Getting stunning real estate photos isn’t easy. You’re constantly fighting weird lighting, tight spaces, and deadlines that seem impossible. For years, many of us relied on Lightroom presets as a starting point to speed things up. They helped, sure. But let’s be honest, they often created as much work as they saved, especially with tricky indoor shots. Things look different now. AI editing tools, like Imagen, are changing the game. They offer a smarter way to get consistent, high-quality results much faster than old-school presets ever could. Let’s explore why.

Key Takeaways

  • Real Estate Challenges: Editing real estate photos is tough due to wide dynamic range (bright windows, dark rooms), mixed lighting causing color casts, and perspective distortion from wide lenses. Speed and consistency are crucial.
  • Preset Limitations: Traditional Lightroom presets apply the same static settings to every photo. They struggle with the varied conditions common in real estate, often requiring significant manual adjustments.
  • AI is Dynamic: AI editing tools like Imagen analyze each photo individually. They apply adjustments intelligently based on the specific content and lighting, leading to more accurate and consistent results.
  • Imagen AI Profiles: Imagen uses AI Profiles, not static presets. You can create a Personal AI Profile trained on your own edits, use a Lite Personal AI Profile based on your favorite preset (but with dynamic exposure/WB), or choose a ready-made Talent AI Profile.
  • Specialized Tools: Imagen offers specific AI tools essential for real estate, including HDR Merge, Perspective Correction, Sky Replacement, and Window Pull, which presets can’t replicate automatically.
  • Complete Workflow: Imagen is more than just editing. It’s a desktop app (processing in the cloud) integrating Culling, Editing, Cloud Storage, and Delivery into one streamlined workflow, compatible with Lightroom Classic, Lightroom, Photoshop, and Bridge.

The Unique Challenges of Real Estate Photography Editing

Shooting properties looks straightforward, right? Point the camera, click, done. If only it were that simple. As photographers specializing in real estate, we face a unique set of hurdles that make post-production particularly demanding. Getting those bright, crisp, inviting shots that help sell homes takes more than just good composition. It takes serious editing skill and often, a lot of time.

Taming the Dynamic Range Dragon

This is probably the biggest headache. You walk into a room, and the windows showcase a beautiful sunny day, but the interior corners are deep in shadow. Our eyes can handle this contrast pretty well, but cameras? Not so much. Expose for the shadows, and the windows blow out into pure white. Expose for the windows, and the room becomes a dark cave. Finding that perfect balance, where you see detail both inside and out, requires careful editing, often involving multiple exposures (bracketing) and techniques like HDR or manual blending. A simple preset often struggles dramatically here.

Correcting Color Casts and White Balance Woes

Interior lighting is a minefield of mixed color temperatures. You might have warm tungsten lamps, cool daylight streaming through a window, and maybe even some fluorescent lights in the kitchen, all in the same shot. This mix creates unnatural color casts on walls and furniture. Getting accurate, neutral whites and realistic colors across the entire image demands precise white balance adjustments, often needing local corrections that a global preset just can’t manage effectively.

Battling Perspective Distortion

To capture the feel of a space, we often use wide-angle lenses. While great for making rooms look spacious, they also introduce perspective distortion. Vertical lines like walls and doorframes can appear to tilt inwards or outwards (keystoning). Correcting this is essential for a professional look. It requires careful adjustments in Lightroom or Photoshop to ensure all lines are perfectly straight and the geometry looks natural.

The Need for Speed and Consistency

Real estate agents work on tight deadlines. Listings need to go up fast. That means we, as photographers, need to deliver high-quality, edited photos quickly. Delivering 25-50 photos for a listing means editing efficiently. Equally important is consistency. Every photo in a listing should feel like part of the same set, with a uniform style, brightness, and color palette. This consistent look builds trust and makes the property more appealing. Achieving both speed and consistency manually or with basic tools is a constant balancing act.

The Traditional Approach: What Are Lightroom Presets?

For a long time, Lightroom presets were the go-to solution for speeding up the editing process. If you’ve spent any time editing photos, you’ve probably used them or at least heard of them.

