In my opinion, AI has been very helpful in terms of editing. It helps photographers by automating time consuming tasks such as culling hundreds of images, applying consistent color grading, and removing background objects with the touch of a button. In the past two years alone, Lightroom editing has made major improvements. It’s capable of accomplishing in seconds, what once required transferring the image into Photoshop and spending endless amounts of time editing.
I vividly remember an occasion where a couple wanted to be married on a beach in Waikiki, around sunset, and all I could think about was how long it would take me to edit all of the background people out of their images. My young kids would be running wild and taking full advantage of me glued to my computer. I would have to manually edit every single unwanted thing out of a photo back then. On a beach, in Waikiki, that meant hundreds! It would literally take days to edit a gallery because of this. Lightroom now offers this with a single touch. It also offers amazing noise reduction to salvage challenging shots. No more losing beautiful images because your flash didn’t fire. So many amazing, time saving offerings and the images just look top notch. So I’m able to deliver higher-quality work faster than ever.
But what about the cons of AI for photographers? The main issue I’m having is that it tends to produce style averaged and trendy imagery. Which leads to homogenized visual aesthetics across brands that diminish the value of the photographer’s unique vision and personal styles. This I find is happening to me a lot more now. In my opinion, it all began around 2018, with the use of presets on social media. Photographers from every skill level could slap a preset on their gallery, upload it to social media, giving the impression of perfect consistency. Photography is NOT consistent. Every single photo is slightly different for a host of reasons: lighting, movement, framing, etc.
These impacts are really reshaping the photography industry. Clients are increasingly requesting unrealistic images. Everything is becoming overly dreamy and perfect—photos so heavily embellished they often look downright ridiculous. I think in terms of the future and the images you will be left with once the filters and trends die. Will you be happy with consistently, overly contrasted, softened images, often prioritizing the background over than the subject? Because I personally, would absolutely not want that. I would want images that are tact sharp, perfectly exposed, the subjects are lightly retouched and the main focus of the images.
The perception that a machine can replace artistic judgment is demoralizing, yet when it comes down to it, a skilled photographer still offers insight, emotion, and human intuition qualities that AI cannot fully replicate. Things like client interaction, on-location problem solving, lighting control, direction of subjects, and bespoke styling.
A few ways photographers can protect their craft and business are by:
Asserting copyright: watermark your images so AI is not able to use them.
Differentiate through storytelling, consistent branding, and specialized niches where human presence matters (e.g., family, maternity, editorial).
Educate clients about the value of original photography versus AI imagery to maintain pricing and expectations.