As a professional photographer, I get it. You bought a Fujifilm camera for a reason. It wasn’t just the dials or the aesthetics. It was the color. There’s a certain magic that Fuji captures straight out of the camera. Their Film Simulations aren’t just filters. They are decades of color science packed into a sensor.

So, you shoot your session, glowing about the “Classic Chrome” or “Acros” on your camera’s display. Then, you load the RAW files into Lightroom. And… that magic is gone. The flat, neutral RAW file mocks you. The natural next step? You start the great preset hunt, trying to find that one-click solution to bring the magic back.

We all do it. But here’s the hard truth: static presets are the wrong tool for the job. They’re a clumsy shortcut that often costs us more time. The good news? There is a much better, smarter, and faster way to get the results you want.

Key Takeaways

  • Fuji’s “Magic” is Color Science: Fujifilm’s Film Simulations are complex color profiles, not simple filters. This is what makes their JPEGs so good and their RAW files so desirable.
  • Presets Are Static: A Lightroom preset applies the exact same set of slider adjustments to every single photo, no matter what.
  • The Preset Problem: A preset built for a sunny day will fail on an overcast day or an indoor reception. This forces you to manually re-edit every photo, defeating the purpose of the preset.
  • Lightroom’s Native Profiles: Lightroom’s “Camera Matching” profiles (like “Camera Classic Chrome”) are a much better starting point than a preset, but they are not a complete edit.
  • The Modern Solution is Dynamic: Imagen‘s AI Profiles are the “next generation” of presets. Instead of a static recipe, an AI Profile learns your style and applies it dynamically, adapting the edit for each photo’s unique lighting and exposure.
  • Your Style, Only Smarter: You can create a Personal AI Profile by teaching Imagen with your own edited photos. This creates a profile that edits exactly like you, just 10x faster.
  • The Right Workflow: A professional workflow uses Imagen (a desktop app with cloud processing) to get your photos 95% of the way there, all inside your existing Lightroom Classic catalog.

The Fujifilm “Magic”: What Are We Chasing?

Before we talk about editing, we have to agree on what we’re all trying to achieve. Why does a Fuji RAW file feel so different?

It’s More Than a Filter: The Legacy of Film Simulations

For decades, Fujifilm was a giant in the film world. They created beloved stocks like Provia, Velvia, and Acros. When they moved to digital, they didn’t just throw that history away. They built that color science directly into their cameras.

When you select “Classic Chrome” on your X-T4 or X-H2, you’re not just “de-saturating” a photo. You’re activating a complex recipe that targets specific colors. It mutes greens, shifts blues toward cyan, adds warmth to skin tones, and crushes shadows in a very specific way. No single preset slider can do all of that at once.

Understanding the X-Trans Sensor and Color Science

Most digital cameras use a Bayer sensor. Fujifilm’s X-Trans sensor uses a different, more randomized pixel pattern. The goal is to mimic the organic grain of film and reduce digital “moiré” patterns. While the real-world difference is a topic for forum debates, there’s no question that it handles color and detail in a unique way.

This combination of a unique sensor and powerful in-camera processing is what gives you those famous Fuji colors.

Why In-Camera JPEGs Are So Good (And Why We Still Shoot RAW)

This is the classic Fuji dilemma. The JPEGs look so good straight out of the camera. They’re punchy, stylized, and ready to go. So why shoot RAW?

We shoot RAW (RAF) files for one reason: data.

A JPEG file has all the editing decisions “baked in.” The white balance is set. The exposure is locked. A lot of the highlight and shadow data is thrown away to create a smaller file.

A RAW file keeps everything. It holds all the original data from the sensor. This gives you, the professional, the power to:

  • Rescue a slightly over-exposed sky.
  • Change the white balance from “daylight” to “tungsten” without any loss in quality.
  • Pull detail out of deep shadows.

We shoot RAW because it gives us flexibility and control. Our job is to take that flat RAW file and re-apply our creative vision to it—a vision that’s often inspired by those film simulations.

Section Summary

Fuji shooters are chasing a high-quality, stylized look based on decades of film science. We shoot RAW to maintain creative control but want to get back to that “magic” in-camera look as fast as possible. This is where most people turn to presets.

The Classic Workflow: Fujifilm and Lightroom Presets

If you’ve been a photographer for more than a week, you’ve used a preset. It’s the most common tool in the toolbox. But what is it, really?