Defining Presets: Saved Settings in Lightroom

Think of a Lightroom preset as a saved recipe of editing adjustments. It’s a collection of slider positions in Lightroom’s Develop module – things like exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, white balance, colors, sharpening, and more – all bundled together under one name. When you apply a preset to a photo, Lightroom instantly applies all those saved settings in a single click. You can create your own presets based on edits you like, or you can buy or download presets created by other photographers.

The Appeal: Why Presets Became Popular

Presets took off for a few good reasons:

  1. Speed: Applying a preset is much faster than adjusting dozens of sliders manually for every single photo. It gives you an instant starting point.
  2. Consistency (Basic Level): Applying the same preset across multiple photos helps achieve a similar look and feel, which is crucial for things like wedding albums or real estate listings.
  3. Learning: For beginners, presets can be a way to see how certain looks are achieved and learn how different sliders interact.
  4. Style Exploration: Trying out different presets allows photographers to experiment with various styles quickly.

Presets offered a significant step up from editing every photo from scratch. They provide a foundation, a quick way to get images moving in the right direction.

The Problem: Why Standard Presets Fall Short for Real Estate

Here’s the catch, especially for us real estate photographers: traditional Lightroom presets are static. They apply the exact same set of adjustments to every single photo, no matter what’s actually in the photo. And that’s where things fall apart in real estate.

Think about it. You shoot an exterior shot in bright sunlight, then move inside to a dimly lit living room with big windows, then into a bathroom with no windows and only tungsten lights. These scenes have completely different lighting, colors, and dynamic range.

  • Scenario: The Bright Window Problem: You apply your favorite “bright and airy” preset to that living room shot. The preset might boost exposure and lift shadows. This might look okay in the darker parts of the room, but that already bright window? It gets completely blown out, losing all detail outside. Now you have to manually pull back highlights, maybe brush in negative exposure on the window – the preset just created more work.
  • Scenario: The Color Cast Conundrum: You move to the bathroom lit by warm tungsten bulbs. You apply the same preset, which maybe has a cooler white balance setting. Suddenly, the bathroom looks sterile and blue instead of cozy and warm. Or, if the preset is warm, it might exaggerate the yellow cast. Again, you’re manually correcting the white balance, defeating the purpose of the one-click preset.
  • Scenario: The “One-Size-Fits-None” Issue: A preset optimized for a sunny exterior will likely crush the shadows or make colors look weird when applied to an interior shot, and vice-versa. Because the preset doesn’t understand the content of the photo, it applies its fixed recipe blindly.

For real estate, where every room and every shot can have drastically different lighting and color challenges, static presets often require so much manual tweaking that they barely save any time. You end up fighting the preset instead of working with it. That’s why we need something smarter.

The Evolution: AI Editing as the Smarter Alternative

The limitations of static presets, especially in challenging fields like real estate photography, paved the way for something better: Artificial Intelligence (AI) editing. This isn’t just a buzzword; it represents a fundamental shift in how we can approach post-production.

What Makes AI Editing Different?

The core difference is simple but profound: AI analyzes each photo individually. Unlike a preset that applies the same fixed settings regardless of the image, an AI editing tool looks at the specific content of your photo – the lighting conditions, the colors, the subject matter, the dynamic range – before making any adjustments.

Think of it like this:

  • A Preset is like a cookbook recipe that tells you to add 1 cup of sugar, whether you’re baking a small cake or a giant one.
  • AI Editing is like an expert chef who tastes the batter, checks the size of the pan, and decides exactly how much sugar is needed for this specific cake to taste perfect, while still following your preferred style (e.g., “not too sweet”).

Moving Beyond Static Adjustments

Because AI understands the context of each image, it can make dynamic adjustments. It knows that a bright window needs different highlight treatment than a dark corner. It can recognize mixed lighting and apply more accurate white balance corrections. It can identify skies, subjects, or perspectives and apply specific fixes intelligently.

