Kodak’s new AI tool is made to cull your photos for you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPbU1AVSLSw&ab_channel=KodakProfessional

Will AI ever be able to help you select the best photos? Well, Kodak Alaris is certainly willing to try it. The company has launched a new app, Kodak Professional Select. It’s an AI-powered tool that should automate image culling and make the process much faster and easier for you.

When you download and install the software, you can add hundreds, even thousands of images to it. Select relies on AI to evaluate your photos on two major criteria:

• Technical Attributes: color, focus, brightness, exposure, contrast, and sharpness
• Aesthetic Qualities: eyes open, smiles, and faces centered

The software analyzes your photos based on these criteria and automatically selects images that it thinks are the best. At the same time, it groups your duplicate photos. Of course, you get to make the final selection and choose what you do with the images.

Once the software selects the photos, it lets you use a few different tools: tag your photos with keywords, adjust the orientation, add star ratings, organize them, and so on.

Personally, I think a tool like this could be useful in some situations. However, there are many, many cases when it might totally miss a point. For example, one of the criteria is “smiles,” and you may not actually want to prioritize a portrait with a smiling person. The same goes for photos that you’ve intentionally overexposed or underexposed. There have been some attempts of letting AI judge the quality of photos. I tested one of those tools, and it didn’t really provide a stellar performance.

Still, you may be curious about Kodak Professional Select. I know I am, despite having my doubts about the result. You can start a free 30-day trial if you’d like to see how it works. And if you’re satisfied after the trial, a monthly subscription will cost you $29.95 per month, and there’s also an annual subscription for $299.95. To download the software, go to Kodak Professional Select’s website.

[via DPReview]