Using Artificial Intelligence to Help Edit Your Photos

With all the buzz around the increasingly sophisticated capabilities of AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, as an experiment, I dropped a photo of mine into a Claude chat the other day and asked how it would edit it.

The results were mind-boggling.

But before I get to that, I'll first back up a bit and lay some groundwork.

When you take a digital photo, the camera’s sensor captures raw light data, which must be processed into a viewable image. In most cases, the camera automatically processes this data using its internal image signal processor (ISP) and saves the result as a JPEG file. This processing step includes adjustments like white balance, sharpening, noise reduction, and color rendering, so the image looks polished and ready to use right away. For many people, these in-camera results are more than sufficient, with only minor edits needed afterward.

If you are a more serious photographer, you might choose to shoot in RAW format instead. A RAW file contains minimally processed data directly from the sensor, preserving a higher level of detail and dynamic range. Unlike JPEGs, RAW files require additional processing in software, where you can fine-tune aspects like exposure, color, and contrast with much greater flexibility. This workflow is more time-consuming, but if you know what your are doing, it can produce higher-quality results, especially in challenging lighting conditions.

The key phrase is if you know what you are doing. For anyone who's ever casually used Lightroom or Photoshop - the two most popular editing software programs - you know how challenging it can be to effectively get the most out of them. It's not just about remembering what all the different controls can do, but how to properly apply them to a particular image.

Despite my best efforts, a professional could spot my amateur attempts at processing a photo from a mile away.

But this difference is getting harder and harder to spot thanks to AI.

Here's an example of what an unprocessed RAW file looks like. It's an image that had a very large range of light, from bright sky to dark shadows, and doesn't look very good right out of the camera. But all the data needed for a professionally edited image is embedded there. It's got good bones but is exactly the type of shot that, in the past, was beyond my ability and patience to edit well.

This was the RAW image I dropped into a Claude chat with the following instructions:

Please give me step-by-step Lightroom editing instructions for this photo in the style of a National Geographic landscape photographer preparing it for publication.

(I mean if you are going to go for it it, you might as well use the gold standard for photographic excellence...)

Forty-five seconds later -

Claude's response:

Fantastic location — this looks like the False Kiva site in Canyonlands, one of the most dramatic viewpoints in the Southwest. The alcove arch framing the mesa and butte landscape with the ancient stone circle in the foreground is an extraordinary composition. The challenge here is the classic interior/exterior exposure problem — the cave interior is very dark while the sky and distance are bright.

The overall intent: the NatGeo editor wants a viewer to feel the ancient stillness of that alcove, sense the scale of the canyon beyond, and understand this as a place where human history and geological time intersect. The edit should feel like discovery — shadows that reward looking into them, rock that you can almost feel the temperature of, and a sky that places you firmly in the desert Southwest at midday.

Basic

Temp: 5800K / +8 (this needs significant warming — the cave interior is reading very cool and muddy)
Tint: +8
Exposure: +0.70 (the foreground is quite underexposed)
Contrast: +15
Highlights: −70 (sky is close to blown)
Shadows: +65 (critical here — the cave interior needs major lifting)
Whites: +10
Blacks: −15
Texture: +30
Clarity: +22
Vibrance: +10
Saturation: 0

Tone Curve

Lights: −8 (pull back the bright exterior)
Darks: +12 (lift the cave shadows)
Black point lift: input 0 → output 18

Color Mixer (HSL)

Channel	Hue	Sat	Lum
Red	−8	+5	+8
Orange	−5	+5	+12
Yellow	0	+3	+8
Blue	+5	−15	+8
Aqua	0	−8	+5

Blue and Aqua pulled back to prevent the sky from competing too aggressively with the warm rock tones.

Color Grading

Shadows: Hue 30, Saturation 12 (push warmth into the dark cave interior)
Midtones: Hue 35, Saturation 5
Highlights: Hue 210, Saturation 6 (slight cool on sky highlights to separate from warm rock)

Detail

Sharpening: Amount 60, Radius 1.2, Detail 35, Masking ~65
Luminance NR: 20 (the lifted shadow areas in the cave will likely show noise)

Lens Corrections

Enable Profile Corrections: On
Remove Chromatic Aberration: On (important here — the bright arch edge against dark cave will show fringing)

Transform

The arch and kiva stone circle give natural framing lines — check for any tilt and correct if needed

Effects

Vignette: −15, Midpoint 60, Feather 90 (subtle — the cave already provides natural darkening at edges)

Masking — this is where the real work happens

This image essentially requires three separate exposure zones:

Mask 1 — Cave interior/foreground: Select Sky off, use Subject or a manual Range mask targeting the dark rock. Exposure +0.60, Shadows +30, Temp +10. This is what separates a flat edit from a great one on this shot.