This means AI can achieve a level of consistency and accuracy across a varied shoot (like a real estate property) that static presets simply cannot match without extensive manual intervention. It’s about getting closer to the final result, faster, and more reliably, for every single photo. This is where tools like Imagen come into play.

Introducing Imagen: Your AI Editing Partner for Real Estate

So, if traditional presets fall short, what’s the answer for busy real estate photographers? For many of us, the solution is Imagen. It’s an AI-powered editing tool designed specifically for professional photographers, and it tackles the weaknesses of presets head-on.

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It’s important to understand right away: Imagen doesn’t use static presets in the traditional sense. It uses something far more powerful: AI Profiles.

Not Just a Preset: Understanding Imagen AI Profiles

An Imagen AI Profile is a sophisticated AI model that has learned a specific editing style. Unlike a preset which just records slider positions, an AI Profile understands the logic behind a style. It knows how to adjust exposure, contrast, white balance, and colors differently based on the unique characteristics of each photo, all while aiming for the target style.

Imagen offers three main types of AI Profiles, giving you flexibility depending on your needs and workflow:

The Personal AI Profile: Learning Your Unique Style

This is the gold standard for achieving edits that truly match your vision. To create a Personal AI Profile, you provide Imagen with a collection of your own previously edited photos (ideally 3,000 or more, from Lightroom Classic catalogs or folders with XMP sidecars/embedded data). Imagen analyzes these edits – how you handle highlights in sunny exteriors, how you warm up interiors, how you adjust colors – and builds an AI model that replicates your specific style.

Once trained (which typically takes less than 24 hours), this profile edits new photos just like you would, but in seconds per photo. It adapts to different lighting situations, camera bodies, and lens choices, applying your style intelligently. It’s like having a virtual assistant who edits exactly like you, only much, much faster.

The Lite Personal AI Profile: The Smart Preset Solution

Don’t have thousands of edited photos ready for training? Or maybe you have a favorite traditional preset you love the look of, but hate having to fix its exposure and white balance mistakes? The Lite Personal AI Profile is the perfect bridge.

You start by uploading just one of your favorite Lightroom presets (an XMP file). Then, you answer a quick visual survey to help Imagen understand your preferences for exposure and white balance. Imagen combines the color and tone styling from your preset with its AI intelligence for exposure and white balance.

The result? An AI Profile that delivers the aesthetic of your chosen preset but dynamically corrects the exposure and white balance for each individual photo. It fixes the biggest problem with using static presets in varied lighting – it’s your preset, made smart. This profile is ready in minutes and is a fantastic way to get started with Imagen if you’re coming from a preset-based workflow.

Talent AI Profiles: Ready-Made Pro Styles

If you don’t have a specific style defined yet, or you want to try a professional look instantly, Imagen offers Talent AI Profiles. These are AI Profiles created in collaboration with renowned professional photographers. Imagen provides profiles specifically tailored for real estate, like “Elegant Home” and “Nature Home,” which are trained to handle the typical challenges of property photography.

You can browse these profiles, see examples, and apply them to your projects right away. It’s a great way to get high-quality, consistent results immediately, and you can even use a Talent Profile as a starting point and fine-tune it with your own edits over time.

Regardless of which profile type you choose, Imagen moves beyond the limitations of static presets by bringing AI-driven, dynamic adjustments to your real estate editing workflow.

Imagen’s Specialized AI Toolkit for Real Estate Photographers

While getting the basic exposure, color, and tone right is huge, real estate photography has specific needs that go beyond standard adjustments. This is another area where Imagen shines, offering a suite of AI-powered tools designed precisely for the challenges we face. These aren’t just filters; they are intelligent functions that automate complex tasks, saving incredible amounts of time compared to doing them manually in Lightroom or Photoshop.

HDR Merge: Effortlessly Handling Bracketed Shots

Shooting multiple exposures (bracketing) is standard practice for capturing high dynamic range scenes, especially interiors with bright windows. Manually merging these brackets in Lightroom or Photoshop can be time-consuming, involving selecting the brackets, running the merge command, waiting for processing, and then editing the resulting HDR file.

