Ready to ditch frustration and finally make AI your photography ally? Pat Miller sits down with Adobe product manager and Sony Artisan of Imagery Katrin Eismann to shatter myths and show you how AI can supercharge your workflow without sacrificing authenticity or artistry.

Episode Highlights 🎤💡:

(03:04) - Why AI feels overwhelming

(11:28) - AI changes shooting and editing

(22:32) - Why photographers adopt AI

Connect with Pat Miller ⬇

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Connect with Katrin Eismann ⬇

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I'm Pat Miller and this is the Professional Photographer Podcast. We get to have another conversation about AI because we're doing an entire AI series here at Imaging USA in Nashville. And this is. Man, I wish you could see our studio, the Sony Cinema Line studio. They went all out to make us look great. Shout out to Sony. We appreciate it. Now, about this AI thing, is it a fad? Of course it's not a fad. We're all using AI pretty much all the time. But whenever you bring up AI to a photographer, it makes you feel a little, you know, a little. A little of that, don't you think? So today we're bringing Katrine Eisman on and we're going to talk about how AI can help you with your productivity, but also what's it doing with Generative, and how can that help you become a better photographer? Katrine, who's been doing it forever, shares that she now shoots differently because AI exists. She edits differently because AI exists. And it's speeding up her workflow to a point where she's got even more creative free time to pursue her art. Sounds good. You'd like that, right? We all would. So we're talking AI, but good, not evil. We'll talk to Katrine next. Katrine, welcome to the show. It's great to see you.

Thank you, Pat. It's a pleasure.

It's Imaging USA 2026. How has it gone for you so far?

Completely surprising, really. I have not been to a PPA in 20 years, but the energy is good, the people are happy to be there. Even what the vendors have is really up to date. I was really surprised. In a good way.

In a good way. So it's a happy surprise. I love that we get to talk about AI today, and I want people to understand where your commentary and thoughts are from. So if someone hasn't met you yet, tell them who you are and what you do.

Well, I've been involved in photography for about 40 years and I started with film and then I started digital just before Photoshop was released.

Whoa, okay,

I'm old, pretty much. And what happened then, that transition from film to digital? There was a lot of resistance. There were a lot of comparisons. Well, how does this digital camera with a 3 megapixel sensor compare to 8 by 10 inch film? You have to understand when technology changes, that your thought process needs to change. And being stuck in comparisons to what I know and what this is, is really, in a way blocking you from understanding where it's Going. And that's what I learned when I tried to defend really bad cameras versus the camera I use now, which is the Sony.

Yeah, yeah. Do you feel like being there in the early days before Photoshop release, like being an original helped you understand the transition as it went, such that people that are here now with AI and watching it progress and ascend, they will have a better understanding of the technology when it advances?

Well, that's one advantage that you have experience, but if you. You weren't there, consider yourself lucky. But the thing. The big difference was, like, when Photoshop Digital was released, it was released. And AI, it's AI. Like, every five minutes there's a. There's a change. And that can feel overwhelming. And so there's a different pace to AI.

And you said earlier that, I've heard you say that it's kind of like waving the. The red flag in front of a bull, that it really triggers photographers for some reason.

Right. Well, photography has always been based on technology. And the changes in technology, be it wet plate to film, black and white to color, to Instamatic to digital, it has to change how you approach photography. It changes the aesthetics of photography. And so AI is another change. But I think where the red flag comes in is AI is changing all of our lives in every way, be it legal, medical, how you buy a house, how you stay healthy. And so I think it's important for us as photographers, like, okay, let's take a breath and talk about AI in image making. And there's two things I really think that AI can do really well. First, it can help you be more efficient. All right? It can help you find the best image. I'll talk about that in a moment. It can help you write your blog posts, write the emails, keep your books in order. Like, are those really fun things to do?

No, no, they're awful. We hate them.

Right, Exactly. Like, oh, we're. I volunteer for the root canal.

Exactly.

But where AI can also help you creatively to create iterations, to try things out, to experiment with virtual lighting. So you have to sort of understand the handshake, let it do the repetitive work. Right. And it'll be fast, so you can get that done and then use it for the creative exploration,

Which I think we need to differentiate generative AI and everyday AI. And you do a great job of explaining that. Can you describe the two? Because you're saying there is good AI and there's great AI for generative, but they're totally different things.