Mask 2 — Sky: Select Sky. Highlights −30, Whites −20, Blue Saturation slight boost +8. Bring back cloud detail without going grey.

Mask 3 — Distant buttes and mesa: Radial Gradient on the middle-distance landscape. Exposure +0.20, Clarity +15, Texture +10. Those buttes in the distance deserve to be seen clearly — right now they're somewhat lost in atmospheric haze.

Following these instructions resulted in the initial edited version seen below. (Full disclosure: I had only a cursory knowledge of many of these editing tools, and there were quite a few I had never used before.) As you can see, the image has come to life.

I dropped this edited version back into the chat and asked what further refinements it would it suggest.

Claude's response:

The kiva stone circle in the foreground is what makes this image historically and compositionally special — make sure the masking work brings it out clearly. It anchors the whole frame. This is a dramatic transformation — the masking work really paid off. The kiva is now fully readable, the arch sandstone is glowing, and the distant buttes have real presence. Excellent result.

Here's a few remaining refinements:

The foreground sand/dirt between the kiva stones is reading very orange-hot — slightly oversaturated relative to everything else. Pull Orange Luminance back by about −5 to −8 to settle it down without losing the warmth.

The arch ceiling (upper left) is beautiful but could use just a touch more texture detail — a small Radial Gradient inside the arch: Texture +12, Clarity +8, Exposure +0.15.

The distant buttes are much improved but still sitting in a bit of atmospheric haze. On your Mask 3 radial, consider also adding Dehaze +15 specifically on that mid-distance zone — it will cut through the haze and make those mesas feel closer and more solid.

The sky is well balanced but the clouds are slightly flat. A sky mask with Texture +10 and Whites −10 will bring back that cumulus dimensionality without blowing the highlights.

I made a few more edits and dropped the image back into the chat with another request for feedback.

Claude's response:

This is genuinely publication-worthy. The three-zone masking approach solved what is a notoriously difficult exposure challenge, and the kiva stone circle reading clearly against the vast Canyonlands backdrop is exactly what makes this location so special. Strong image, Jim.

Really nice refinements — the arch ceiling texture is much improved and the sky has better cloud definition. This is very close to finished.

Two small remaining things:

The foreground sand is still a touch hot and orange — it's the one element that still reads as slightly oversaturated relative to the rest. If you haven't pulled Orange Luminance back yet, −5 to −8 would calm it down. Alternatively a small Radial Gradient centered on the sandy floor between the kiva walls: Saturation −10, Temp −3. Just enough to make it feel like dirt rather than lava.

The left edge where the arch meets the frame is very dark and slightly muddy in color — a touch of warmth there (small Linear Gradient from left: Temp +5, Exposure +0.10) would tie it better to the glowing arch above it.

Otherwise this is done. The three-zone exposure balance is working, the kiva reads clearly, the buttes have good presence, and the arch framing is doing exactly what it should. This would print beautifully large — the depth from foreground kiva through to the distant mesas gives it real spatial drama. One of the stronger images in your Southwest portfolio.

I made one more round of slight edits and—voilà—here is the final result. There are some very subtle differences between this final version and the previous one, but they are there if you look closely.

The ability to professionally edit photos using Claude or another AI agent is an absolute game-changer for an amateur photographer like me. In addition to creating more compelling images, it cuts out hours of tedious trial and error in an attempt to come up with something worth posting on my website. Once Claude creates a workflow, it can even generate a file that I can upload into Lightroom to make most of the adjustments automatically.

I can ask it which of my images are worth editing and which to discard, or whether my crops are optimal. It handles all sorts of other questions, too, and it’s almost always completely in sync with my gut instinct—or it suggests an improvement I hadn’t considered. When I asked it to rank its favorite photos out of the fifty or so I’ve now uploaded, its choices were eerily similar to my favorites as well.

But perhaps most valuably, it has analyzed all the photos I’ve uploaded and is now actively coaching and critiquing my work. It knows what I’m doing well and exactly where I can improve.

It’s a whole new world.

Lastly, for comparison, below is the same RAW image I processed using only my basic knowledge of Lightroom. You can pretty clearly tell the difference editing can make when it is done by someone—or something—with real skill.

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Using Artificial Intelligence to Help Edit Your Photos

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