There are no ends of ways to enhance your images using a wide variety of software, but some involve more work and knowledge than others. I recently discovered Photolemur, and I’ve got to say it’s not only a very simple and effective way to correct your images, but it’s also tremendously fun and easy to use!
Photolemur bills itself as “The world's first automated photo enhancement solution for Mac and Windows using image recognition, artificial intelligence, and a little bit of real-world magic.” And that’s exactly what it is and does. It’s not expensive, and coupon code “PLUGS&PIXELS30%OFF” gets you a 30% discount off either the Single or Family license (there’s no subscription; you own the software).
Let’s take look at Photolemur to see exactly how simple and effective it is.
Upon launching Photolemur, you are greeted with the simple welcome dialog shown above. Your choices are simple: Either drag in a photo, or Import from any directory on your computer. Once the photo is loaded behind the scenes, Photolemur immediately gets to work, automatically initiating a series of AI steps accompanied by some nice, constellation-inspired interactive graphics (the final step, “Doing Magic”, is shown below).
What exactly is going on? Photolemur is working through 12 steps of smart technologies designed to recognize and enhance specific subjects: Color Recovery, Sky Enhancement, Exposure Compensation, Smart Dehaze, Natural Light Correction, Foliage enhancement, Tint Perfection, JPG Fix and RAW Processing (coming soon: Noise Reduction, Face Retouching and Horizon Straightening).
When the AI has done its business, your photo is displayed with a Before and After slider (shown below). You can scrub it back and forth to see the exact improvements to your image. After is definitely better than Before.
In the case of my non-DSLR shots taken out of a plane window from a high altitude (screenshots below), Photolemur cut right through the blue haze and revealed detail in the scenes that would be missed otherwise. (Side note: Some smoggy cities could make do with an environmental version of Photolemur!)
The terrestrial photo at the top of this page was originally a bit dingy due to the low light and less than stellar sunset. Photolemur cleaned up the colors and revealed otherwise lost detail in the shadow areas.
Remember, all of this correction is achieved with absolutely no user involvement needed! The worse off your photo is, the more improvement you will notice – although any photo is improved to some degree.
Here’s another scenic, taken with a long zoom through a bit of haze and probably some smog (it’s in SoCal after all). Photolemur popped the scene, taking out the worst of the yellow cast.
You’ll notice the “Export” button on the bottom right of the screenshots. Clicking that button and choosing a destination is about all the real work you’ll have to do to complete the enhancement process, and you can enjoy the graphics along the way.
There you have it, an overview of the potential Photolemur has to enhance your images with literally almost no interaction on your part. To save even more time and effort, there is a Batch process option to handle entire folders of photos in one shot.
The only thing I can think to ask for are some very basic post-process sliders (maybe Levels and Saturation) in a single dialog (made available as an option just before the export process). Since Photolemur gets you most of the way there by itself, that would just be icing on the cake.
Remember, coupon code “PLUGS&PIXELS30%OFF” gets you a 30% discount off either the Single or Family license.
