Photoshop Craft vs AI: What Still Matters

Welcome! Oh, it’s so great to be here with Jesús and Lisa today. Welcome to the CreativePro Podcast. So happy to have you here.

Both of you have been around CreativePro for a really long time, so our regular listeners will know exactly who you are, and I’m sure they’re thrilled to hear that you’re here with us today. If you’re new to the CreativePro podcast, well, welcome! We’re really happy to have you. CreativePro is much more than just a podcast.

We’re here for design professionals like you. We have real-world insights, which I’m sure we’ll get some from Lisa and Jesús today. We have lots of practical tips, inspiring conversations.

I know I’ll be inspired by your conversation today, but we’re here to help you stay current so that you can work smarter. We have events, articles, tutorials, quick tips. Both Jesús and Lisa will be speaking at the Design and AI Summit.

Part one will be in April, April 9th and 10th, and Jesús will be speaking at that, and then Lisa will be coming for part two in September. Because you’re here today, we have a code, PODCAST, super easy to remember, to get $100 off any upcoming CreativePro event. Awesome.

Yeah. Let’s introduce you for those who might not know. I can’t imagine who wouldn’t know who you are, but just in case, we’ll start with Lisa.

Lisa, I pulled this from your bio on the CreativePro website. It says you’re an entertainment and beauty retoucher, mobile photographer, Photoshop, Lightroom trainer. What else do you want to add to that? World traveler.

Let’s put that in there. That’s kind of fun. What the heck? Yeah, right? Yeah, that’s pretty much it.

It’s funny because isn’t it interesting to have our lives condensed down into these little titles, and then I think of that entertainment thing, crime, and you haven’t done that 35 years. It’s crazy, but it’s like, no, 35 years I’ve been- You’re not possibly old enough for that. No, I started when I was 12.

You know this, right? It’s just so interesting to think about how much of our lives are taken up by our careers and are doing this, and yet the title feels a little like, oh, yeah, I do that. It’s very hard to wrap up a 35-year career in a sentence. Right? Yeah.

Jesús, you haven’t been doing this 35 years yet, have you? 45. 25. Jesús is the host and founder of the Photoshop training channel.

Most all of you have probably seen a video or two. You have a pillow there, Photoshop, PTC. Oh, wait, on this side, yeah, right there.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, both of you have been creators at Adobe Max, or not Adobe, yeah, at Adobe Max.

Yeah, yeah. CreativePro Week. I wanted to talk about CreativePro Week because we’re here for CreativePro.

Did you happen to catch the podcast that we just released that David and I recorded on the making of the CreativePro Week agenda? Did either of you catch that? It just came out. No, but I have it loaded here, ready to go. No, but I’m sure there’s something interesting that we should know.

Your name comes up in it, Jesús. Oh, God. You made some cuts, I see.

No, I have an apology that’s a little embarrassing. Uh-oh, which is? Somehow we had it in our head that you weren’t there last year. I was.

But you were there last year. Yes, I did the opening thing. I know, you were awesome.

And we’re going to be featuring that in an upcoming webinar. So I think this is what happened. Now, I’m going to throw David under the bus here, and that’s probably not fair, but he’s not here to defend himself.

We were talking about the three-minute max. Yes. And I said, yeah, Jesús wins it.

Every year, I’ve lost track. How many times have you won three minutes? Four or five, I don’t remember exactly. Oh, it kills me, kills me.

So I lost last year. But last year, Khara won. Yeah.

And then I’ve also tied with Khara once. So we’ve tied once, and she beat me another time. And the other person that beat me is Deke McKellen.

So I’ve lost three. Okay, so the amount of times he’s won is definitely greater than the times he’s lost. I know Khara’s already working on defending her title.

Good, good. We’re competitive though. So I mentioned that Jesús wins all the time, but that Khara won last year.

And I think David said, yeah, that’s because Jesús wasn’t there, which really wasn’t fair to Khara. Yeah, it wasn’t fair. Yes.

Khara won fair and square. She beat me, absolutely. Absolutely.