Exactly. So there's artificial intelligence that is using learning models to really process a lot of information very, very quickly. All right? That's why, you know, when you use it for searches and research, writing scripts, et cetera, that's - it's based on existing knowledge that it's found. Then for a photographer and a videographer, creative people, designers, there's generative AI, where for us, the generative AI is actually creating new pixels, new images, changing, perhaps existing images. And so the most important thing about being a photographer and generative AI is the decision, am I going to use it? Right? If I'm a wildlife photographer, a National Geographic photographer, and I want to enter a competition. No, no, no, no. All those pixels have to be there. You have to have sat in the snow for 48 hours waiting for that snow leopard. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, I could probably, you know, prompt a snow leopard, but it wouldn't be the same.

No.

So, you know, in certain situations, the photojournalists, the wildlife competitions, it has to be authentic pixels that a person captured. That happened. More illustrative commercials, product photography. That's when we can use. That's where you can choose to use generative AI to get your work done, to express yourself. I mean, how long have people been doing montages and composites? Since wet plate photography. Just let me be a photo historian here. Because in the early days of wet plate photography, it wasn't sensitive to blue light. So any old, old picture you see with clouds were two plates put together. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I would, I would. Oh, yeah. So it's true. And now it's like, I'll never believe anything again. What AI has really done with photography, it said, now, we've always believed that what am I looking at actually happened? A photographer was there. It's realistic. Come on. Photography has always been about decisions, choices. When do you push the shutter? Now, Generative is extending that. It's actually releasing photography and images from showing reality. So what I think is important is that we as viewers also look at images with a really large grain of salt, preferably not in our eyes.

Not in our eyes.

So, I mean, I'm sorry, there aren't clear, clear answers, but it comes down to your own needs and your own responsibility, because the person with their hands on the keyboard and the trackpad, they're responsible.

Yeah.

And that was the same conversation we had with Photoshop 30 years ago when people were retouching like, oh, Kate Winslet doesn't look like that. Oprah, old example. They put Oprah's head on Ann Margaret's body.

Come on.

You know, and so we're having the same conversations. And it's important that people understand that they have to decide for themselves. It's a challenge.

Is this a bigger technological advancement than Photoshop or color film? Is this the biggest next big thing in the history of photography, or is this another just next big thing?

It's another big thing. Sorry, just ruined.

Emphasis on that one.

Yeah, I just ruined the sound recording. No, it's another big thing because it's so fast and it's so seamless.

Yeah.

I mean, I've done a lot of compositing in Photoshop. It is hard to match the point of view, the perspective, the color, the light, the structure, the scale. It would take. It could take weeks to do a good composite.

Yeah.

Now it can take minutes. But what that does is like people that always wanted to create illustrations, composites, you know, they can experiment with it, which, And I'm. I'm sorry, I don't want to cut you off, but we want to look at the. The types of people that could be aware of AI or should be aware. Aware of AI. And for me, I think it's important for, like, if you're interested in photography, general, you like it. It's a hobby. It's a great hobby. Be aware of it. Know when you want to use it. For example, in Lightroom and Photoshop, the generative remove. It's amazing, that picture. Oh, there's the dumpster. You know, yes, you could try to move, but there's another dumpster. So be aware of it even while you're taking the picture. Not to be lazy, but to know I can solve that problem. So that's general. Then another person that should really be aware of it. Educators. Right. And that's a challenge because they're busy, it's hard to keep up, but they're educating the next generation, so they have to be aware of what's going on. Then, like my favorite group, the techno curious. Right. The person that's always up to date and has every T shirt with a bad graphic. Yeah, Right. And now, professional photographers, you need to understand. I can't stand it when people say it, but your competition's using it, so be aware of it. But what AI cannot do, it can't replace your heart, your cultural sensitivity, your experience, the relation you have with your client, the understanding when the moment of the wedding, when it's the moment where, for example, AI might say, oh, the bride's eyes are closed.

Done.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's the moment. And that's what a creative, smart photographer still brings to the table. Cannot replace that.

