of his talks on the Wex Roadshow, a young woman asked him about getting into wedding photography; Ben happened to be shooting a wedding near her that weekend, so with the couple's blessing he invited her along to shoot alongside him, and she's since launched her own website and is booking weddings of her own.

When I asked what he'd tell his 14 year old self, his first answer was to buy Bitcoin. His proper answer was not to give up. Not long after the Storr picture, YouTube and brand work had turned photography into a chore, and he stepped away from it for six months while working in an office job.

He said he feels lucky to be doing what he does now, and I pushed back on that a little, because I don't think luck has much to do with it. Ben's out with a camera most mornings before most people are up, and given what that teacher told him, keeping going is advice he's clearly already taken.

You'll find Ben on Instagram and YouTube as:
youtube.com/benkapur
@benkapurphoto

ChatGPT Can Now ACTUALLY Use Photoshop, and It's Impressive

ChatGPT can now take control of your computer, moving the mouse, clicking and typing its way through a job the way you would, and the question I've been asked the most about it is whether it can use Photoshop. I've been testing it, and yes, it can.

What makes it interesting is that it isn't generating a new picture. It's working inside Photoshop with the same tools you and I use, which means everything it does is left as layers and masks you can go back into and adjust yourself, at full quality.

To see how far it could go, I gave it three jobs on three different pictures: fixing a colour cast, creating a long exposure sky, and cutting out hair, which is the thing I get asked about more than anything else in Photoshop.

How it works

I'm using ChatGPT 6 Astra on the high setting, in the Work section of the app. I type out what I want in plain language, send it, and it replies with what it intends to do. The first time it needs to use the computer it asks for permission, I click allow, and from then on it's hands off; I just sit back and watch it work.

With each job I asked it to keep everything non-destructive and editable, and not to save the file, just leave it as layers. You can see everything it does as it does it, and you can stop it at any point.

Fixing a colour cast

The first picture was a portrait of a biker with a definite colour cast, a slightly green and magenta look to it. I asked ChatGPT to look at the image, decide for itself which tools to use, and give me a neutral result.

It added a Curves adjustment layer, worked on the individual red, green and blue channels, and set the layer's blend mode to Color so that it only changed the colour and left the brightness and contrast alone, which is a genuinely sensible way to do it. The original background layer was untouched.

Turning the layer off and on, the cast was gone. It's not too bad at all, and I was quite impressed with that.

A long exposure sky

For the second one I wanted to step it up and see whether it could create an effect rather than make a correction. The picture was of my car on a very wet, stormy day, and I asked for the look of a ten second long exposure, with fast moving clouds coming over the top of us.

What really caught my attention was that it used the same technique I use for this myself. It selected the sky, put it onto its own layer, then converted that layer to a Smart Object before applying a Radial Blur, so the filter stays editable afterwards, which I thought was really clever.

Better still, it moved the centre of the blur. By default a Radial Blur spreads out from the middle of the picture, but ChatGPT pulled that point right down to the bottom, so the blur looks as if it's coming from the horizon and the clouds are streaming towards you. That's exactly the thinking you'd want.

I did have to stop it at the very end, because it was trying to save the file, but the effect itself was done.

Cutting out hair

The last job was the hardest, and the one I was most intrigued by. It's a picture of my friend Simon from a Viking shoot, on a grey background, but with lots of fine, loose flyaway hairs and fur cuffs on what he's wearing. I asked for the best cutout it could manage, body, hair and everything as one, output as a layer mask so it stays editable.

Watching this one was fascinating. It went into Select and Mask and used the Refine Edge Brush around the hair, and it kept switching the view mode to check its own work. At one point it reported that the fine strands were coming through, but that the black preview was showing grey left between the looser locks, so it went back to work on those and the fur before checking the final mask. Right at the end it even renamed the layer, which is maybe something all of us could learn from.

The result is a pretty good job. It picked up a lot of the fine hairs, it's a little smudgy in places, and there's some transparency through the fur. To judge it properly I put a solid colour fill layer behind Simon, a sky blue rather than anything too different from the grey he was photographed against.