Do you remember what your tip was? Absolutely. So I knew it was, now I’m going to sound like an a-hole, but I knew that I wasn’t going to win because I did something super insane, which was I figured out a way of how to add multiple layer masks to one single layer, much like you can in Lightroom, by using blend if and a combination of blending modes. And you have to know blend if, you have to know blending modes, you have to know why you would need multiple layer masks in one layer.

So it was just so abstract, but I thought it was so cool that I figured it out that I thought I would show it anyway. So I knew that it was just going to go over people’s heads, but I thought it was cool. Well, and you know, we do those tips for each other.

It is such a competitive, so we’re actually talking to the other competitors. We’re like, that’s why they get so abstract and weird, because we’re trying to trick each other. Yeah.

I think you wowed all of the other speakers and then the audience was like, what did I just see? Yes. And to be fair, when I saw Khara’s tip, I thought, oh yeah, she won. And actually the time we tied that one, I was like, wow, I didn’t like she did.

I forget she did. She did an animation thing. I remember that much.

And I thought, wow, I would have not thought about that. And then she’s good. Khara is very, very good.

Her tip last year is not a new thing. It’s something that’s been in Photoshop a long time, but we forget. That’s what’s so awesome about CreativePro Week is that sometimes it’s not that we’re learning something new.

We’re remembering something we used to know that we forgot about it. So she created this street scene. It was a super fun graphic to begin with.

She had created this illustrated street scene and she used the heads of all the speakers that were competing. And some of us were walking and some of us were on bikes. And that was great.

It was this great composite. And the tip was, it’s very hard to find a layer if the layer you is in the default setting to the boundary of the canvas. But she showed how to change that to the boundary of the contents of the layer.

And then it was really easy to see. So, yeah. I’m so sorry to talk over to you, honey.

I was going to say, Jesús had the greatest thing he said to me. I think it was like last year. He was saying he was looking up a tip to do and he found his own video.

And you forget what you already know, even though you’ve taught it sometimes. Do you remember that, Jesús? I mean, it happens all the time. Because I usually like to reference .helpx at Adobe.com or whatever, the official Adobe thing.

So I usually in my searches for Photoshop stuff, I’ll type help x and then whatever I’m looking for. And then a lot of the times I’ll go read an article and then I’ll see the byline and I wrote it. And I completely forgot that I wrote that.

But it happens all the time. So great. Well, you guys, I’m going to drop off.

And before you drop off, I want to say something. OK. Because I just had a memory and I don’t want to have to apologize.

Kind of like you and David. I think Nigel French might have also beaten me one year. And I don’t.

I had that. I have that memory. So I just want to give a shout out to Nigel French because I think he did beat me one year as well.

Oh, awesome job. I can’t remember. I’m not sure.

All I know is I’ve never won. I never beat you. Let’s just let’s just give one more pitch for Create-A-Pro Week.

And Lisa, we’re so sad that you can’t make it this year. I know it’s going to be the first time in many years I’m missing out. And we’re going to miss you.

We will also. Why don’t you get it cut out? You could take a cut out of me, Jesús, and just. Oh, I think we need to do that.

And demo. Well, nano-banana her and yeah. Yeah.

Well, Create-A-Pro Week will be in Nashville this year, June 29th to July 3rd. Jesús will be there presenting two sessions. Sadly, Lisa won’t be there this year.

But Lisa will be presenting at the Design and AI Summit in September. Jesús will be presenting in April. That April part one is April 9th and 10th.

I think that both of your sessions in design and AI will be similar because both of you bring real world workflows. Whatever you’re teaching is very real. These are the things that work in the production work that you do.

So, Lisa, when you come in September, you’ll be able to correct all the things that changed. Or that I got wrong. Yeah, be the update central.

Well, Jesús, everything changes so fast. Everything’s changing so fast. So that’s why we’re doing it in two parts so that we can stay current.

All right. I’m going to be in backstage listening. And you guys just keep the conversation going.

Start with, I want to hear about how you met. Where did that start with? Yeah, let’s start with that. Well, I’ll tell you how I remember it because I think Lisa has a different memory of it.

I remember meeting you at Creative Live, which is at the time you would fly into Seattle. And you would meet a lot of different presenters at the Photoshop events. And I met you there.