You've shared that you shoot differently now that there are some tools inside the editing software that you use. So can you share an example you shared a reflection idea and how you shoot differently. And I thought this was an interesting way to think about how photographers who are now enhanced with this post production opportunity can run and gun and get stuff done in a different way than they did before.

Right, exactly. So it's always been that when I was taking pictures, I would see Photoshop or Lightroom in the viewfinder. Because a digital file is not just about exposure. What you're doing with a digital file is you're capturing information. And the better the information, like RAW files exposure, no clipping, the better information you'll have to work on in Lightroom or Photoshop. Now, because of new features and changes in Lightroom, for example, we talked about a reflection removal. I can now photograph through a window pane or I love going to museums. And all the artifacts are behind glass, of course, and it's always like, ugh. And all you'd see is yourself and the lights and the other people. But now that I know that Lightroom and the camera has reflection removal specifically built to take out reflections and panes of glass, I photograph it. For example, a few weeks ago, I was in this beautiful 18th century church in the Black Forest and they had this pulpit from the middle ages with the four evangelists. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Yeah, yeah, right. And it was handmade, of course, and it was behind glass. And I'm like. So I'm like, okay, I'll photograph it. Lightroom probably can't handle it. Go home. Lightroom like, whoa. As if the glass didn't exist.

Yeah.

The clarity was amazing. And one other thing that the Lightroom reflection removal lets you do, it lets you adjust how much of the reflection is removed. So if you want to add a little realism, you just bring a little bit back and it feels like the glass was there. So this lets me now walk through the streets of New York City or Paris, like Ajay, who would photograph the storefronts, you know, the beautiful models, et cetera. Right. And now I can pretend that I'm Ajay, which I'm not. But I mean, you go to New York City at Christmas time, those windows are gorgeous. Take the picture. Use reflection removal.

Yeah. Speaking of travel, I wish we could go back to Rome. My wife and I took a trip to Rome and we had to be up at the crack of dawn because she wanted to get the fountain. She wanted to go to the Colosseum. But we to go so early because there were people everywhere. And now we don't have to do that. Right.

Well, it's still good to get up early because the light's better.

That's true.

That's that first espresso.

All right, all right.

I know, but I travel a lot also, and sometimes you can't get to the location at the crack of dawn or you. It, you know, it's so full. And so what lightroom and Photoshop now have are people removal. I thought it was going to take care of my ex, but that's not what it's built for.

They're working on that.

Yeah, you're out of here. And so you take that picture of that, the site that you want to visit. And when you're planning the trip, you have this vision, ah, it's going to be beautiful. There'll be birds and nothing else. And then the cruise ship comes through and you're like, what are you doing here?

Yeah.

And so you take the still and you bring up the people remove. It will show you which people it's going to take out. Let's say it's someone you know. You can click on it and say, oh, no, no, no, don't take that person out. And then it'll take it out. With generative remove. So the reflection removal is generative. People remove is generative. And it'll clean it up and actually create the image that you had in your mind's eye and your memories. Because when you show the people to someone, the picture, they're like, that looks like Times Square. You traveled to Rome because of that. Yeah. So I think it's really helps you maintain those memories. On that note, with removal, it also has dust removal, so. Oh, my gosh. So, you know, they always say, don't change your lenses when it's dusty. Yeah, but I have the wrong lens on. And then you don't want to do all that cleanup. It can find the dust. That's the kind of stuff. And the dust remove is especially important for panoramic photographers who take 10, 15, 20 shots and all of a sudden the same dust is in 20 frames. And it's like, you do it. I'm not doing it. Dust removal. And that's the kind of stuff. It's like, it helps you, like, make your image look better. I'm also going back into my archives now because I admit there are files where I'm like, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. You know, I'm not doing it. And I'm like, I'm doing it because it's one click, you know, and that's really. That's really exciting.

What I think is exciting about Adobe is they're not guessing all of the extensive research that Adobe does to learn what kind of AI tools to put into the software. Can you talk about how that works?