Imagen‘s HDR Merge tool automates this entire process. When you upload your project, simply enable HDR Merge. Imagen automatically identifies your bracketed sets (based on capture time and exposure values), merges them into a single, well-balanced HDR file (DNG if your source is RAW, JPEG if your source is JPEG), and then applies your chosen AI Profile for color and tone editing. It turns a multi-step manual process into a single automated step within your Imagen workflow. The result is a natural-looking image with detail preserved in both the highlights and shadows, ready for final review.

Perspective Correction: Straightening Lines Automatically

Those tilting walls and converging verticals caused by wide-angle lenses? Fixing them manually using Lightroom’s Upright tool or Transform panel requires careful adjustment for each image.

Imagen‘s Perspective Correction AI tool analyzes the geometry of your photos and automatically corrects vertical and horizontal lines. It intelligently identifies dominant lines and straightens them, ensuring buildings, walls, and doorframes look accurate and professional. You simply check the box when setting up your project, and Imagen applies the correction along with your style edits. This saves minutes per image, which adds up significantly over an entire shoot.

Sky Replacement: Perfect Skies Every Time (Even on Gloomy Days)

Sometimes the weather just doesn’t cooperate. A dull, overcast sky can make an exterior shot look flat and uninviting. Manually replacing skies in Photoshop is possible but requires precise masking and blending.

Imagen offers an AI Sky Replacement tool. (Note: Always check the latest Imagen features, as availability might change). If available, this tool can automatically detect the sky in your exterior shots and replace it with a more appealing option, like a bright blue sky with fluffy clouds. It handles the masking and blending intelligently, integrating the new sky seamlessly with the rest of the image, including adjusting lighting and reflections for realism. This can dramatically improve the curb appeal of a property with minimal effort.

Window Pull: Balancing Interior and Exterior Views

This is a specific and powerful tool for real estate interiors. Getting the view through the windows to look natural – not too bright, not too dark, with realistic colors – is notoriously difficult. Some photographers use complex “flambient” techniques involving flash and masking.

Imagen‘s Window Pull tool aims to automate this. It intelligently analyzes the interior and exterior portions of the image, applies separate adjustments to balance the exposure and color, and creates a mask (which you can later refine in Lightroom Classic if needed). The goal is to produce a clean, natural-looking view through the windows without requiring manual blending or excessive HDR effects. Using Window Pull often works best in conjunction with HDR Merge for optimal results on bracketed shots.

Other Essential Tools

Depending on the photography type you select in Imagen, you might also see recommendations for tools like:

  • Straighten: Automatically levels horizons. Useful if Perspective Correction feels too aggressive or isn’t needed.
  • Crop: Suggests crops based on composition rules (though for real estate, you often need specific framing).

By incorporating these specialized AI tools directly into the editing process, Imagen automates tasks that presets simply cannot handle, saving you hours of complex manual work in Lightroom or Photoshop.

Putting Imagen to Work: A Real Estate Photographer’s Workflow

Okay, theory is great, but how does this actually work in practice? Let’s walk through a typical real estate photography workflow using Imagen. Remember, Imagen is a desktop application you install on your Mac or PC. While the heavy lifting (AI processing) happens in the cloud, the app itself runs locally and interacts directly with your photo files and catalogs.

Setting Up: Installing the Imagen Desktop App

First things first, you need to download and install the Imagen application from their website. Sign up for an account (they offer a free trial with 1,000 edits). The installation is straightforward, just like any other software.

Step 1: Connecting Your Lightroom Classic Catalog (or Folders)

Imagen needs access to your photos. It integrates most seamlessly with Adobe Lightroom Classic catalogs. When you create a project, Imagen can read your catalog structure (folders and collections) and access your original RAW files or Smart Previews.