I met Ben Wilmore there. I don’t know, is Ben going to be a creator pro? I think he might be. But anyway, the point is that I remember meeting you at the cafeteria or something.

And you were just sitting there with your previous partner. And I just remember talking to you. But you have a different memory of this.

Yeah, I have an earlier memory. At the same place, I met you in the elevator at the Holiday Inn across the street. And you were such a dick.

Now, you were just poop. But turns out, I believe, my friends, you had lost a power cord. Yes, that’s exactly what happened.

Yes, I don’t remember meeting you at the elevator. But I remember freaking out because I got to Seattle. I walked into my hotel room the previous night trying to get all my stuff ready.

My laptop is running out of battery. And then I’m looking for my power cable. And the power cable is gone.

Now, at most of these events, I’m the only one that has a Windows computer. Everybody usually has a MacBook or something. So nobody had a similar cable to what I needed.

And at that time, I was sponsored by Microsoft. So I had a weird, special connection that it needed. So then I freaked the hell out.

And I thought, I need to get to the Microsoft store before it closes. So that’s when I saw you at the elevator. I was freaking out.

I managed to get to the Microsoft store. And they closed early. They closed 15 minutes early.

So I got there at 8.45. And they closed at 9. And the guy wouldn’t let me in and sell me what I needed. So I’m going back to the hotel room. And I’m like, what am I going to do? I have no computer.

I had to be on the next day at 8 in the morning. As I’m walking through the hotel, I see my power cable on the ground. Just outside my door.

So somehow it fell out of my backpack right before walking into my room. But I didn’t see it when I went out because I was freaking out. So that’s probably why I ditched you at the elevator.

I have to tell you, it was a really good life lesson. You meet people and you have no idea what their context is. Their parents just died.

They got divorced. They’re about to present. They don’t have a power cord.

Because if I would have written you off then, can you imagine? I mean, it’s like 10 years ago. We’ve got this great friendship, this collaboration we do. All because you were less than stellar in one moment.

Yeah, that was like, yeah, wow. 10, 11 years ago. Yeah, you’re right.

Yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeah. And I can’t remember when our relationship shifted.

To work? No, just shifted to more than work. Like, I consider you one of my best friends on the whole planet Earth. And I think really, probably during COVID, maybe.

No, it was during COVID, 100%. Yeah, maybe around that time. No, not even Monterey.

Because that was after COVID. And when we say Monterey, we went to a conference. Because we see each other at conferences all the time.

And at this point, we’ve been to each other’s houses multiple times. And spend time there. But you live in California.

I live in Missouri. But at the time, I was… So during COVID, I was living in California. And then I can tell you exactly when I was like, oh, this is a very good person and a very good friend.

In October of 2021, I had a cervical dissection, which led to a stroke. And I almost died. And I needed to learn how to walk again.

And it took like six months to recover. Thankfully, I’m fine now. But during that time, you were very supportive.

You sent care packages. You would call. You were one of the people that was really looking after me.

And that’s when I thought, oh, this person is cool. Because this is when I’m in my low point. And you’re still there.

Yeah, that’s cool. I forgot about that. And that actually takes us into how we started working together.

I don’t know if you remember this. But you said, hey, do you need any money? I can get you some work. There’s a couple posters that I might need help with.

And I was like, well, I don’t need the money. But I definitely want to work with some posters. So that’s how our working relationship started.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think I was trying to throw you a bone. It wasn’t that.

I actually didn’t need the help. And it was I thought you needed the help. Isn’t that funny? Yeah, I mean, I guess.

Yeah, I guess. I mean, it worked out great. Because now we’ve worked on so many different projects together.

Some good, some bad. Do you want to talk about some other good ones? And then we’ll talk about some of the better ones. Yeah, I will say one of the things I love, love, love about our collaboration is it feels like collaboration.

I definitely feel that you’re a partner. And that your brain works so different than mine. So when I’m trying to solve problem X over here, you’re like, well, what about Y over here? And your problem solving techniques are so different that it’s like we exponentially grow, I think.

Yeah, I’ve told you this before. What I like about you is and I don’t know how you can teach it. I don’t think you can.

