Hey, I'm Britney, and welcome to my channel! I'm a former wedding and portrait photographer turned user experience practitioner with a love of discovering and reviewing products and programs that are often used by creatives. My favorite thing is to give a personal look at how I use certain systems and to communicate the pros and cons that I've found through my usage. It's through those detailed break-downs of various items and programs that I hope to give an honest look at the things other small businesses and creative entrepreneurs may be in need of!
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I've been using Narrative Select for years. Super easy compared to everything else I've tried. I don't use the auto filters, but I use it for quickly manually culling photos
Great video. Keep it up. Your point about all the buttons in Aftershoot really hit the nail on the head. It's a terribly noisy UI in my opinion, requiring too much cognitive work both in recall and navigation. I will note that I don't think any of the tools do a good job of cropping (I'm not a portrait shooter, and their models all seem to be trained more for volume portraits), which after color correcting is the biggest time suck. I can't wait for someone to unlock that feature. Only request as a fellow UXer is that you consider weighting your value assignments. While speed of initial profile may be a great feature to score, it's not as valuable to me as the final edit. I'd much rather sacrifice a few minutes to get way better results on my profile and have intuitive refinement features. Full disclosure I've tested Imagen and Aftershoot myself (as well as had 1-on-1 with their product teams), and landed on Imagen even though I hate that they nickel and dime you to death for every little add on, like straightening.
The BIG problem with @Pixieset is that it's not possible to have your website in more than 1 language, which is a bummer for many european countries :/
Oh wow! I did not even realize that! That is a major concern and should be addressed! Thank you so much for your comment. It's given me more to think about and look at from the user's perspective when I look at future photo website builders!
Great videos! Thanks for the info. I think I'm going to go with narrative select. 3 seconds for 400 images is WILD. Massive game changer. Fingers crossed!
Right! I was honestly so shocked, I thought I did something wrong at first for it to take that little time, haha! Let me now how it goes for you! I'm also intrigued by their AI Editing capabilities now, I haven't tested them out but I'm eyeing them up for the future 😃. Thanks for your comment!
Thank you for your comment! I completely agree! Now that these AI cullers are introducing AI Editing Profiles, the pricing COULD make a little more sense. But still, in a world where all of our programs come with a subscription, it's hard to justify adding something new to the mix! Thanks again! 😃
I am a 73 year old Senior Citizen, Retired, a DSLR Nikon Photographer, also use iPhone for photos. Am just beginning with Camcorder Videos, Advice, Suggestions, etc. PLEASE, Thank You, Respectfully, Robert
Hey Robert! Thanks so much for your comment! I have a few recommendations for the different stages you may be at: If you're looking for ways to get your name out there, I'd first and foremost create an Instagram account if you haven't already. From there, look toward your community. There are so many small businesses out there that would be happy to have you come in and take some photos of their space. You can then get their information, send them a few snaps, and give them permission to use the photos on socials as long as they tag your Instagram page. While Instagram definitely has its user issues, it's free, which is always a plus! If you are looking for a website, I'd definitely recommend Pixieset as it has templates that are easy to set up and don't need much except some of your branding, which you could start out using a simple logo of your initials and your favorite colors. If you're looking for subjects and drumming up some clientele, I recommend utilizing your community! While I was never confident enough to go up to families that were just out and about, some photographers find great success in going out to a popular gathering point, explaining to families or couples that you're a photographer, hand them your business card, and ask if they'd like a photo. From there you can edit a few of the images, and when they email you send them over one or two shots along with a model release so you can then post on socials. If you need any other specific suggestions or recommendations please let me know! It sounds like you're off to a great start with your gear! Thank you again for commenting!
@@BritneyClause Thank You very much for your encouraging Suggestions, Advice, Ideas, Recommendations,etc. I have been A Photography Dreamer for many years, but I have always let my Hesitation, Lack of Confidence, and other negative thinking to Keep ME in the Bleachers and not on the Field, where I was not knowledgeable or Experienced in the idea that I could be a successful Photographer and gain confidence and real necessary Skill to make a Business with Photography, I have wasted many years of Procrastination, now 73 and some Health issues, which have required Time with Doctors instead of My fellow Photographers. So, that’s my story at this time, If you might have Suggestions, Advice, Motivation ideas, please share with me your Knowledge & Experiences with all aspects of a potential Photography Business, Respectfully Robert F. Walker Text: 2492078586 E-mail: rfwalker2003@msn.com
There is no way ai is going to stick to your style of culling. I am also 100% sure you are going to miss some gems of images if you dont even look at your images yourself. Just use photo mechanic like the pro's do. You still cull in like an hour and it's worth it.