The transparency in the fur is easily fixed. Duplicate the layer with its mask (Command or Ctrl + J) and the density builds up, then brush out any areas where the background starts to show through.

Doing the heavy lifting

It isn't perfect, and I don't expect this to be the end point, but as a way of doing the heavy lifting so you can go in and do the fine tuning yourself, it's pretty impressive. The colour correction was very good, the long exposure was really well done, and the hair cutout, the hardest of the three by some distance, was far better than I expected.

This is also the worst and the slowest it's ever going to be, given how quickly all of this is moving. I'll be doing a lot more testing, and one of the things I want to try is whether it can write down the steps it takes and grab screenshots as it goes, so you could almost create your own tutorials from it.

I Let ChatGPT Edit My Photos in Lightroom

The photograph in the video above was edited from start to finish in Lightroom, and I didn't make a single one of the adjustments. ChatGPT did. It used my Lightroom, moved the sliders, made the masks and took the picture from a slightly underexposed raw file to a finished edit, in my style.

ChatGPT has been able to use your computer for a while now. You give it permission and it takes over the mouse and keyboard and works through a job the way you would, opening apps, clicking and typing, and you can see everything it does as it does it and stop it at any point. With the recent update to Astra it's taken a real step up, which got me wondering whether it could actually edit a photograph. I don't mean generate a new picture; I mean sit inside Lightroom and edit a raw file with the same tools I use, and learn to do it the way I would.

Teaching it my style

The first job was getting it to understand how I edit. In Lightroom I set up an album called My Seascape Style with 11 of my images in it. Some still have their adjustments visible, masks included, so it could see exactly what I'd done. Others have the edit baked in, because I'd sent them over to Photoshop for some heavy lifting and brought them back, so there's nothing in the panels to look at, only the finished picture.

I used GPT-6 Astra with the effort level set to high. Day to day I find medium is plenty, but for studying my edits I wanted it to do an extra good job, even though it takes longer.

Then I told it what I wanted, dictated rather than typed because it's quicker. Look at every image in the album, study the adjustments, the masking, the detail and the colour grading, and try to understand not only what I'd done but why. For the images with nothing visible in the panels, study the mood and the atmosphere and the tonality instead, and work out what I'd have done to get there.

As soon as I sent it, ChatGPT asked for permission to use Adobe Lightroom, and I allowed it for that conversation. From then on you can watch it working away on its own, opening images and panels and looking around.

Watching it work

What really interested me was how far it went. It dived into the masking and looked at how I'd masked the rocks in the foreground and the adjustments I'd used to bring them out, which is exactly the kind of fiddly detail I'd half expected it to skip.

It posts updates as it goes, and part way through it had noticed that I recover the highlights and open up the shadows, then bring the depth back with control over the black point and selective detail. It had even picked up that I use one film-style profile for the warmer, pastel pictures and a different one for the cooler surf shots.

The whole thing took 11 minutes and 30 seconds. At the end it said it had reviewed the adjustments across all 11 images, including 27 local masks, saved an image-by-image reference of my style, and, thankfully, left my images unchanged.

Handing it a raw file

For the edit itself I picked an unedited raw file from the Local tab in Lightroom, a seascape that was slightly underexposed, which felt like a fair test. I told it to edit the image in my style using everything available in Lightroom, including the masking, the colour grading and denoise, then sat back with my arms folded to prove I wasn't touching anything.

When it finished, it described what it had done as my pastel seascape treatment: pink and lavender grading, cool water, deep textured rocks and luminous foam. The edit included four separate masks, denoise, selective sharpening, a custom tone curve, subtle grain and a vignette, plus a horizon correction.

What it actually did

Going through the Edit panel, it had chosen a profile and made adjustments right through the Light section. In the curve it had done one of the things I love to do, which is lift the blacks so they aren't a deep zero black, and it did that on a point curve. It used the colour mixer, and in the colour grading it worked on the shadows and midtones as well as the blending and balance. It used denoise too, and it built all those masks.