What is a Lightroom Preset? (The Simple Mechanics)

A Lightroom preset (an .xmp file) is just a saved “recipe” of slider positions. That’s it.

When you apply a preset, you are telling Lightroom:

  • Set Exposure to +0.50
  • Set Contrast to +20
  • Set Highlights to -40
  • Set Saturation to -15
  • …and so on.

It will apply that exact same recipe to every single photo you select. This is a critical point.

The Good: Why We All Start with Presets

Look, I’m not here to bash presets entirely. They have their place, especially when you’re starting out.

Speed and One-Click “Solutions”

The dream of a preset is “one-click editing.” You click the button, and bam, the photo looks amazing. It’s a huge time-saver… when it works.

Achieving a Consistent Starting Point

More realistically, presets give you a consistent starting point. If you have a set of photos taken in the exact same lighting, applying the same preset can get them all in the same ballpark. This is common in a studio setting with controlled strobes.

Exploring Different Creative Styles

Presets are also a great way to learn. You can apply a preset and then look at the sliders to see how that “look” was made. “Oh, they crushed the blacks and lifted the shadows in the Tone Curve.” It can be a good educational tool.

The Bad: Where Presets Fail Fuji Shooters

Here’s where the dream falls apart. Photography, especially for wedding, event, and portrait shooters, is not consistent. We move from a dark church, to a bright sunny park, to a dark reception hall.

This is where presets fail.

The “One-Size-Fits-All” Problem

The preset recipe is static. It does not know what is in your photo.

  • It doesn’t know the photo is already over-exposed.
  • It doesn’t know the white balance is already too warm.
  • It doesn’t know the subject is in shadow.

The preset just blindly applies its recipe. So, that “+0.50 Exposure” in the preset might be perfect for one photo, but it will completely blow out the highlights on the next one.

Presets Don’t Adapt to Light

Let’s take our Fuji “Classic Chrome” example. You buy a preset pack that promises that look. You apply it to a photo from a sunny-day portrait session. It looks great!

Then, you apply that same preset to a photo from the indoor reception. Suddenly, it’s a disaster. The skin tones are muddy, the shadows are completely gone, and the colors look nothing like the first photo.

Why? Because the light is different. A preset cannot adapt. You, the human, now have to go in and manually fix it. You have to re-adjust the exposure, tweak the white balance, lift the shadows, and fight the preset to get a good image.

You’ve just spent more time fixing the preset than if you had just edited from scratch.

The Preset “Rabbit Hole” (Buying pack after pack)

This leads to the endless search. “My ‘Dark and Moody’ preset only works outdoors. I need a ‘Dark and Moody – Indoor’ preset.” “My ‘Bright and Airy’ preset blows out skin tones with flash. I need a ‘Bright and Airy – Flash’ preset.”

You end up with 500 presets, and you spend more time trying to find the “right” one than you do editing.

Section Summary

Presets are a simple tool that we outgrow. They are static recipes that fail in dynamic, real-world shooting environments. They promise speed but often create more clean-up work, especially for Fuji shooters trying to replicate a complex color style across different lighting conditions.

Lightroom’s Native Tools for Fuji: A Better Starting Point?

Before you buy another preset, let’s look inside Lightroom itself. Adobe has massively improved its handling of Fuji files.

The “Wormy Artifacts” Myth: Is Lightroom Safe for Fuji RAWs?

For years, photographers avoided Lightroom for their Fuji files. There was a real problem with how it “de-mosaiced” (interpreted) the X-Trans sensor’s RAW data. It created “wormy” artifacts, especially in green foliage, and skin tones looked “waxy.”

This is no longer a major issue.

Since 2018, Lightroom’s “Enhance Details” feature and overall processing updates have almost completely solved this. I and thousands of other professionals use Lightroom for our Fuji RAW files every single day with no problem.

Understanding Lightroom’s Camera Matching Profiles

This is the most important tool you have. Forget presets for a second and look at Profiles.

In the Develop module, at the very top of the Basic panel, you’ll see a drop-down menu that probably says “Adobe Color.” Click the four-square icon next to it.

This opens the Profile Browser.

What are “Camera Matching” profiles?