Thank you for your comment! I totally agree! I had to go back into my Photo Mechanic most of the time to pick the gems I felt I was missing because it was much quicker than going into the culling system after my choices were finalized! Depending on the system we learn on, that's where we're going to be quicker and just better at making decisions. I'm well versed in PM, so I found that to be my go-to, and I actually picked faster in PM than my AI culler did. But as new photographers enter the game, they may immediately go to an AI culling system and learn to be quicker in decision-making there. I'd be very intrigued to have a cull speed test race with someone who has only used one of these AI systems to cull to see our differences in cull times 😂! Thanks again for your comment! It's given me something interesting to think about!
Appreciate the deep dive. I've been in the free trial for Filter Pixel (which is now back down to 2 weeks) and there's a couple of things that I've found helpful. I do school photography (among other things) and just uploaded 3909 images - it did it's initial cull in 12m which kind of blew my mind. I also found that the duplicates were about 60-70% accurate - a lot of room for improvement - but this helped as it meant I could just take a quick look at the dupes and then use the compare tool to find the ones with the best focus/expression. There were definitely images in the duplicates that didn't belong and I also found it would sometimes select blurry images - not sure why. My major question is how long will it take for the AI to learn my culling style so that it becomes more efficient and I can start to trust it more?? That's why we're all here, right?! Culling is the bane of my existence and I was hoping an AI tool would change my life, but given that I'm hesitant to trust another human to do it, I'm nor sure I should trust the AI yet either. 😬
Thank you so much for your comment and personal experience! This is great information! Almost 4000 photos in 12 minutes is so wild and definitely would free up some of your personal time overall. But I feel the exact same as you in that I found there was a lot of room for improvement in duplicate and blurry image picking. I also don't trust anyone else to cull my images and the AI system that I was using for over a year never really seemed to pick up on my culling style. It's unfortunate because culling is the time suck of all time sucks. I'm hoping to revisit these systems in a handful of months to dig into any major updates and to see if anything has improved! Fingers are crossed. The changing of the free trial is also a major bummer. I also noticed Narrative took their 6 projects down to 3, which at least they still are project-based, and one could probably figure out if they liked the system in 3 projects. I'm not a fan of the trials going up and down randomly, though. It feels like users can never be too sure what offering they're going to be able to take advantage of! Thanks again for your comment! 😄
Im gonna switch my website to Pixieset. Ive been loving the all inclusive features for my photog business. My website has been on squarespace and when it updated to the new squarespace format its a mess (i understand the flexibility for those who want to customise more but i just want simple clean templates for photography. thanks for the in depth review
Oh my goodness, yes! I was helping someone with their Squarespace site and, while it was fairly intuitive, I realized that I couldn't really build in the way I wanted to. Pixieset gave so much more freedom in creation, and the building blocks are pretty similar to Squarespace, but better, haha! Thank you so much for your comment, and I hope your site transition has been going well! I'd love to see your finished product! 😃
Interesting comparison video. many thanks. My choice, based on the fact that all three systems have practically the same culling quality, would be the cheapest option.
I was watching this then I decided I need to sign in and leave you a comment. Thank You, You are a great person to watch because of the way you talk, move, you're awesome and comical and get the right point across. THANK YOU AGAIN for video info, I am contemplating the PD 10L or Messenger 13L. Your husband is Lucky with your presence. (And Vice Versa) You Rock !~M`
My findings were the same, insofar as Aftershoot. I used the software for over a year through multiple updates and over time I found I actually spent more and more time manually culling afterwards because I did not trust the AI picks versus manual picks. One example is that the AI culler seemed to prefer an image where the subject was smiling, and the broader the smile, the higher the rating - even if they blinked. As a senior photographer, many of our favorite images are the serious face. The thing I found most helpful was the closeup view of each face in the preview mode, but I still was going through each image one-by-one, so the "time savings'" was minimal. Especially considering I had to wait for the AI to go through the bunch first (although this can be done while you step AFK). Ultimately I decided I would save the subscription fee and do my own culling. I am faster so perhaps the best thing the tool taught me was speed and efficiency.