Hand on heart, that's pretty much how I would have edited it. I wouldn't leave it exactly as it is, I'd go in and tweak a few things, but it got me about 90% of the way there in roughly 10 minutes.

Try it with your own photos

If you'd like to give this a go, the detailed prompt I used is free to download. Head over to the classroom in my free Photography Community on Skool and you'll find it under YouTube download files:

https://www.skool.com/photography-community/about

Where this leaves us

There's been a lot of resistance to letting AI edit our photographs, and for good reason. When it generates the picture for you the quality drops, at the moment anyway, and you can't go back in and adjust what it's done. This is very different; it's using my software to make the same manual adjustments I'd make to my own raw files, at full quality, and every one of them can still be changed.

It's not something I'd do myself, because editing is a big part of how I make a picture mine and I just love the process. However, if you're new to editing and don't know where to start, or you know what you want but not how to get there, this is a bit like having someone who's really good with Lightroom sit next to you and show you what they'd do. You can watch every move it makes and undo any of them, and I think there's real potential in that as a way of learning.

Capture to Print: One-Light Complete Portrait Workflow

For the past three months I've been touring with Wex Photo Video around the UK on their Summer Roadshow, showing how I take portraits with minimal kit in limited space. I came away with portraits I'm really happy with from every date, but there was one look in particular I was asked about more than any other, so I asked my friend Michael if he'd sit for me and we went outside with one small flash to make it again.

The video above goes through the whole thing, from the shoot, through every step of the edit in Lightroom and Photoshop, to a finished print. Here's an overview of what's in it.

One small flash, outdoors

The idea is simple. Before the flash comes into it at all, I set the camera so that it doesn't see any ambient light; take a picture and you get a black screen. That way the only light in the final shot is the light I put there.

Outdoors in bright sun that takes a bit more doing than it does in a store. I ended up at f/16, which was as far as the lens would go, around ISO 125 and 1/250th of a second, keeping within the flash sync speed rather than reaching for high speed sync or ND filters. I did wonder whether a 100 watt second light could cope with sun that bright, but it wasn't a problem.

The kit was:

• the Westcott FJ100 on power 9, so pretty much full power

• a 15 inch octa with the grid fitted

• a pistol grip handle to hold it steady

• the camera on a tripod

• a reflector just below chest level

The camera goes on a tripod so Michael has one fixed point to look at, rather than following me around as I move, and I trust the eye autofocus to nail the focus so I don't need to be right behind it.

How the light falls

I raise the light nice and high and get Michael to lean forward a little towards the camera. Because of the grid, the light doesn't go everywhere; it comes down and skips across the front of his face, and it doesn't spill onto the background, which I wanted to keep dark.

What I really like about it is that the light is so directional you get shadow either side of it, so it's almost like having a strip of light running down the front of the face. It's a look I definitely want to work more on.

The one thing that made the biggest difference was the reflector. Flat and horizontal, it did very little for the eyes. Lift the far end so it's angled up towards him and the light bounces back into his face, and suddenly there's plenty of detail in the eyes to work with.

The edit in Lightroom

Only one job happens in Lightroom, and that's the eyes. I use masking to select the iris and pupil, finesse the mask with the feather and edge sliders so it sits just inside the eyes, then lift the exposure slightly and add a little texture, clarity and a touch of dehaze. At 100% the difference with the mask on and off is night and day.

After that the image goes over to Photoshop, because that's where the heavy lifting gets done.

The heavy lifting in Photoshop

My rule of thumb here is to look at the image and fix whatever jumps out first. On this one it was the shine down the middle of Michael's nose, which I took out with the Remove Tool on a new layer, then lowered the opacity to around 50% to bring some of the natural shine back. After that I used the Spot Healing Brush on a blank layer to clean up the more obvious marks in the concrete wall behind him, which was sharper than I'd like because of shooting at f/16.