Scroll down to the “Camera Matching” section. You’ll see them:

  • Camera Acros
  • Camera Classic Chrome
  • Camera Provia / Standard
  • Camera Velvia / Vivid
  • …and all your other in-camera film simulations.

These are not presets. These are baseline “interpretations” of your RAW file, created by Adobe, to mimic the starting point of your camera’s built-in simulations.

How to Use Them (Step-by-Step)

  1. Import your RAW (RAF) files.
  2. Go to the Develop module.
  3. Open the Profile Browser (the four-square icon).
  4. Expand the Camera Matching set.
  5. Hover your mouse over a profile, like “Camera Classic Chrome,” to see a preview.
  6. Click it to apply it.

Notice what happens: None of your sliders moved. Your exposure, contrast, and color sliders are all still at zero. This is because a Profile is applied before the sliders.

The Pros vs. Cons

This is a much better starting point than a preset. You are starting with a color base that is already close to the Fuji look you love. From here, you can make your actual edits (adjusting exposure, white balance, etc.) without fighting against a preset’s baked-in settings.

The con? It’s just a starting point. It doesn’t edit the photo for you. It doesn’t fix the exposure or adjust the white balance. You still have to do all the work.

Section Summary

Lightroom’s built-in “Camera Matching” profiles are the best manual starting point for a Fuji RAW file. They are superior to presets because they apply a complex color profile without hijacking your editing sliders. But, they still require you to manually edit every single photo.

The Modern Solution: Moving Beyond Static Presets with Imagen

image

We’ve established two facts:

  1. Presets are bad because they are static and don’t adapt to light.
  2. Profiles are good starting points, but they still require 100% manual work.

What if you could combine the intent of your favorite Fuji look with an intelligence that adapts to every photo? That’s not a preset. That’s an AI Profile.

What is Imagen?

Let’s get the facts straight. Imagen is a desktop app that you install on your computer. It works directly with your Adobe Lightroom Classic catalogs, or with folders of photos for Lightroom, Photoshop, and Bridge.

When you send a project to Imagen, it uploads your photos (or smart previews) to the cloud, where its AI (what we call the “brain”) performs the edit. It then sends those edits right back to your computer. The edits appear directly in your Lightroom catalog, with all the sliders adjusted, as if you did it yourself.

It’s an automated workflow that gives you the final edit, not just a starting point.

Presets vs. AI Profiles: The Critical Difference

This is the most important concept you need to understand.

Presets: A Static “Recipe”

As we covered, a preset applies the same recipe to all photos.

  • Photo 1 (Underexposed): Applies +0.50 Exposure. Photo is still underexposed.
  • Photo 2 (Perfectly Exposed): Applies +0.50 Exposure. Photo is now overexposed.
  • Photo 3 (Overexposed): Applies +0.50 Exposure. Photo is now completely blown out.

The preset only has one instruction. It’s a “dumb” tool.

Imagen AI Profiles: A Dynamic “Chef”

An Imagen AI Profile is not a recipe. It’s a trained chef. You’ve taught it how you like your food cooked.

When you give it a photo, it first analyzes it. It says: “This photo is 1-stop underexposed. The white balance is 500K too cool. The subject is a person.”

Then, it applies your style based on that analysis.

  • Photo 1 (Underexposed): “This is 1-stop dark. My user likes a bright look. I will apply +1.50 Exposure.”
  • Photo 2 (Perfectly Exposed): “This is perfectly exposed. My user likes a bright look. I will apply +0.50 Exposure.”
  • Photo 3 (Overexposed): “This is 1-stop bright. My user likes a bright look, but this is too much. I will apply -0.25 Exposure to protect the highlights.”

How Imagen Edits Individually

Imagen‘s AI edits every single photo independently. It adjusts the core parameters—White Balance, Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows—based on the content of that specific photo.

This is the revolution. A preset can’t do this. Imagen‘s AI only does this. It’s built to adapt, which means it can handle a whole wedding, from the dark church to the bright park, and deliver a consistent style, not just a consistent recipe.

Section Summary

Imagen solves the fundamental flaw of presets. It separates the “technical correction” (fixing exposure/WB) from the “creative style” (your Fuji-inspired look) and applies them both intelligently on a per-photo basis.

Building Your Perfect “Fuji Look” with Imagen

So, how do you get this “Fuji look” into Imagen? You have three great options.

