Zenfolio’s New PhotoRefine.ai Tool is Designed to Reduce Culling Time

Zenfolio has announced PhotoRefine.ai, a new application that employs artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce the amount of time photographers spend grouping, rating, and culling images after a photo session.

Zenfolio, a website builder and business resource for photographers, says that the launch of PhotoRefine.ai comes as the result of its acquisition of AI photo automation company Optyx in 2021. Zenfolio says its team “substantially” reworked and enhanced the Optyx platform and integrated it into Zenfolio to create PhotoRefine.ai.

PhotoRefine.ai aims to address what Zenfolio says is typically hours of time spent reviewing, sorting, grouping, and selecting images after a photo session. The company says the new application compresses that processes into just a few minutes in a way that prior to PhotoRefine.ai was only possible by outsourcing the task in what the company says typically cost hundreds of dollars.

“The launch of PhotoRefine.ai is the next step in helping photographers operate more efficiently and grow their businesses through the power of emerging technologies. Zenfolio works hard to enable photographers to spend more time behind the lens and less time behind the desk,” John Loughlin, CEO of Zenfolio, says.

Zenfolio says that PhotoRefine.ai is not only a lower cost option ($7 per month), it’s safer since it is a desktop application. The company adds that it focused on privacy and security, and the images are analyzed locally on the photographer’s computer without using personal information on the subjects in the photos during processing.

The application works by applying an AI to a set of images where it then uses blur detection, closed/blinking eye evaluation, image sharpness, and exposure to rate each individual image and highlight the best of a group. Zenfolio says photographers control all access and privacy and can customize settings based on their preferences. The app will find and group images according to individuals or categories, using facial-recognition intelligence.

Zenfolio positions PhotoRefine.ai as especially beneficial for weddings, school or sporting events, or other jobs that generate thousands of images with multiple duplicates. The company says it can pare down thousands of images from a shoot to just a few dozen in about 15 minutes.

PhotoRefine.ai is available to all Zenfolio subscribers in a couple of different ways. Firstly, it is included with the ProSuite plan ($30 per month) or can be purchased as an add-on to all other plans for $7 per month (both are billed annually).