Absolutely. That's true. Now, first of all, the Lightroom team are. They're incredibly passionate photographers. I mean, they eat, breathe photography, they go on workshops together, they try out new cameras, they love it. But we don't just build the features we want. I keep trying to tell them what I want, but I'm not getting it. But no, seriously. And so what Adobe does, they come to conferences like this, they invite people to their offices, they listen. And I'm going to ask your listeners, when you bring up Lightroom Photoshop, sometimes a little box comes up like, do you have a few minutes to tell us what you think? Please click yes, please and there'll be a series of questions. We do this about four times a year, and it's updated every, every time we release it. And every answer is. Is put in a spreadsheet, made into a graphic, is discussed. For example, if X number of people say, I wish Lightroom was red. Don't write that. We'd be like, we should probably consider the color of the interface because we're not building the software for us, we're building it for the people that are using it. And, you know, like here at PPA, there's a big Adobe booth. One of the reasons is so people can tell us what they need. And I think that's really important. Another place that you can leave feedback on a new feature. For example, this fall we included an early release, early access release of assisted calling. And on the right, there's feedback. And it could be it flagged this image as blurry. It's obviously not. Let us know. Or the results were not as expected. Or sometimes you could say it worked really well, you know, and so let us know exactly what we're doing, because we're doing it for the users.

You talked about the masking, you talked about the dust removal, the people removal, but then you got into culling and AI is inside the product because it's generative for creativity, but also just productivity and time saving. Can you share a few other ways that it is there to help speed up your overall workflow because that gives you more creative time Exactly.

So in the Assisted calling, just really quickly, it's not going to decide that this picture is better than that picture. You know, she looks better here. What it's going to do is it's going to flag out the blurries, the eyes closed, the pictures of your feet, I mean, you know, the inside of your camera bag. Why? Because that's all visual clutter. Like, please just hide the stuff I never want to look at again. Because it's reducing decision fatigue. If you don't have to sort through all the blank and get to the good pictures, you're going to be fresher. So that's what Assisted Calling is doing. Right in Lightroom, not uploading the images, just light in, light in right room. That's good. You mentioned masking. I mean, if you ask people what's your favorite feature, masking is going to come up. So the subject masking, sky background, people masking for retouchers. You know, with one click you can build, oh my gosh, I have to go down the list. The facial skin, the body skin, the eye sclera, the eyes, the teeth, the hair, the facial skin, the clothing. And it's like, oh, let's go into Photoshop and build all those masks. No, because I can do it with one click. But we can even have you get to it even faster with our adaptive presets. And as soon as you hear the word adaptive, there's going to be masking involved. So we just released, for example, adaptive landscape presets. And so what they're going to do, you click on it and it's going to look at your image and find up to eight segments. Wow, it's a very geeky term.

Yeah.

Now, oh boy. Here's the quiz. For example, some of the segments include sky, water, mountains, vegetation, artificial ground, natural ground architecture, which you might think it's a landscape, but you have bridges and barns, and then there's winter presets, which include snow. So you know, you can click on the adaptive preset, it'll apply some settings, but once again, it's Lightroom. You can adjust everything as you like. And that's the idea. It's like here we've done the tedious work for you. If you still want to go into a dark room, cut a frisket, do Ruby lith, knock yourself out, have fun. I'm going to be out here in the daylight. And most of this works on your phone too. Okay. I mean, people remove is on the phone because you're out there seeing the sights, doing the selfies. You know, I was in India maybe six. Not India, in. I know where I was with Istanbul. I knew there was another eye. Another eye, another eye.

Yeah.

I did a selfie with my husband. Like this is great. Us and our hundred closest friends. Yeah, right. I'm not going to post that. It looked like we were just there by ourselves.

Yeah.

People removed.

That's crazy.

You know, I mean that's sort of the, the part I'm not trying to. I just want to enjoy photography. I don't just see the problems. And these tools are helping me enjoy photography. I'm not entering it in a composition competition or submitting it to National Geographic.

Well, this particular show is about building a business of photography. So if we can move faster and we can follow our creativity to make amazing images that we can sell. We're not entering images into competition. We're not Kevin Dooley, you know, crawling around in the African bush. We're taking a picture of a family and helping them look their best so we can sell a giant print and make money. That's, I mean, and the use case for so many, I know, of our viewers, but of the industry as well. It helps the business work better.