I think it’s just, you know, as you mentioned, 30 something years of experience. But like, I’ll show you a photo or like a composite and you’ll like start crossing things out like so fast. Like I’m like, what? Like your eye, especially when it comes to retouching, it’s wild how fast you can analyze a photo.

And right away like, oh, you missed here. Oh, you missed that spot. And I’m like, I didn’t even see those things.

Yeah, yeah. And then I will say one of my favorite things about our collaboration is I love calling you with some kind of problem. I need to figure out how to apply a smart filter to 17 different things and have it update automatically.

And how would you, I mean, how many calls have we had like that? And you’re like, all right, tell me what, wait, what’s the project? We just had one about two weeks ago. We did. That’s right.

You haven’t tried it yet, tried out the solution yet. So you’ll let me know when it works and we’ll come back and let people know how it works out. Yeah, I think it’s going to be amazing, actually.

Top secret. We’ll have to explore that later. What would you say one of your favorite things we did together? If you had a project that you really enjoyed.

There’s been a few that I really liked. I’ll briefly mention them. But the one that I want to spend a little time on is, I think you’ll know which one it is.

But I’ve liked, we did. Okay, I’m going to change my answer. I have two that I really, really like.

And I think people will get a lot of value out of this. We worked on a, I think it was NCIS Las Vegas poster. And the client needed a daytime and nighttime solution for the poster.

CIS. CIS Vegas. That’s what it was.

I am horrible with names for everything. So I apologize because I don’t remember everything I worked on, of course. And I definitely don’t remember names.

But so I remember that we needed to figure out how to Photoshop Vegas from day to night. But it needed to be the same photo. We couldn’t like, oh, here’s a picture of Vegas at night.

And here’s a picture of Vegas in the daytime. But there were different photos. It had to be the same one.

And to Photoshop something from day to night to look realistic, especially with a ton of buildings, a ton of lights, it was going to be very time consuming. It was not going to look great. So then I thought, oh, why don’t I find an Adobe stock.

What do they call it? I forget the name. No, a video clip. But that goes from day to night.

You know, like a timelapse, a timelapse, a timelapse of Vegas from day to night. So I just downloaded a video from Adobe stock, took the daytime image and then, you know, fast forward the video till night and then took that screen grab. And that’s what we use for the poster.

And I thought that was a I really enjoy working on that one because I was like, how am I going to figure this thing out? You know, like, like, yeah. And, you know, I will say that is one of your greatest outside the box thinking that I’ve ever seen. It was like, holy crap.

He took a video because before Nano Banana, before you could do relighting. Right. It was chef’s kiss genius.

And then the other one I really liked was during the writer’s strike that we couldn’t use talent for the poster. And I was it again. I think it was a Vegas one, right? It was in Vegas or whatever.

Yeah, it was. Yes. Yeah, it was another Vegas one because I remember the poker chip, but they like we needed to come up with this composite that didn’t use actors.

And it had a glass with an ice cube shaped as a skull and then blood on the table with like cards or something. Yeah. And the photoshopping wasn’t looking too realistic.

And I thought, well, this is these are all just basic 3D shapes that I can find on Adobe stock. So everything but the ice cream, I think, was was 3D generated. And then we just use a Photoshop like composite onto the ice cube.

But then we were able to have very realistic shadows, reflections, everything because it was all built in 3D space. And even though I can kind of mess around with 3D, I’m not a 3D artist. But by using some of the Adobe tools, like the substance stager, I think is what we use to put everything together.

Like, you know, it took a little longer than I would have liked. But ultimately, we got it done. And I really enjoy working on that one because it was just like the whole project was problem solving.

So that one was fun. Yes. And outside the box thinking, because I think in entertainment, what happens is you get Photoshop jockeys like we are.

And we’re used to solving it. Oh, it must be a Photoshop cut and paste, paint, mask, mask, paint, clone, clone, clone. And it’s like, no, a whole new application.

Get out of your head. Think completely different. And again, I would suggest that’s why our collaboration is so great, because we think so differently.

Yep. And what about. Oh, sorry.