Most of the work is dodging and burning on a 50% grey layer set to Soft Light, with the Dodge Tool at 10% exposure and the Option key (Alt on Windows) held down to switch to the Burn Tool with the same settings. I brighten the highlights and darken the shadows either side of them, around the eyes, down the nose, the eyebrows and the mouth, and then the folds in his top. It sneaks up on you; you often don't see it until you turn the layer off. Working on a grey layer rather than the image itself also means that if you go too far, you can paint over it with 50% grey and it's gone.

From there it's a handful of smaller things:

• a loose lasso round the teeth and a Hue/Saturation adjustment on the yellows, lifting the lightness slightly so they're cleaner without looking like he's had them done

• my 2010 technique, two passes of Unsharp Mask on merged layers, amount and radius at 20 then 10 with the threshold at 0, each painted in through a black mask, the first over the middle of the face and the second over the eyes, nose and mouth

• a skin texture effect using Reduce Noise at full strength with everything else at zero

• a High Pass layer at a radius of 2, set to Hard Light and placed on top, to bring back the sharpness in the eyes, hair and skin detail that the texture effect softens

The 2010 technique is superb on close-up portraits; it makes the face look as if it's coming forward off the screen, and even more so in print.

Camera Raw and a finishing touch

In the Camera Raw filter I used Lens Blur to soften the concrete wall and give the picture a bit of fake depth of field, brushing blur in around the top of the head, the ears and the shoulders so it feels more like f/2.8 or f/4 than f/16. I still wanted to be able to just about see the wall, so it isn't blacked out completely.

A linear gradient with the exposure brought down takes the edge off the bright top he's wearing, which was pulling my eye, and a radial gradient in the middle of the face at +0.2 exposure adds a little light where it matters. I do that last one on pretty much every portrait.

The finishing touch is a warm colour grade from Optics by Boris FX, using the Titanic look in the Portrait colour section, brought down to 50% opacity.

Making the print

I print pretty much every image I'm happy with onto A4, and this one went onto Fotospeed Natural Soft Textured Bright White 315, a fine art matte paper and one I use most of the time, on the Canon PRO-300.

The steps are:

• duplicate and flatten the image

• resize to 10 inches on the long edge at 300ppi

• soft proof with the paper profile, comparing relative and perceptual rendering intents

• a slight brightening just for the print

• save as a TIFF in Adobe RGB

• print from Canon Professional Print & Layout, with Heavyweight Fine Art Paper as the media type, the paper's ICC profile, perceptual rendering intent and black point compensation on

For this picture perceptual was the clear choice. Relative blocked the blacks up quite a lot, whereas perceptual gave it more contrast, which suited it.

Straight out of the printer it was looking really good, and on a matte paper like this it only gets better once the ink has had time to dry and settle. You can just about see detail in the back wall, which is what I was after, and the 2010 technique does exactly what I hoped, bringing the face forward off the page.

Why I always print

Our screens are fantastic, but it's not until you have something physical in your hands that you can really study it and start noticing the things you missed while editing. I truly believe printing can help you get better as a photographer, and certainly better at retouching.

If you'd like to follow along with the video step by step, the raw file I used is free to download from the classroom in my Photography Community on Skool:

Adobe Now Owns Topaz: Is This GOOD News or BAD?

On the 23rd of September 2026, Adobe completed its purchase of Topaz Labs. If you use Photoshop, Lightroom or any of the standalone Topaz applications, the obvious question is: what does that mean for us?

Will we get better tools? Will more of the technology be included in what we already pay? And what happens if you prefer using Topaz on its own?

There are some answers, but there’s still plenty we don’t know. In the video above, I share my thoughts on the acquisition, where I can see some real benefits, and what I’d personally like Adobe to do next.

What Has Adobe Confirmed?

Adobe announced the proposed acquisition in June. The September announcement confirms that the deal has now gone through.

Adobe says the Topaz brand will remain, and its applications and models will continue to be available as standalone products. If you use Topaz separately, perhaps alongside a different editor, that’s encouraging.

It’s also worth clearing up the subscription question. Topaz introduced its newer subscription offering in September 2025, before this acquisition. Whatever your feelings about subscriptions, that change wasn’t introduced by Adobe buying the company.

Has My Opinion Changed?