Yeah.

In your perspective, when you see someone who's techno curious, unlock a real business advantage and begin to love it, what is that transformation like? And you mentioned the power of these one click removal tools. Is that the thing that converts, hurts them? Or in your observation, what's the thing that makes them go, okay, I'm all in. I'm not going to be techno curious anymore. I'm totally in.

I'm in. Solving a problem, that's the thing. Because everybody is spread so thin nowadays, you know, I mean it might be family and hobbies and you know, responsibilities and what are you going to binge tonight?

Yeah.

There seems to be less and less time. So if you can solve a problem efficiently and elegantly, people are going to use it. All right? And that's just keeping up to date. I'm just going to say I don't think it's possible to keep up to date with AI. Right. But what I would want people to do is take some time. Take like for example, assisted calling. Take a small shoot, like one evening on the weekend, try it out. If it saves you a few minutes, that's a win. You know, I wouldn't do it under client deadlines. Yeah, Take a few pictures, try these features out because you have to know what they do in order to apply them. Right. And then sadly, I'll be honest. You don't have to tell everybody.

Yeah, they don't need to know.

You know, your client, your clients want you to make them look good. And you've done that with lighting, with environment, with good camera equipment. Right. So take it a step further, help them look better. And that's what is going to happen. Nobody wants the picture of, oh, I really like that pole coming out of the back of my head.

Thank you very much.

That's right.

No one goes to the restaurant. We want the meal. We don't care about the recipe. There's a time to learn the recipe, but at the dinner, we want the chef to do what they do. And I don't care how they got there.

Yeah, good point.

Last question. So Adobe is all in on polling users, their team, they're fanatical about making this better and better.

said passionate but fanatical.

Fanatical. I promoted them, right?

Yeah.

But they're doing a lot of the cutting edge research for us and infusing these tools in the subscription we already have. So on top of being a subscriber, how else would you recommend someone try and stay up on what's going on? Are there folks to follow, books to read, blogs? What would you recommend someone trying to stay up to date do?

Well, there's a few artists that are doing really, really good work. Okay, I had a list. I will try. But like, Ann Cutting's doing really good work right now. Who's doing interesting work is Russell Brown from Adobe Dr. Brown on Instagram. And he comes out and said, this is what I did. This was a daytime shot. I changed to nighttime. I dropped in the Milky Way, I added the swirls of light. And he tells everybody. He tells you what the prompt is. Okay. And he's like, he's been involved with Adobe. I think he's like employee number eight.

Whoa.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now he's number one. He's still there. And the whole idea is, you know, he's excited about this. So follow these people to, to see what's possible. Of course. Julian Kos, Terry White, Brian Matias. They're going to tell you, you know, the real deal, what's going on. Yeah, there's an educator in Florida, Rick McCauley, I mentioned educators. He is so up to date and is trying so many things to write children's books, to write music, to promote that, you know, and empowering his students. Also, you can use AI as a teacher to help your students do better in interviews. You can build an avatar for the interviewer so they can practice. These are important skills to have and so I think it's the usual. You don't eat an elephant all at once, one bite at a time. So AI is in lightroom. You've been using it with the masking, with the remove tool now with assisted culling, dust removal, reflection removal. Try it out. If it works for you, fabulous.

We can stay up to date by listening to you like we did today.

Well, I appreciate that very much.

It was a great conversation. Katrine, thanks for coming by. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Pat. I had a pleasure. It was a pleasure.

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of The Professional Photographer podcast. Live from Imaging USA inside the Sony Cinema Line Studios. A big thanks to Sony for doing all the hard work to make us look good. Now, if you're still watching the episode, that means you enjoyed the show, which means you should be a subscriber of the show. So click subscribe on whatever platform you're on. Also, leave us a like and a comment so we know what the guest said that really resonated with you. The other thing is, if you're not yet a member of Professional Photographers of America, what's going on here? Because PPA offers terrific benefits like incredible equipment insurance, top notch education and a supportive community of photographers ready to help you succeed. Join now at ppa.com. That's ppa.com. I'm Pat Miller, host to the show and the founder of the Small Business Owners community. I appreciate you tuning in. We'll see you right here next time. Take care.