No, no, please. I was just saying, too, and I think there’s not enough training or conversation out there about collaboration. But find other people you can work with who are better at something that you’re not.

Like you’re a master at AI. You’re an effing master. I, you know, I limp along.

And it’s so nice to be able to call on you and be like, hey, how do we solve this problem? Well, we’ll talk about AI a little bit longer because I have later, because I have something to say about like how people use AI. And I don’t. But there’s still something else I wanted to talk to you about the jobs that we get together, which is what, which is a project that you’ve disliked the least or hated the most? I’m sorry that you disliked the most or hated them.

Yeah. I don’t want to name names because I have. Oh, I’ll name names.

No, you won’t. But there’s some jobs where the material is so bad, the assets. And when they won’t let us get different assets.

And you’re just polishing a turd the whole time. And when you know it can be done better, if we can reach out to a different environment. Oh, that just that just kills me.

Kills me, kills me, kills me. And then you have another issue with, I know, another one of our clients, which we should not name. But I won’t name them.

But I mean, I don’t know if this is who we’re thinking about, but we had a client where we were working on designing a poster. And we must, I don’t know how many designs we did. 15, 20 between the both of us.

Oh yeah, probably more like 50 in the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a bunch, a bunch.

Like, I don’t know, what felt like weeks of work coming up with different posters. And ultimately they ended up not liking anything. But then when they finally made the, you know, like the poster, when it finally came out, it was very similar to one of the ones we had done.

And I was like, I thought you didn’t like it. Yeah, that’s, it’s hard with clients too. When they utilize us as ideation and they actually don’t know what they want.

Yeah, they have no clue. So you’re just throwing things on the wall and saying, do you like this? Do you like this? And why do you like this? Yeah. And to be clear to the, oh, sorry, go ahead.

Yeah, I was just saying like the visual vocabulary. And oftentimes with our clients, they don’t know. They just, they can’t articulate.

They don’t know. And like in this particular job, just for people listening, we got paid for the design work, but we didn’t get paid for like the next step, which would have been the finishing. Because we didn’t do it.

Somebody else did. But what sucked for us is that we were like, hey, like that was our idea, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Ownership of design work is hard to let go, isn’t it? Also, I just had another thought that I don’t even know if this one’s stuck in your head, but I just couldn’t believe it. We had, again, we’re not going to name clients, but we had a client with an actress who was, I don’t know, what, in her 50s, maybe going in her 60s. And she wanted to look like she was 21 or something.

And the amount of retouching that this woman had was insane, that I would have not in a million years would have done. And I think she ended up being unhappy with the retouching because she still felt like she didn’t look young enough. So they ended up.

Yeah. In Hollywood, this is a common problem because actresses are used to seeing retouched photos. So when they see themselves, it looks unfamiliar to them, which is odd because you think they’d look in the mirror every day.

I would say I think that’s my area of expertise is that beauty retouching and being like, look, that actress, I did something with the lady from Wicked. She did the Emmys. I forget her name.

I’m terrible with names too. Anyway, and the client had me over retouch it. And I’m like, no, if you look at her, who she is and who she, how she walks through this world, she does not want that.

And the client said, nope, nope, that’s what we want. And I said, okay, turned it in. Sure enough, she booted it and we had to pull it all back because if you know who the subject is and what they like, you know, like not going to want to go too far.

But sometimes the art directors or the people who are assigning the job are in their early twenties. And they think a 45, 50 year old woman wants to look like a 20 year old. When some 40 and 55 year old women don’t, they don’t mind that they have a stock neck like me.

You know, feel free to retouch me to look 25. I’m cool with that. Yeah, you’re going to, you’re going to age beautifully.

Worry not. You’ve got a kid now. You’re going to age faster.

Yeah, I’ve aged more in the last four months that she’s been right. The last 10 years. I am taking a little glee watching that happen.

Watching the greys come out. Right. So Teresa had mentioned something about, I didn’t even notice this was coming.

Did you know that they might have voice commands coming out in Photoshop? Yeah. I don’t know how NDA all that stuff is or not, but I’ll say this. Let’s talk about voice commands in general.