Option 1: The Personal AI Profile (For Your Unique Style)

This is the most powerful option and the one I recommend for all professionals. You teach Imagen to edit exactly like you.

What is a Personal AI Profile?

This is an AI Profile that you train using your own previously edited photos. Imagen analyzes your edits from thousands of photos to understand how you make decisions.

It learns your unique “Fuji look.” It sees how you treat skin tones, how you color-grade your greens, and how you handle high-ISO reception photos.

How It Works: Training Imagen to Be You

To build a Personal AI Profile, you need to feed Imagen your best work. The Imagen desktop app will scan your Lightroom Classic catalogs. You’ll point it to the folders or collections that contain your final, delivered edits.

You need a minimum of 2,000 photos to train a profile. Why so many? Because the AI needs to see your style in every situation. It needs to see:

  • Sunny day portraits
  • Overcast day portraits
  • Indoor photos with window light
  • Indoor photos with flash
  • Indoor photos in a dark, tungsten-lit room

The more variety you provide, the smarter your “chef” becomes.

Step-by-Step: Creating Your Profile from Your Best Fuji Edits

  1. **Open Imagen: ** Open the Imagen desktop app.
  2. Navigate to AI Profiles: Click “AI Profiles” on the left.
  3. Create Profile: Click “Create your own profile.”
  4. Choose “Personal AI Profile”: Select this option.
  5. Name Your Profile: Give it a name, like “My Classic Chrome Style” or “Fuji Wedding Profile.”
  6. Select Catalogs: Imagen will show you your Lightroom Classic catalogs. Select the one(s) that contain your final, edited RAW photos.
  7. Filter Your Photos: This is the magic. Use the filters to find your best work. You can filter by:
    • Editing Status: Choose “Edited.”
    • Rating: Choose 5-star photos. (This is my method)
    • Collections: Choose the exact collections you delivered to clients.
  8. Add Photos: Keep adding photos from different catalogs or collections until you hit the 3,000+ photo minimum.
  9. Upload & Train: Click “Upload & train.” Imagen will then process your edits (not the photos themselves, just the slider data) and begin building your profile. This can take 24-48 hours.
  10. Done: You’ll get an email when your profile is ready. You now have an AI assistant that edits exactly like you.

Option 2: The Lite Personal AI Profile (Fast Start)

What if you don’t have 2,000 edited photos? What if you love a specific preset but hate that it’s “static”? This is the solution.

What is a Lite Profile?

A Lite Personal AI Profile lets you create a dynamic AI profile using just one of your favorite presets as a “base.”

How It Works: Using One Preset to Create a Smart Profile

You give Imagen your favorite Fuji preset (as an .xmp file). Then, you answer a quick visual survey. Imagen takes the style of that preset and combines it with its core AI “brain” that understands exposure and white balance.

The result is a smart profile that adapts the exposure and white balance for every photo, and then applies the creative style of your preset. It turns your “dumb” preset into a “smart” AI Profile.

Option 3: Talent AI Profiles (Editing Like a Pro)

If you don’t have a specific style yet, or you just admire the work of another photographer, this is for you.

What are Talent AI Profiles?

These are pre-trained Personal AI Profiles created by world-class photographers. You get to use their “AI chef” on your own photos.

Why This is Better Than a Talent’s Preset Pack

This is the key. Many of these photographers also sell preset packs. But those preset packs have the exact same flaw as all other presets: they are static.

When you buy a “Talent Preset,” you’re buying their static recipe. When you use a “Talent AI Profile” on Imagen, you’re using their dynamic, intelligent editor.

You get all the benefits of their style, with all the power of Imagen‘s AI adapting it to your photos. You can even find profiles that are specifically designed for that contrasty, filmic “Fuji-friendly” look.

Section Summary

You can build a Personal AI Profile that edits exactly like you. You can use a Lite Profile to make your favorite Fuji preset “smart.” Or you can use a Talent AI Profile to apply a pro’s dynamic style to your work. All three options are light-years ahead of a static preset.

The Complete Fuji Workflow with Imagen (Step-by-Step)

So what does this look like in practice? Here is my exact professional workflow for a wedding, from import to export.

Step 1: Ingest and Organize in Lightroom Classic

I import all my Fuji RAW (RAF) files into a new Lightroom Classic catalog for my clients. I build 1:1 Previews and Smart Previews during this import. This is standard practice.