If you don’t use Lightroom Classic, Imagen also supports workflows using Lightroom (cloud version), Photoshop (via Adobe Camera Raw), or Bridge. In these cases (Extended Adobe Compatibility), you typically point Imagen to the folder containing your photos. Imagen reads the RAW/JPEG files and any associated XMP sidecar files (or embedded metadata for DNG/JPEG) which contain editing information.

Important: Make sure your photos are accessible – either on your computer’s internal drive or a connected external hard drive. Imagen needs to read the source files for uploads. Cloud Storage integration is primarily for backup from Lightroom Classic catalogs currently.

Step 2: Creating Your Imagen Project

Inside the Imagen app, you’ll create a new project for each shoot. Give it a descriptive name (e.g., “123 Main Street Listing”). You’ll choose whether this is an “Edit” project or a “Cull” project (we’ll cover culling later). For now, select “Edit.”

Step 3: Choosing Your AI Profile

This is where you tell Imagen how to edit your photos. Select the AI Profile you want to use from the dropdown menu:

  • Your trained Personal AI Profile.
  • A Lite Personal AI Profile you created from a preset.
  • A Talent AI Profile (like Elegant Home).

Make sure you choose a profile that matches the file type (RAW or JPEG) of the photos you’re uploading.

Step 4: Selecting Real Estate AI Tools

Here, you’ll select the specialized tools needed for this shoot. Choose “Real Estate” as the photography type. This will likely recommend tools like Perspective Correction and HDR Merge. Review the list and add any others you need, like Window Pull or Sky Replacement. Check the boxes for the tools you want Imagen to apply. Remember, these tools often have a small additional cost per photo, which is clearly displayed.

Step 5: Uploading Your Photos (Cloud Processing)

Imagen will show you the photos from your selected catalog or folder. You can filter these further if needed (e.g., only upload photos with a certain star rating). Once you confirm the selection, click “Upload” or “Edit.”

Imagen uploads your photos (or previews, depending on settings) to its secure cloud servers. This is where the AI processing happens. This frees up your computer; you can even close Imagen while the editing takes place (though uploads need the app open). The editing itself is incredibly fast – often under half a second per photo on average. For a typical listing shoot of 50-100 photos, the editing might be done in minutes.

Step 6: Downloading the Edits Back to Lightroom (or Folder)

You’ll receive an email notification when your edits are ready. Open the Imagen app, go to your project, and click “Download to Review.”

  • Lightroom Classic Users: Imagen automatically applies the edits directly back into your Lightroom Classic catalog. It updates the metadata for each photo with the AI-generated adjustments. When you open Lightroom Classic, you’ll see the edited images.
  • Extended Adobe Compatibility Users: Imagen downloads the XMP metadata (as sidecar files for RAWs or embedded for DNG/JPEG) back to the original folder where your photos are stored. When you open these photos in Lightroom, Bridge, or Photoshop (ACR), they will automatically display the edits applied by Imagen.

Crucially: Imagen does not create new files (unless using HDR Merge which creates a new DNG/JPEG). It non-destructively updates the editing instructions for your original photos.

Step 7: Reviewing and Tweaking

Now, open your photos in your preferred Adobe software (Lightroom Classic, Lr, Ps, Br). Review the edits Imagen made. The goal is that the edits should be 90-95% perfect, matching the chosen style and applying corrections accurately. You might need to make minor tweaks – perhaps a slight exposure bump here, a crop adjustment there. Because Imagen did the heavy lifting consistently, these final touches should be quick.

Step 8: Fine-Tuning Your Personal AI Profile (Crucial for Improvement)

This step is vital if you’re using a Personal AI Profile or Lite Personal AI Profile. After you’ve made your final tweaks in Lightroom Classic, you tell Imagen to “Upload Final Edits” for that project.

Imagen analyzes the differences between its initial AI edit and your final tweaked version. It learns from your corrections. Over time, as you upload final edits from multiple projects, Imagen prompts you when it has enough data to “Fine-Tune” your profile. Fine-tuning updates your AI Profile to incorporate your latest adjustments and preferences.

