Discover the Future of Photo Editing with Evoto
/A Conversation with Jay Peterson on AI-Driven Workflows
When I first heard about Evoto, it was just a name being tossed around in our Headshots Matter WhatsApp group. Curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to give it a try.
I was immediately intrigued. As someone who has spent countless hours using Lightroom and Photoshop, finding a tool to streamline my workflow like Evoto was terrific. (It feels like magic in many respects.)
Last week, I was fortunate enough to speak with Jay Peterson, Evoto AI's North American rep, about and demoing the tool with our members.
During our chat, Jay didn't just talk about Evoto—he showed us exactly how it works and why it's transforming the way photographers approach editing. I mean there is some mindblowing stuff under the hood of Evoto AI. Want to remove stray hairs or ? It does it in seconds. Adjust makeup? Done! It’s even easy to change a background from studio to location! It's an impressive and flexible tool at a photographers fingertips. What really struck me was how flexible it is. Remove a client's eyeglass glare? Easy as pie. Whether you want a subtle touch-up or a more dramatic edit, the power is in your hands.
Watching Jay navigate Evoto's features, I couldn't help but think about how much time I've spent on tasks that this tool handles in seconds. Jay also shared some behind-the-scenes insights about how Evoto's development is driven by photographers' needs. They're constantly evolving, adding new features based on user feedback. It's clear that this tool was built by people who understand the challenges we face in our post-production workflow.
I'm excited for you to see the full conversation, including the live demo where Jay shows Evoto in action. If you're looking to speed up your editing process without compromising quality, this is something you won't want to miss.
Watch the full video to see how Evoto can make a difference with your photo editing workflow.
Here's the front end of our discussion:
(Transcript was edited for clarity and time)
Dwayne Brown
We're here with Jay Peterson who is Evoto's representative in North America. He is currently based in Texas. And good morning, Jay.
Jay Peterson
Good morning, Dwayne. How are you, Good.
D
Terrific. I just wanted to thank you before we get going on this and give you a little bit of a tiny bit of a story. That's sort of my typical thing is we heard Evoto started to kind of rumble around on our WhatsApp group. Gosh, it must be one or two months ago. I admit I hadn't heard of it yet and I poked around. I did the free trial. I was immediately intrigued and blown away to be honest. And then I bought my credits and I started using it as a tool that kind of is, use sort of in between Lightroom and Photoshop. And now I'm probably maybe putting it even a little bit more in front of my post-production workflow. And so I'm really...you know, enjoying it myself and the more that we hear about it talked about on our WhatsApp group, everyone else's too. So for that, we're very, very excited that you can jump in and maybe sort of shed a little more light on some of the nuances of the application and, you know, maybe answer a few questions as we get going this morning. So yeah, it's awesome and we're very grateful.
J
Cool, very happy to be here and good morning and good afternoon to most of the folks that are joining us. Those overseas good day to you wherever you are in the world That yeah, thanks to it. It's it's cool. Yeah. I'm happy to be here with you guys I'm happy to have this conversation and hopefully introduce evoto to some new folks that maybe it's not on the radar yet That's that's a big part of my function with with the evoto team But yeah, it's exciting. It's I think where you mentioned evoto being sort of inserting itself into your workflow and kind of working its way into your workflow That's very exciting. Very very cool
D
Now, Jay, you had mentioned to us when we started our discussions to see if we can sort of have this webinar that you have a background in photography yourself, right? Yeah.
J
That's right, I do. Yeah, I was a working pro for a long time. I got my start in architectural and real estate photography, kinda pivoted into headshots and portraits. And then at the point that I stopped working in a full-time capacity, that was my focus, yeah, headshots and portraits. Yeah.
D
So yeah, You then You very much understand, you know, some of the things that working photographer has to keep in mind. you know, cost, the ease of a tool and also just to sort of how it can, I guess, scale or help us scale. One of the things that, you know, that I was thinking about is that I wanted to mention that I like about the application is that, you know, Right now we're all being asked to do more for less and quicker. And also, you know, in my studio, we're being asked to do more groups, I guess. So it's not just, you know, the senior management being photographed. It might be all 10 or all 20 or all 50. But the higher we go, the price point, we need to keep it really affordable. Evoto seems to be a good approach to being able to do a higher volume and still keep it quick and keep the price point low.
J
Yeah, 100%. And that's really one of the core competencies of this particular editing platform. As a standalone all -in -one, The whole goal with this system is to enable us as photographers to stay lean, move fast...This allows us to maintain quality control, but also maintain sort of continuity of our edits. meaning that, you know, we don't necessarily need to send things out anymore, at least with this system. You know, I've talked to Evoto users all day long, every day, and many of them still do use a retoucher in certain instances, which is fair game. I think there's always going to be instances where you've got that, you've got a relationship with the retoucher that is great for certain things. Totally fair game. And we talked to users that have given Evoto to their retouchers. Honestly, that, does happen as well. but yeah, this, this system is, is really, really unique in, that it allows for us to edit hundreds or thousands of photos in, a matter of minutes. it's really a decision-making tool. So the learn, the learning curve, the learning of a system and the manipulation of the images is less of, less of a process now with this system, which is what's very, very interesting and very compelling about this tool.
D
Something that I like about it is, especially with our community, our membership is we have a lot of very talented photographers, but our other commonality is everyone's very empathetic. They care about the person that they're photographing. So the idea about being able to retouch or enhance a photograph with a slider you've got that full control. so let's say you photograph somebody who does need a little extra love, you can give it to them or you don't have to give it to them. And it's up to you as a photographer. Now, when you send out, you have to get a relationship with a retoucher and that happens. But I really liked the idea that the slider is there. So, you know, in some cases, let's say the reflection in the eyeglasses. You may want to go all the way, but in something that you're removing blemishes, you may not or double chin or wrinkles and nicks. So, you know, we have a lot of that sort of empathetic control. It's cool.
J
Of course. Yeah, and I think that's that's that's another real valuable piece of the system in the way that I the way that I describe it to folks that have never seen the system before in our you know, just trying to understand it conceptually is Evoto allows you to be as conservative or as aggressive with your edit as you'd like, right? So if you wanted to go full-blown facetune and make it look a little bit over processed You've got that opportunity you have that tool in your toolkit with this system and on the inverse you could be as conservative as you like. So if we only need to use certain features like the eyeglass glare removal and some very, very light retouching for blemishes, or maybe just perhaps it's just eyeglass glare and straight hair removal for school photos or something of the sort or senior portraits. Yeah, it's entirely up to you. Again, it's a decision -making tool more than, I need to learn how to install Photoshop actions or create my own presets or, you know, I have to take all these masterclass trainings on how to keep up with an ever-evolving system, but don't necessarily; that's not the case anymore. We've lowered the barrier of complexity when it comes to at least retouching right now.
D
I think any good photographer likes to use their eye in that process. You're doing what you're doing in real time, and you're making a call on it. That's enough, or that's too much. So I personally quite like that.
Jay
Yep, I completely agree with you.
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