Thank you so much for your comment and your personal experience! That's really interesting that the AI seems to latch on to the smile of a subject. I didn't even think of that being a potential parameter of the system. With that in mind, it really feels like the AI is trained to think "photographer say cheese, which makes smile, pick smile" 🤣.
Not sure if this is the proper place to ask this, but I'm currently a Zenfolio client and need to switch away from Zenfolio since their customer service and overall website management has become a big problem. They are archiving old galleries and then upon restoring galleries images that aren't even mine are showing up in my galleries. I am looking for a new platform and want a sustainable, reliable (unlike Zenfolio) company to host my website. I have read that Pixieset is not great with SEO. Do you have any insight about the overall customer service and SEO from Pixieset? I am sold on many of of the attributes that you mentioned in your video, but am currently trying to decide between PixieSet and maybe Shootproof. thanks for any insight.
Great review. Thanks for the deep dive and detailed information. What are your thoughts on Imagine-AI? Have you looked at that? Also, I'd love to have you on my podcast, Creative Tech Chats, to chat about AI and photography. I'll send you a DM.
Hey! Thank you so much for your comment! I know it's been a little bit of time, and I've been in such an AI bubble for the last few months, haha! I'll have to check out my Imagen AI video to see if you've commented over there, but yes! I now have tried out their system! And the beta of their culling was, I think, in the beginning stages of doing really cool things, but still ran into the same issues that a lot of the AI culling systems run into. There were bits I liked and bits I didn't like. Since it is in beta I tried to keep my head level on the critiques 😬, but I do look forward to the full release!
30:20 cuts to the chase. narrative and aftershoot tie. altho narrative took 3 secs to cull and aftershoot took 4.5 mins. she also says the ai is the same, same pics selected w all the programs. but she doesnt find the softwares useful compared to manual culling. it took her the same amount of time to cull her own images as the 4 min ones. thx for posting!
Thank you so much for the summarizing! I obviously have some difficulties making things concise 🤣 and your comment inspired me to add a conclusion chapter marker to my future videos!
Agreed! I've also seen continuous updates from these systems, so I'm definitely going to be revisiting them to see if there is any sort of differentiation now!
Hey again! I tried to look into the name of the API that they are all using for their AI culling, but I came up empty-handed in my search. I'll have to try again, since I know someone else is interested in this answer too 😋. AI Editing API is a lot easier to find since I think most of the systems are into the idea of that being something they can sell.
AI Culling is crazy. I wonder How many people are actually doing it for hi-end portraits? Seems like several large 4k or 8k monitors/tvs would be quick.
Ohhh, that's a great question! And something I'm also interested to know as well! I'd love to test out the tethered shooting too, unfortunately, I don't shoot anymore, so I'd have to rely on someone else to do that testing, haha! Thank you for your comment!
Anybody know the best way to automate sending them more images gradually like monthly or weekly? Just for free. So when i cull the original shoot for the images i am going to show them immediately i can set aside a batch to send them a few at a time automated over say a year or two?
Anybody know the best way to automate sending them more images gradually like monthly or weekly? Just for free. So when i cull the original shoot for the images i am going to show them immediately i can set aside a batch to send them a few at a time automated over say a year or two?
Hey! Thank you so much for your comment! I don't want to exclude anyone from my testing, so I'm interested in knowing what photo/event types would you like to see me test these systems with? I want to be sure I'm being inclusive to all photo types and since I've had my fair share of dabbling in a lot of session types I can definitely try to see if the type of photo you would like to see tested is something I have access to! Thanks again for your feedback, and I hope that in the future I can represent everyone in a more well-rounded way!
Thanks so much for the amazing review! Justin the co-founder of Aftershoot here! Would love to get you on our updated version! Looks like the testing is on an older version of the app! We’re always improving and updating every 4-6 weeks so we have definitely added and improved some things! Let us know if you’d like to give it another run with the updates!!!