How about this? Like, how do you feel about voice commands in Photoshop in general? For me? Hell no. I can’t. I think I was telling you before Siri on my phone.

If I try to do a text message, Siri says all kinds of interesting things that I did not think I said. Yeah. So clearly the problem is me in this mouth.

So I think Photoshop controls via voice command will be a nightmare for someone like me. Yeah, I don’t think I will like it in the next five years, but I may love it in 15 years, you know? So, you know, like how, I mean, I know this is moving really fast, but when Generator Phil came out, what, three years ago, is that when it came out? Yeah. Yeah.

Three years ago compared to today is night and day. And three years from now, it’ll be even way better. So that’s how I feel it’ll be like.

I feel like I will not like it and think it’s maybe like a gimmick in the foreseeable future. But then in a decade or so, I think it’ll be great. Well, I was just had this vision.

Imagine, I don’t know if y’all are listening to this podcast or you’re watching it on YouTube. So if you’re watching, can you imagine if I stood up and I started with my hands crossed and dictating to Photoshop, do this, open the file, turn it to this, make it this size, make it this resolution, import these images, mask them out. And what, I’m pacing behind the computer? Yeah.

Well, you know, so now that we’re talking about AI, so like a lot of people don’t like AI for many reasons, many valid reasons. You know, there’s reasons such as the ethical concerns over copyright. There’s environmental reasons.

There’s a lot of reasons that are very valid. But one of the reasons that I don’t understand is how people are just afraid of the technology. And what I mean by that is, you know, right now we’re talking about giving a command to Photoshop, like do this action, whatever the action is.

It doesn’t matter. We’re still doing that now with this, with a mouse. And we’re just dragging our hands.

Yeah, fair enough. And so like in that context, to me, it’s like I’m still giving it a command. It’s still coming out of my head, whether it’s me dragging a mouse and clicking, or you’re doing a keyboard shortcut, or me saying it, it’s still my command.

So in that context, I have no problems. Well, and Jesús, maybe it’s no different than are you using a mouse or using a pen? You’re right. What tool do you like? So fair enough.

And I will say AI, my hesitation, concern, whatever, is moving. It doesn’t matter if I feel hesitation, if I feel concern, if I’m scared, if I’m confused. It doesn’t matter because it is moving forward.

And like it or not, my industry is completely moving forward, period, paragraph. So how I feel about it is irrelevant. Yeah.

How do you feel about it, though? Oddly enough, I’m a little sad because I like the functionality. Like I liked masking. I like painting a hair mask.

I like that kind of physical motion. So I would say, yeah, I’m a little sad. But again, it’s irrelevant.

So I have to just move on. I’m an endless optimistic, and I love it. I think it’s fantastic.

I wish I had more hours in the day to try more things out. I’ve been trying a lot of different models outside of Adobe. And I’m not just saying partner models like Google Banana, but I should say platforms outside of Adobe is what I really should say.

Just to see what’s out there, what’s available. And what can Firefly do? What can’t Photoshop do? And what these other platforms can do. And there’s so many good ones that can do very specific things that are excellent.

Yeah. Okay, so how do I feel about it in the context of Adobe and specifically Photoshop? I actually think they’re following rather than leading, which to me could be a mistake for Adobe or Photoshop as a product. It could be detrimental in the long run.

And what I mean by that is, I mean, if I’m going to take it back like 25, 30 years when I was a kid and I was learning how to do all this stuff, I remember thinking, I want to learn how to do movie posters. And what tool do these artists use to do that? And the answer was always Photoshop. And that’s what I’m going to learn because that’s what pros use.

Now, I feel that Photoshop is becoming a legacy tool in our industry. And we have to turn in everything as a PSB, Photoshop Big File, essentially a PSD. The moment that changes, I don’t think Photoshop will have a stronghold in this industry, in our industry, and I’m sure it’s the same for many others because there’s a lot of other platforms that deliver results better, faster, whatever.

Maybe not give you the entire tool set that Photoshop does, but definitely gives you the result that a specific job may require. So I see as Photoshop following these other platforms, like for example, Photoshop wasn’t the first platform to have partner models, it was not the first one to use a generator fill workflow. So I feel that Adobe and Firefly as a platform are playing catch up rather than lead.