This means your profile gets progressively better and more accurate, requiring fewer manual tweaks in the future. It’s a continuous learning loop that keeps your AI edits perfectly aligned with your evolving style.

This workflow transforms real estate post-production from a hours-long slog into a much faster, more efficient process, centered around review and refinement rather than repetitive manual adjustments.

More Than Just Editing: The Imagen Ecosystem

While the AI editing is the star of the show, especially compared to presets, Imagen aims to be a comprehensive post-production platform. It integrates other crucial steps of the workflow, making it possible to manage almost everything within one application.

Streamlining Selection with Imagen Culling

Before you even get to editing, you often need to sort through hundreds, sometimes thousands, of photos from a shoot (especially if you bracket heavily). Manually culling photos in Lightroom is tedious.

Imagen offers an AI-powered Culling feature. You upload your entire shoot (RAWs or JPEGs) to a Culling project in Imagen. The AI analyzes the photos for technical issues (blurriness, closed eyes, poor exposure) and also groups similar photos together. It suggests ratings (stars or colors) based on your preferences.

You then review the culled results in Imagen‘s Culling Studio. It provides an efficient interface to quickly compare photos within groups, adjust ratings, and make your final selections. You can even see edited previews using your chosen AI Profile during culling, helping you select based on the final look. Once you’ve finalized your picks, you can send them directly to an Editing project within Imagen without ever leaving the app. This integration saves a massive amount of time compared to culling manually first.

Secure Backup with Cloud Storage

Losing client photos due to hard drive failure is a photographer’s nightmare. Imagen offers integrated Cloud Storage as a backup solution, primarily designed to work seamlessly with the Lightroom Classic workflow.

When you upload photos for editing or culling from a Lightroom Classic catalog, you can choose to also back up your original RAW files (either full originals or space-saving optimized versions) to Imagen‘s secure cloud. This happens automatically in the background. If disaster strikes, you can easily download your backed-up photos directly from the Imagen app. It provides peace of mind and simplifies your backup strategy by integrating it directly into your post-production tool. (Note: Currently, cloud backup primarily supports uploads from Lightroom Classic catalogs).

Direct Delivery Options

Once your photos are edited and finalized, the last step is delivering them to your client. Imagen can help here too.

  • Export to Folder: You can export final, high-resolution JPEGs directly from the Imagen app to a designated folder on your computer, ready for uploading to your client gallery service.
  • Pic-Time Integration: If you use Pic-Time for client galleries, Imagen has a direct integration. You can publish your final edited photos straight from Imagen into a new or existing Pic-Time gallery, further streamlining the delivery process.

By combining Culling, AI Editing, specialized tools, Cloud Storage, and Delivery options, Imagen aims to be the central hub for your entire post-production workflow, moving far beyond what a simple preset could ever offer.

Conclusion: Making the Switch from Presets to AI

For years, Lightroom presets were a helpful tool for real estate photographers trying to save time and achieve some level of consistency. They offered a starting point, a way to apply a basic look quickly. But as we’ve seen, their static nature makes them fundamentally ill-suited for the dynamic and often challenging lighting conditions inherent in property photography. The endless tweaking, the inconsistent results across different rooms, the inability to handle specific tasks like HDR or perspective correction automatically – these limitations cost us valuable time.

AI editing, spearheaded by tools like Imagen, represents the next logical step. By analyzing each photo individually and applying adjustments dynamically based on a learned style – whether it’s your own Personal AI Profile, a smartened-up version of your favorite preset via the Lite Profile, or a ready-made Talent Profile – Imagen delivers truly consistent, high-quality results across an entire shoot.

When you add the specialized AI tools designed specifically for real estate (HDR Merge, Perspective Correction, Window Pull, Sky Replacement) and integrate Culling, Cloud Storage, and Delivery into one platform, the argument becomes compelling. It’s about shifting your time away from repetitive, manual slider adjustments and towards final review, creative refinement, and actually growing your business.