Earlier this year, I made a video about the Topaz integration in Lightroom, and I was frustrated.

At the time, it felt as though Adobe could be taking the easier route by bringing in somebody else’s technology. Given Adobe’s experience and resources, I wanted to see what it could develop itself. I still would.

But I can also see the reasoning behind this purchase. Topaz has specialist knowledge and people who have spent years working on image and video enhancement. Bringing that experience into Adobe could be a sensible way to improve the tools we use.

That’s something I probably could have given more weight in my earlier video.

There is, however, one point I still stand by: when I’m working in Photoshop or Lightroom, I want the tools to feel like they belong there. I want them to work together, follow a consistent approach and give me enough control to get the result I’m after.

Changing who owns the technology doesn’t automatically achieve that. It takes development.

Where Could This Benefit Photographers?

The most obvious opportunity is a better editing experience.

Say you’ve cropped a photograph quite heavily and want to make a print. Having a suitable enlargement tool available inside the application you’re already using could be really useful—especially if you can judge the result properly and adjust the processing without a complicated round trip between applications.

That’s the kind of integration I’d welcome.

Adobe doesn’t have to invent every piece of technology from scratch for it to be valuable. What matters is whether bringing these teams together produces something better when we sit down to work on a photograph.

There’s also the possibility of more processing happening on our own computers. Adobe has highlighted Topaz’s NeuroStream technology, which helps demanding AI models run locally.

Depending on how Adobe uses it, that could reduce the need to upload files for processing. But it isn’t a promise that every feature will work offline, or that every computer will suddenly process everything quickly. We’ll have to see how it develops.

Give Us More Control

For me, one of the most useful places to start would be the controls.

The integrated Topaz tools haven’t offered the same experience as the standalone software. The controls have been limited, with what’s available differing between applications and models.

Having the technology available is useful, but I also want some say in the result.

We’ve all had that moment when an adjustment gets close, but isn’t quite right. Perhaps the effect is a little too strong, or some of the detail doesn’t look as natural as we’d like. That’s where being able to refine the processing makes a difference.

It doesn’t have to mean putting every possible slider on screen. A simple option is useful when it gives you what you need. When it doesn’t, I’d like the option to go further.

Adobe hasn’t announced that the acquisition will bring the extra controls I’m asking for. It’s something I’d like to see.

How Does It Fit Into the Lightroom Workflow?

In Lightroom, Generative Upscale creates a separate DNG file, leaving your original photograph intact. Adobe recommends applying it at the end of your editing workflow.

Understanding that you’re creating a new file matters when deciding how to fit the tool into your editing process. Over time, I’d like that process to become as flexible and clear as possible.

There’s also an important distinction between Lightroom and Lightroom Classic. A feature being available in one doesn’t automatically mean it’s available in the other.

At the time of writing, Adobe’s published FAQ says there are no plans to bring this particular Gigapixel integration to Lightroom Classic. That refers to the built-in integration; it doesn’t mean you can’t use the separate Topaz application with Classic.

What About Generative Credits?

This is where the practical questions become particularly important.

At the time of writing, Adobe’s published charges for the integrated tools are:

ToolFinished output sizeCredits per generationTopaz Gigapixel in Photoshop or LightroomUp to 25 megapixels10Topaz Gigapixel in Photoshop or LightroomAbove 25, up to 56 megapixels20Topaz Bloom in Photoshop1–9 megapixels35

These are Adobe generative credits for the integrated features. You can check the current rates in Adobe’s credit table.

If you have several thousand credits each month and use these tools occasionally, that might be perfectly manageable.

But imagine you have 200 credits remaining. At 20 credits a go, that gives you ten generations, assuming you don’t spend any elsewhere.

That’s ten attempts, rather than necessarily ten finished photographs you’re happy with. Generate another version and you use more of your allowance.

The 200-credit figure is just an example. Your allowance and access depend on your plan, so check your own account.

For me, this connects directly with the question of control. When each new generation uses part of your allowance, being able to get a result you’re happy with becomes particularly important.