And I think that could be a really, really big problem in the future. I haven’t seen anything that Adobe has put out that I’m like, wow, they’re really pushing the envelope, they’re the leaders in this industry. It’s always been trying to catch up to someone else.

Yeah, this is a really interesting conversation because then it is as users and or future users, people want to get into industries or people are moving on. I think this is where, this may sound strange, collaboration is going to become even more important because for me, my brain and the partner model stuff, that’s very hard for me to experiment. Your brain, not hard.

So for me, you’re a huge asset because I’m like, great, I’m going to partner with Jesús and then be like, let him run through the toolbox, check what works and say, hey, Lisa, here’s what we should be using. And this is why. And so I think collaborating is going to be really imperative for folks, designers, retouchers, et cetera, going forward because you won’t be able to stay on top of all of it.

So I’m suggesting y’all out there, make some friends, get some partners. And so you can divide the workload and divide the educating. Do you understand what I mean by educating? The learning, you go learn X, I’m going to go learn Y and let’s meet in the middle and see what we discover.

And I’m glad you use the word toolbox because people often ask me, how do you feel about AI? And I’m like, I don’t know. I don’t even know what that means. I see it as just another tool in the toolbox.

So if you and I are working on a project, I could use a spot healing brush tool, I could use a clone stamp tool, or I could use AI. Which one am I going to use? And AI is not always the answer. Sure.

AI is the answer for a lot of things, but not always. Like it’s happened to me where I think, oh, generator is going to take care of this. Oh, no, it doesn’t.

Great. Now I got to go do it with the clone stamp tool or whatever tool, and then I’ll do it the old way. So I don’t think it’s for our kind of work, like our kind of work.

We can’t sit there and type a prompt and the whole thing is done and then we go and have coffee. Like we use it for specific small tasks that add up to the entire project. But again, it’s a tool in the toolbox.

It’s almost like forget the word AI and just say content-aware fill. Am I going to use the clone stamp tool or content-aware fill? You know, like that’s how I feel about it. Like I don’t think about it as this whole separate thing, which it is, right? You know, it definitely is.

But when I’m working, that’s not what I think about. So this brings up an interesting point to me about languaging and languaging your tools. So I started as a mobile shooter a long time ago because I returned from France and I was my camera was broken and I couldn’t afford a new one.

And that was it. And there was all this conversation about, oh, that mobile’s crap and large sensor cameras the only way to go. Industry is never going to change.

And now, good golly, Miss Molly, these devices now, I don’t even own a large sensor camera. I do everything. I do pro work on a mobile device.

And no longer do I hear people talking about the capture, the device. No, they’re just talking about the work. And I feel like AI, we’re going to stop talking about how do you feel about AI? And you’re just going to be talking about the work.

And also, like, I mean, just just how language affects how we think, right? Like if you really think about it, talking about Photoshop and other Adobe tools, AI has been there for a long time. Do you guys remember Adobe Sensei? Oh, this this tool is powered by Adobe Sensei. That was AI, you know, maybe not generative AI, but still AI, you know, so like I don’t understand why, like, all of a sudden it became such a bad thing where, you know, we’ve been using Adobe Sensei for 10 plus years.

So, yeah. So interesting thing, we talk about perception. I was getting ready for one of our group presentation things, and I used generative AI to do this kind of illustrated thing of me with my camera.

And I really struggled. Should I post that? I don’t know that’s made from AI. And my sister, who is not in our industry in any way, shape or form, she looked at me, she kind of turned her head.

She goes, I don’t understand. And I was, what do you mean you don’t understand? She goes, you’ve been doing movie posters for 30 plus years. Those are all fake and composited.

And you’ve painted people’s hair. You’ve changed what someone looked like or some element. Your whole career is that.

How is it any different now that it’s still the same idea? You are changing an image to look like something else. Right. It was such a revelatory thing that I went, oh, my God, you’re right.

I’ve been spending my whole life changing what a picture looks like. Well, and also how I did it. Where do we draw the line, though? We can keep pushing the line back.