Are traditional presets completely obsolete? Maybe not for every single use case. But for professional real estate photographers who value speed, consistency, and quality, the move towards AI-powered solutions like Imagen isn’t just an upgrade; it’s becoming the standard for an efficient, modern workflow. Isn’t it time you let AI handle the heavy lifting?

Frequently Asked Questions about Imagen for Real Estate

  1. Is Imagen just a fancy preset? No. Traditional presets apply the same static settings to every photo. Imagen uses AI Profiles that analyze each photo individually and apply dynamic adjustments based on the photo’s content and the learned style. This leads to far more accurate and consistent results, especially in varied lighting.
  2. Do I need my own edits to use Imagen? Not necessarily. While creating a Personal AI Profile (which requires 2,000+ of your edited photos) gives the most personalized results, you can start immediately with:
    • Lite Personal AI Profile: Upload just one of your favorite presets.
    • Talent AI Profiles: Choose from ready-made styles created by pro photographers, including some specific to real estate.
  3. How does the Lite Personal AI Profile work with my preset? You upload your preset (XMP file). Imagen learns the color and toning style from it. Then, using AI, it intelligently adjusts the exposure and white balance for each photo individually before applying your preset’s style. This fixes the main issue of static presets failing in different lighting conditions.
  4. Can Imagen really handle the bright windows in interior shots? Yes, Imagen has tools specifically for this. The HDR Merge tool automatically combines bracketed exposures to capture full dynamic range. The Window Pull tool specifically works to balance the exposure between the interior and the view through the window for a natural look.
  5. What Adobe software does Imagen work with? Imagen works with Adobe Lightroom Classic (most seamless integration), Lightroom (cloud), Photoshop (via Adobe Camera Raw), and Bridge. It integrates by reading/writing metadata (XMP) associated with your RAW, DNG, or JPEG files.
  6. Is Imagen a plugin for Lightroom? No, Imagen is a separate, standalone desktop application. It communicates with your Lightroom Classic catalog or your photo folders to upload images and download edits (metadata updates). It does not run inside Lightroom itself.
  7. Where does the editing actually happen? You use the Imagen desktop app to manage projects and uploads/downloads. The actual AI photo processing (editing, culling analysis) happens quickly and efficiently on Imagen‘s secure cloud servers. This means it doesn’t bog down your local computer.
  8. How much time can Imagen realistically save me? Imagen users often report cutting their editing time by up to 96%. Instead of spending hours manually editing a shoot, you might spend minutes uploading, let Imagen edit (which is very fast), and then spend maybe 30-60 minutes reviewing and making minor tweaks. The exact time saved depends on your current workflow and editing complexity.
  9. What if I don’t like an edit Imagen makes? You always remain in control. The edits are applied non-destructively back to your Lightroom catalog or as metadata. You can easily tweak any adjustment slider in Lightroom just like you normally would. If using a Personal or Lite Profile, you can then “Upload Final Edits” to help the AI learn from your corrections for future edits (fine-tuning).
  10. Does Imagen offer culling too? Yes. Imagen has an integrated AI Culling feature that helps you select the best photos from a shoot quickly by analyzing sharpness, exposure, closed eyes, and grouping similar images. You review the suggestions and make final choices within Imagen before sending photos to edit.
  11. What are the specific Real Estate AI tools Imagen offers? Key tools include HDR Merge (for bracketed shots), Perspective Correction (straightens lines), Sky Replacement (enhances exteriors), and Window Pull (balances window views). These automate complex tasks common in real estate editing.
  12. How much does Imagen cost? Imagen typically charges on a per-photo basis for editing (around $0.05 per photo, but check their site for current pricing). There are additional small charges for using certain AI tools like HDR Merge or Perspective Correction. Culling and Cloud Storage usually have separate subscription plans. They offer a free trial with 1,000 free edits.
  13. Is it complicated to learn Imagen? No, the Imagen app is designed to be intuitive. The workflow involves selecting photos, choosing a profile and tools, uploading, and downloading. While understanding how AI Profiles work helps, the actual process is quite straightforward, especially if you’re already familiar with Lightroom. They also provide tutorials and support.