Step 2: Culling with Imagen

Before I edit, I cull. I used to use Photo Mechanic, but now I stay right inside the Imagen ecosystem.

  1. In the Imagen app, I start a new “Cull” project.
  2. I point it to my new Lightroom catalog.
  3. Imagen‘s AI culling scans all my photos in minutes. It groups duplicates, flags blurry or closed-eye shots, and gives me a “star rating” suggestion for every photo.
  4. I use the Culling Studio inside Imagen to quickly review its choices. I can accept its “best” selections or quickly override them.
  5. When I’m done, I click “Import to Lightroom,” and all my culling (picks, rejects, star ratings) is synced back to my catalog.

This 2-hour culling job now takes me 15-20 minutes.

Step 3: Create Your Editing Project in the Imagen Desktop App

My catalog is now culled. All the “rejects” are filtered out. I’m ready to edit.

  1. In the Imagen app, I click “Create a new project” and choose “Edit.”
  2. Select Your Catalog: I choose the same Lightroom catalog.
  3. Filter Photos: I tell Imagen to only edit the photos I kept (e.g., “Picked” or “1-star and up”).
  4. Choose Your Profile: I select my “Fuji Wedding Profile” (my Personal AI Profile).
  5. Select Additional AI Tools: This is another time-saver. I check the boxes for:
    • Crop: Imagen‘s AI will intelligently crop and compose each photo.
    • Straighten: It will automatically straighten every horizon.
    • Subject Mask: It will create a perfect AI mask of the main subject on every photo (I can use this later for fine-tuning).

Step 4: The Edit (Upload, Process, Download)

  1. I click “Edit.”
  2. Imagen uploads my Smart Previews (which is very fast) to the cloud.
  3. The Imagen AI brain analyzes and edits every single photo. For a 1,000-photo wedding, this takes about 10-15 minutes. (Compare that to the 8-10 hours it would take me manually).
  4. When it’s ready, the “Download to review” button lights up.
  5. I click “Download edits.” Imagen sends all the editing data back to my computer and applies it to my Lightroom Classic catalog.

Step 5: Reviewing and Fine-Tuning in Lightroom

I open Lightroom. All my photos are now fully edited. The horizons are straight. The crops are good. The color and exposure are 95% perfect.

My job is no longer to “edit” 1,000 photos. My job is to review 1,000 photos.

I do a final pass. I might:

  • Tweak the crop on a few shots.
  • Make a “creative” adjustment (like making one photo B&W).
  • Adjust the exposure just a tiny bit on a tricky shot.

This final review takes me 30-60 minutes, not two full days.

The “Fine-Tune” Loop: Uploading Your Final Edits

This is the final, brilliant step. After I’m done with my tweaks, I go back to the Imagen app. On that project, I click “Upload Final Edits.”

Imagen re-scans my catalog, finds the small changes I made, and learns from them. It says, “Ah, I see. On these flash photos, you like the exposure 0.15 stops brighter than I did. I’ll remember that the next time we train your profile.”

Your Personal AI Profile evolves with you. It gets smarter and more accurate with every wedding you shoot.

Section Summary

My entire post-production workflow—culling, editing, and fine-tuning—is now handled within one ecosystem: Lightroom Classic and Imagen. I’ve cut my culling time by 80% and my editing time by over 90%. This gives me my life back and lets me focus on shooting, not sitting at a desk.

What About Other “Preset” Alternatives? (Competitor Section)

You’ve seen their ads. Let’s talk about the other popular tools and how they compare.

VSCO

VSCO is a popular mobile and desktop application. It is well-known for its large library of film emulation presets. It provides these looks and a set of basic editing tools for applying them.

Mastin Labs

This is a preset company. It focuses on creating presets for Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw that are designed to help photographers create a hybrid look that matches classic film stocks, such as Fuji Pro 400H or Ilford HP5.

RNI (Really Nice Images)

RNI provides presets and profiles. These tools aim to replicate the look and feel of analog film stocks. They are sold in packages that photographers can install and use in Lightroom.

Why These Still Share the Same Core Problem

These are all high-quality products that create beautiful starting points. But fundamentally, they are all static presets or static profiles.

They apply a fixed set of adjustments. They do not and cannot analyze the content of your photo. They don’t know it’s underexposed. They don’t know the white balance is off.

