inFocus

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Problem Statement

How do we automate photo and video editing for professionals to create a more streamlined and easier to manage workflow?  

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Problem Background  

Everyday, professional photographers and film-makers are spending a significant amount of hours using editing software to refine their art. A production of even the most basic photoshoot will require a minimum of 1 hour in edition before the finalised product can be turned in to a client.  

The phase of edition after a photoshoot and/or film production is a process in itself, involving manual efforts to go through and choose the best images to send into edition. Although editing images can be a personal preference, much of the time spent going through and choosing the best “in-focus” shots is mundane work in a creator's workflow. Many times it ends up turning into more of an elongated process, especially if they have to go backtrack and make a specific change based on a client request. 

Many creators have normalised spending hours on end during this process and advise clients ahead of time so that they can set expectations around their timeline for turnaround. Time for turnaround will be highly dependent on the photographer's workload and individual processes. 

Current technologies being utilised in the edition phase for professional creators can range, but on a surface level tend to include: 

1. Apple Suite + Airdrop (for immediate sharing of mobile versions)
2. Adobe Suite
3. CaptureOne
4. Pixieset 

For professional photographers/film-makers using even the most popular technologies there is typically a significant amount of time spent landing on the right workflows. The bare-bones of editing is going through the best shots to send into edition to produce a final product. 

A typical day will involve several shoots beforehand. Both user groups had similar workflows in their editing process with fairly slight changes depending on their artistic style and ICP. Independent photographers could only hold a limited number of sessions throughout the day, compared to their counterparts of group 2, since they were able to accomplish more tasks in less time as a “team”. 

The teams of professionals tend to work on specific phases of the entire workflow process, usually leaving the mundane tasks to be delegated to another member of their team. Easily an additional cost, but as a business unit must decide how their time is best spent based on the goals of their business.

User Pain Points

3 user interviews were conducted

To address the problem, efficient user interviews were conducted to better understand a creator's use of time in the workflows of a typical project. The interviewees were split into two user groups. The individual creator and the teams of 2+ creatives (addressed as “teams”). In the user interviews conducted we were able to find out the pain points creators experienced utilising software technology in the edition (end) phase of their work-flows. 

Common Issues as an Individual Creator:

1. “Doing it all”
2. Paying for software technology that doesn’t automate certain tasks
3. Longer turn-around time for clients

Common Issues as a team (2 or more people) of Creators:

1. Learning curve of utilising various softwares
2. No highly specialised editing options to choose their best images
3. Countless hours in front of a computer screen editing

Feedback

Gathering information from users, we were able to agree on the one constant issue of time usage. All in all the process of a creator is much better utilised creating. It takes too much time to go through tedious manual work when technology can automate and choose the best shots to go through. Having the necessary tools to automate those tedious tasks will give creators more free time to dedicate for additional clients and/or projects of their choosing.

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Landing on the Solution

The solution to give back time to creators was a common pattern within both user groups. Their pain-points all consisted of wanting to “have more time in the day” to take on more clients or focus on the projects they were most passionate about.

This is what the solution plans to address and resolve altogether. 

Most creators are already utilising the most popular editing softwares on the market. A plug-in that integrates into their workflows seamlessly would be able to save them time by automating a manual process that can be sorted by using ai technology at the most advanced version. 

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Explanation of the Solution

inFocus will be able to integrate into the most popular editing softwares like Lightroom, Photoshop, and CaptureOne to save creators hours on end in the editing process.

Users will be able to download and purchase the plug-in just like any other app on the market. Many users who are already accustomed to adding presets to their editing softwares to optimize workflows anyways. Downloading the plug-in for the first time  should be the most difficult part of implementing the inFocus tool. After implementation, AI technology will be able to identify the best (“in-focus”) images and clips for users.

All types of creators will be able to utilize inFocus (even though it was created with the professional in mind) it will still have the same capabilities for any user to take advantage of utilzing in their creative pursuits.

Future Steps

I do not plan to continue with this project to build and launch just yet. This idea can solve a lot of problems for anyone who spends hours in front of a computer editing software. Speaking to users and conducting interviews addressed the surface level pain points, but uncovered that there could be time better spent in improving their business altogether. 

The editing software solves certain aspects of a creators workflow, but could still be improved with adding features that would eliminate some of the manual work that needs to be done.