Could Ownership Mean Better Value?

When one software company uses another company’s technology, there’s usually a commercial agreement behind it. That might involve licensing fees or usage charges.

We don’t know the details of Adobe’s previous agreement with Topaz, so I can’t say how much of the credit charge reflected that arrangement.

But now Adobe owns Topaz, it’s reasonable to ask whether that changes the calculation. Could fewer credits be required each time? Could more usage be included in our existing plans?

There are still costs involved in developing and running the technology. Ownership doesn’t make those disappear.

The acquisition announcement doesn’t promise lower credit charges, either. Better value is something I’d like Adobe to address, rather than something we’ve been told to expect.

Clear pricing, a practical allowance and more control over the result would make this integration more useful.

What I’d Like to See Next

I can see why Adobe has bought Topaz, and I can see opportunities for photographers to benefit.

Closer development between the teams could improve the tools. Local processing is interesting. Better integration could make editing easier. And continuing to offer standalone Topaz products preserves a choice that matters to plenty of photographers.

For me, the test will be what Adobe does next.

I want to see useful improvements, more flexibility and tools that feel like a complete part of Photoshop and Lightroom. If Adobe’s resources and Topaz’s expertise produce that, I’ll be very happy to give them credit.

What do you think? Would you like more of the standalone Topaz controls inside Photoshop and Lightroom, or does the simpler approach already give you what you need? And if you use Topaz separately, what would you most like Adobe to preserve or improve?

Let me know in the comments.

Details reflect the published information checked on 24 September 2026. Features, credit charges and plan allowances may change.

I Was Wrong About Wanting the iPhone Duo

Well, that didn’t take long.

Less than 24 hours after thinking the iPhone Duo could be exactly what I needed, I’ve changed my mind.

On paper, I loved the idea. One device potentially doing the job of two: my phone and my iPad.

The biggest attraction was taking less kit on a shoot. If I could use the Duo for tethering, I could leave the iPad at home. Less to think about, less to charge and less to carry.

It appealed to me for travelling, too. A larger screen that folds up and fits in my pocket would be much more convenient than carrying my 13-inch iPad Pro.

I could already see how it might fit into what I do.

But then I read the comments in the Photography Community.

Some folks raised points that got me questioning my decision, so I did more digging. That included watching videos from Marques Brownlee and Proper Honest Tech. I subscribe to both channels, but I’d initially missed their videos.

They highlighted the benefits, but also got me thinking properly about what I’d be giving up.

For me, the biggest sticking points are the camera and Face ID.

Looking at Apple’s specifications, here are some of the differences between the Duo and the iPhone 18 Pro models:

• No dedicated telephoto camera. The Duo has main and ultra-wide cameras, with a 2x option using the main sensor. The 18 Pro models also have a dedicated 4x telephoto, with an 8x “optical-quality” option.

• No Apple ProRAW. The Duo lists HEIF and JPEG capture, while the Pro models also offer ProRAW.

• No variable aperture on the main camera. The 18 Pro models have this, while the Duo has a fixed aperture.

• Touch ID instead of Face ID. The Duo uses a fingerprint sensor in its side button.

• No Action button. Another difference from the Pro models.

The Duo’s main camera is still 48MP, but that doesn’t mean it’s the same camera as the Pro Max. For me, the bigger issue is losing the dedicated telephoto and Apple ProRAW. Those are options I want available, both for my own photography and when I’m teaching.

You can see the full details in Apple’s specifications for the iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro models.

Those comparisons are with the new 18 Pro models, and I’m currently using a 17 Pro Max. So there are two decisions here: whether the Duo would suit me, and whether I need to upgrade my phone at all.

The camera is what really made me reconsider.

I now have the Fujifilm X100VI (thank you, Steve), and I intend to use that more for photography instead of automatically reaching for my iPhone, but that doesn’t mean I’ll stop taking photographs with my phone.

I’ve taken photographs with my iPhone that I’m really proud of.

There’ll also be times when I don’t have the Fuji with me, so my phone will be the camera I use, and when that happens, I want the best results I can get, with the flexibility that matters to me as a photographer.