When you apply a Mastin, VSCO, or RNI preset, you still have to go through every single photo to fix the exposure and white balance. You are still doing the bulk of the manual, technical work.

Imagen is the only solution that does the technical correction and the creative styling for you, adapting intelligently to every single photo.

Conclusion: Stop Chasing Presets, Start Defining Your Style

We buy Fujifilm cameras because we love the art of photography and the unique look they give us. But for years, we’ve been stuck in a workflow trap, buying static presets hoping to find a “one-click” shortcut that doesn’t exist.

That “shortcut” only creates more work by forcing us to fix its mistakes.

The professional solution is to change the tool. Stop using a static recipe and start using a dynamic, intelligent chef.

By using Imagen, you get to keep everything you love about your Fuji’s color science. You can train a Personal AI Profile that understands your unique style better than any preset ever could. It learns from you. It adapts to light. And it gives you the one thing no preset pack can ever give you: your time back.

Stop tweaking sliders all night. Let Imagen do the heavy lifting, so you can get back to what you love: being behind the camera.

Frequently Asked Questions (Q&A)

1. Is Lightroom really good for Fujifilm RAW files now? Yes. The old “wormy artifacts” issue is largely a thing of the past. Lightroom’s processing engine has improved, and I, along with many top professionals, use it daily for our Fuji (RAF) files without any problems.

2. What’s the difference between a Lightroom Profile and a Preset? A Profile (like the “Camera Matching” ones) is a baseline interpretation of the RAW data. It’s applied before your editing sliders. A Preset is a “recipe” of slider positions (Exposure, Contrast, etc.) that is applied on top of the profile.

3. Why is an Imagen AI Profile better than a preset? A preset is static (applies the same settings to all photos). An Imagen AI Profile is dynamic (analyzes each photo and applies a custom edit based on the lighting and your style). A preset fails in varied lighting; an AI Profile is designed for it.

4. How many photos do I really need to build a Personal AI Profile? You need a minimum of 3,000 photos. For the best results, I recommend 5,000 or more, taken across a wide variety of lighting conditions (daylight, overcast, flash, tungsten, etc.). This ensures your profile is “smart” enough to handle any situation.

5. Will Imagen’s AI Profile change my style? No. A Personal AI Profile learns your style. It edits like you. The goal is for you to open Lightroom and see a gallery of photos that look exactly as if you had edited them yourself, just without the 10 hours of work.

6. I don’t have 2,000 edited photos. Can I still use Imagen? Yes. You have two great options. You can use a Lite Personal AI Profile (which uses one of your presets as a base) or you can use a Talent AI Profile (which uses the dynamic style of a top professional photographer).

7. Is Imagen a separate editor? Do I have to leave Lightroom? Imagen is a separate desktop app that works with Lightroom. Your workflow stays the same. You import to Lightroom Classic, send to Imagen for editing, and the edits appear back in your Lightroom catalog moments later. You never lose your place.

8. What if I like a “Talent AI Profile” but want to change it? You can! When you apply a Talent AI Profile, you can also use “Profile Adjustments” to tweak it. For example, you can tell Imagen to always apply that talent’s style, but “a little warmer” or “with a bit less contrast.”

9. Can Imagen edit my Fuji JPEGs? Imagen is primarily designed for RAW files (RAF) because they contain the most data for editing. You can create a profile for JPEGs, but the results will be far superior with RAW files, as the AI has more room to work.

10. What are the “Additional AI Tools” in Imagen? Besides the main color and tone editing, Imagen can also perform other time-consuming tasks at the same time. You can have it automatically Crop, Straighten, and apply Subject Masks to all your photos during the edit.

11. How does the “Fine-Tune” feature work? After Imagen edits a project, you do your final review in Lightroom and make small tweaks. Then, you use the “Upload Final Edits” button in Imagen. The AI analyzes your tweaks and learns from them, making your Personal AI Profile even more accurate for the next time your profile is ready for training.

12. Does Imagen’s culling work with Fuji files? Yes. Imagen‘s AI Culling works with any photo folder or Lightroom catalog, including your Fuji RAF files. It helps you sort, group, and rate your photos in minutes.

13. How much does it cost? Imagen‘s pricing is pay-as-you-go, so you only pay for what you use. Editing is priced per photo, and culling is also priced per photo. This is often far more cost-effective than hiring a human editor and 100% more consistent.