Hey Justin, thank you so much for your comment! Sorry for the delay in reply! I definitely want to test the culling again in the update interface. I've been playing with your AI Editing for a couple months now and feel like I need to revisit the culling too for all the updated goodness!
ok what the f.... I've give you all my attention for this video and then for your conclusion i get pimp out to have to watch a part 2 video for your conclusion from the first one,,,,, totally pissed, don't take advantage of people time like this ever again... !!!! wtf.
1. I don't want/need unlimited storage. Clients get lost and don't order as much if they are overwhelmed with too many images. Also I want to incentivize clients to order soon, so I set galleries to expire in 30 days. That frees up storage for the next client. 2. The Pixieset store is superior. 3. Pixieset ease of use for clients is superior. This is incredibly important. They even provide a super easy tutorial. 4. Pixieset has a free Lightroom plugin that automates creating galleries and uploading. You just create a new collection in LR and click Publish - it then creates the new Pixieset gallery and uploads images in background - you can still do stuff in LR while it is uploading, . You don't have to wait for Pixieset, but you can also login to Pixieset on the web while LR is uploading if you want to customize something - your images will appear real-time while you are changing gallery things in Pixieset. Later, you can manage the gallery from within LR - adding deleting or updating images without logging in to Pixieset. This is brilliant. So I find Pixieset free tier completely sufficient for my needs. I rate it #1 compared to your other options, partly because I am not impacted by what you see as disadvantages.
@@lisataitphotography9720 I honestly dont see why people would use AI to do their culling, culling is too much a matter of taste, and with something like photo mechanic its really fast. I can cull thousands of images in like an hour. and while i am culling i can see which images are portfolio worthy etc, i mean i cull at the speed i look at them and i need to look at them at some point anyways so i dont see why you would not even look at them all, you might miss some gems in there.
I use imagenAi and i love it for editing. But for culling, I find ultimately it's the same as the point she makes at about minute 32 - you still have to go through everything pretty carefully to see what the AI chose at the final picks. I also find it's picking wayyyy to many keepers than I normally would. So it's nice when it verifies the ones I would have kept but it's just as much work as culling it myself if not a bit harder.
Hello again! I know this comment is a little older, and I apologize for not responding sooner! I have now tested Imagen AI and created a video on it! I'm not sure if you've commented over there, or not, but I did find it to be an interesting system with a lot of room for improvement. I tested out their culling beta and found it to have the same issues that I had with the non-beta systems; HOWEVER, Imagen AI's culler, when used with an AI Editing Profile does allow you to see your editing style on the images before opening them in Lightroom, which I think is really cool. I'm not entirely sure if it's a massive benefit, but it is neat and sometimes, for me, being neat is a thumbs-up moment 😂. I need to work on my standards, haha!
@@katehavercroft4940 The beta for culling was really cool! I like how it can show you what the images would look like with you Editing profile over top. Ultimately, though, it has the same issues and definitely has a lot of room for improvement. I'm curious about when the culling is fully released what changes there will be, and I'm excited to try it out when that happens! Thank you for your reply!
Absolutely! Whenever I see someone looking for a photo site I automatically think of Pixieset above any other builder. It's just such a nice interface and really quick to built and launch! Thank you for your comment!
Thank you Britney! I agree, social media is a necessary evil. My daughter and I butt heads over this all the time as she is a social media manager and I always tell her, but my business is growing every year without me not posting but truthfully I think I could get my existing clients to want to book again because people are competitive and if they see that other people are booking professional photographers then it motivates them to update their headshots etc.
Recommend you look at SmugMug as well. I have been using them for about 10 years, but now switching to Pic-Time, due to 1 BIG reason. I live in Australia, but SmugMug interfaces only to US printers! So my test purchase of a postcard size print costing USD 8, needs a USD 30 shipping! I will NEVER be able to sell anything on this basis!!! Pic-Time on the other hand has 2 Australian fulfilment houses. Also Pic-Time has more useful products such a calendars and book type albums. I did find Pic-Time UI mighty confusing though, with different structure for "art" or "client" galleries. Smugmug is way easier to use and shows it's maturity, only wish they had Australian printers hooked up.