Giving up camera features to gain a folding screen feels like a step backwards for how I work.

There’s the teaching side to consider, too.

I’m starting one-to-one and three-to-one workshops, with half-day and full-day options covering photography, lighting and retouching, as well as iPhone photography.

I want to be able to demonstrate the features and approaches I’m teaching. Moving to a phone without some of those options would limit what I could show, particularly when it comes to the Pro camera features.

Then there’s Face ID.

It works so well that I barely think about it. Unlocking my phone, opening banking apps... it’s something I use throughout the day without giving it a second thought.

I hadn’t realised how much I take it for granted until I considered going back to Touch ID.

For the number of times I open my phone each day, I think I’d find that tedious. It might sound like a small thing, but it’s a small thing I’d notice over and over again.

So, where does that leave me?

Do I need to upgrade from the 17 Pro Max to the 18 Pro Max?

Hmmm... honestly, I don’t know.

But I’m starting to wonder whether changing my iPad would solve more of the problem.

What if I traded in my 13-inch iPad Pro and went for an iPad mini instead?

Something smaller, lighter and easier to carry on shoots and when travelling.

It’s certainly an option I want to explore.

Yes, it’s still two devices; it’s still an iPhone and an iPad to charge and carry, but maybe that’s just how it’s got to be for me.

Do you have an iPad mini? Have you used it for tethering on shoots?

I’d love to hear how you get on with it. Is the screen big enough in practice? If you’ve moved from a larger iPad, do you miss it?

Let me know in the comments.

Your thoughts have already helped me reconsider one decision... they might help me get the next one right.

An Unexpected Gift ... the Fuji X100 VI

So the other day I met up with one of my closest friends, Steve Healy, for one of our regular catch ups / photo walks / breakfasts.

We try to do this near enough each week (commitments depending) and for both us it's a great opportunity to relax, unwind and just hangout. I love it.

The other day though, completely out of the blue, before we took a step, Steve gave me a wrapped present ... a Fuji X100 VI 😲

To say I was (and still am) blown away is understatement.

Even now, days later, I just don't know what to write that would come close to how I feel.

All I can say is that I love it, I'm overwhelmed, I'm ... I'm ... yeah lost for words.

It's no secret that I'm changing brands for my work camera but for everyday, always with me photography, this camera is such a dream, and now I have one, now and in the future it'll make me think of a dear friend ... and that's really special.

I'm very much someone that loves to give gifts than receive them, and Steve's the same, so he, more than anyone, knows how much this means to me!

Steve ... love you Buddy!

Oh ... of course, I then went on to buy some extras for it ... as you do 😃

Is Apple Photos REALLY Better Than Adobe Photoshop?

I honestly didn’t expect to be asking that question.

Photoshop has long been my first choice for removing unwanted people and objects from photographs. However, after testing the updated Clean Up tool in Apple Photos, I got results that weren’t simply comparable to Photoshop—they were noticeably better.

To find out whether this was a one-off, I put Apple Photos and Photoshop through three increasingly difficult tests.

Apple Photos Clean Up vs Photoshop Remove Tool

For the Photoshop edits, I used the Remove Tool with its mode set to Auto. This allows Photoshop to decide whether to use generative AI, Content-Aware technology or another method to fill the selected area.

For Apple Photos, I used the Clean Up tool on my iPhone, selecting the High Quality option. The same technology is also available in the desktop version of Apple Photos.

In both applications, I made quick, rough selections around the people I wanted to remove. I wasn’t attempting to produce perfect selections or spend time manually tidying the results. The aim was to see what each application could produce on its own.

Test One: Removing People From a Railway Station

The first photograph was taken at Cardiff Central railway station during a World War II-themed portrait shoot.

Original

I wanted to remove a group of people on the left-hand side of the frame. This meant the software needed to rebuild part of the station interior behind them.

Photoshop took almost a minute to process the removal. From a distance, the result looked acceptable. It had reconstructed much of the background and hadn’t caused too much damage to the surrounding areas. However, closer inspection revealed several areas that would need tidying.

Apple Photos completed the same task in around five seconds.

Clean Up using Apple Photos

The result was much cleaner. It reconstructed the background convincingly, removed distracting marks and shadows from the floor and created a space that genuinely looked as though you could walk through it.

It was an impressive start for Apple Photos—but the next test was considerably harder.

Test Two: Rebuilding a Complex Event Backdrop

The second photograph showed me standing with Carly from BenQ at the Wex Summer Roadshow.

Original

Removing both of us meant rebuilding a large section of the image, including a branded backdrop, a table, several logos and objects in the background.

Photoshop initially produced a result that looked quite impressive. It managed to recreate several BenQ logos and parts of the display. However, the longer I looked at the image, the more problems appeared.

Some of the logos were distorted, the table didn’t make complete sense and Photoshop had created several strange objects in the background. It had filled the empty space, but the result would require a fair amount of additional work.

Apple Photos took approximately 15 seconds to complete the same removal.

The difference was remarkable.

Clean Up using Apple Photos

The backdrop was clean, the logos were correctly positioned and the table had been rebuilt without an obvious join. It also reconstructed the wall and background pictures convincingly without duplicating random objects.

In this example, Apple Photos was the clear winner.

Test Three: An Almost Impossible Removal

The final photograph was the toughest test.

It showed me with Harry, a potter I photographed for my I Am Lyme project. Between us, we covered a large part of the frame, leaving the software with very little visible background to use as a reference.

Original

Photoshop filled the space, but the result looked confused. It repeated objects, created strange shapes and produced an area that became less convincing the longer you examined it.

Apple Photos produced something completely different.

Clean Up using Apple Photos

It reconstructed the trolley behind us, including one of its legs and a wheel. It also created a believable continuation of the workshop wall, complete with pots, tools and other details that matched the surrounding environment.

Was every generated detail an accurate reconstruction of what was really there? Of course not. Neither application can see through people to reveal the original background.

What mattered was whether the generated result looked believable—and the Apple Photos version did.

Looking at the Results Side by Side

After completing all three tests, I transferred the Apple Photos versions to my computer and compared them directly with the Photoshop edits.

The first Photoshop result was acceptable, but the Apple version was cleaner.

The second comparison wasn’t particularly close. Apple Photos handled the branded backdrop, table and background objects far more convincingly.

The third result was the most surprising of all. Photoshop appeared to fill the space with repeated textures and objects, whereas Apple Photos created a much more coherent scene.

Across these three photographs, Apple Photos consistently produced the better result.

Does This Mean Apple Photos Is Better Than Photoshop?

Not as an overall photo editor.

Photoshop remains an incredibly powerful application with an enormous range of professional editing, retouching, compositing and creative tools. Apple Photos isn’t going to replace it in my workflow.

However, when it comes to these specific removal tasks, Apple Photos’ Clean Up tool was better than Photoshop’s Remove Tool—and in some cases, it was considerably better.

It was also incredibly easy to use. I simply traced around the subjects with my finger, tapped Clean Up and waited a few seconds.

Questions About Resolution and Cost

There are still a couple of areas I want to investigate further.

The first is resolution. An image can look convincing on a phone or computer screen, but printing it is a much more demanding test. I’d like to see how much genuine detail the Clean Up tool generates and how well those reconstructed areas hold up in a physical print.

The other consideration is cost. Apple has indicated that some server-based AI features may have usage limits, with expanded access potentially becoming available for a fee. How that develops—and what it might eventually cost—remains to be seen.

Final Thoughts

Three photographs can’t tell us how these tools will perform in every possible situation. Different images, backgrounds and lighting conditions will inevitably produce different results.

But in these tests, particularly the two most challenging removals, Apple Photos was clearly ahead.

The results were clean, convincing and produced in seconds with nothing more than a rough selection made using my finger.

I never expected to say this, but Adobe genuinely needs to step things up.

Watch the video to see the full editing process and all three comparisons, then let me know what you think. Were you as impressed by the Apple Photos results as I was?