Do we draw the line before the demosaicing process? Do we draw the line after the camera that you took applies a profile? Do we do it after you do your light room? Right. Like, where is the line? You know, so. Yeah.

I mean, I have people who tell me because I’m a mobile shooter, I’m not a legitimate photographer. But I was like, what do you care what button I pushed on what device? Yeah. So I don’t know.

I think it’s all very interesting. This philosophical issue we’re having about AI or no AI. And this is like when people ask me, like, oh, what should I be learning? And I was like, well, at the end of the day, you got to think of like what industry you’re in.

If it’s something like what you and I do, the first thing I tell people to learn is traditional art, like learn how to draw, learn how to like, you know, composite things, you know, with your hand and a pencil and a paper, because that’s how I learn. And like, that’s how my brain still works. I don’t think about like, oh, I’m going to grab the, you know, curves adjustment layer to do this.

In my mind, I’m thinking, oh, I need more contrast here. What tool will get me that? Oh, yeah, the curves adjustment layer. You know what I mean? Yeah, this is great.

It’s not the tool, is it? It’s what, what, what are you trying to make and why? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I think you’re 100% on there.

That’s why I don’t have any particular favorite thing about Photoshop, even because it’s the what am I trying to say visually? And then the how will get dictated by that. Yeah, yeah. I don’t know if I have a favorite Photoshop tool now that you like, what is my like? Yeah, it’s like, I don’t know.

It doesn’t make sense to me. Like, what is my I don’t know. I think for you, if because I feel like I can speak for you, because we know each other so well, I think you are very much about the newest thing you’re trying to sort out and figure.

Sure. That’s what you’re excited by. Well, that’s what Yeah, but that’s that’s what you’re absolutely right.

That’s what I’m excited. Right now, what am I most excited about? Generative AI, you know, but like, does that mean it’s my favorite tool? Because I mean, at the same time, like we just talked about earlier today, how with Teresa, how I got super excited about trying to figure out how to add multiple layer masks to one layer. And I was like, I think I can figure this out with blend if and blending modes.

So so so like, I was super excited about that. And those things have been in Photoshop for 30 plus years. Right in that.

Yeah. And sometimes that’s the joy is finding some old tool and revamping it for something new. I know for me, I am super excited about how much more I can do with this.

How much more with a mobile device for assets and retouching it before I even get into the computer for the main work? Because it’s it’s again, it’s exciting to see how far these little devices are coming so much. Yeah. Yeah.

And I mean, I think that’s one of the values that you and I bring to these conferences. Teresa mentioned a little bit ago that in our sessions, we usually talk about like what’s working, not necessarily what’s like, yeah, sure. What’s what’s hot in you? Absolutely.

But like, how does it work in a real world production workflow rather than like, here’s this, you know, one click solution that, OK, that looks fantastic in a demo, but then that wouldn’t work in the in the real world. So I think that’s the value that we bring in the design and AI summits and CreativePro conference. I 100 percent agree.

So Jesús and I are not out there showing you pictures of how many unicorns on the moon with a cat in an astronaut suit. Yeah. Thank you.

But what are you doing? Yeah. And how and how does that relate to work? Like what’s an actual production schedule? So when we do we do so much work for Paramount, which is great. What are the board sales like? Twenty seven different size.

Oh, like we need. Oh, God, I think we’re like twenty seven or thirty two different breakouts needed for every image, every show, every project. Right.

So like the poster, the landscape and Instagram Square and all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Streaming. Yeah. Like when we see an airplane.

And it’s all one photo. It’s a one giant photo. So it’s not like we do twenty seven different, you know, composites as we do one composite and then they just frame everything around it.

But we have to make sure you can frame everything around. Well, right, right, right. So that’s that’s the big pickle.

Like is it is it as we like to say, modular, modular. Yeah, the dreaded M word. Yeah.

And that’s one of the funnest things I I’ve done working with you is is creating these composites that like I’m going to turn off this group and then like I don’t know, the background goes away. Like everything is like you can move something and not break the composite. That’s really fun to figure out.

You came back. Yes. Hi, honey.

Welcome home. I enjoyed your conversation so much. Like you talked about so many ideas of how you’re approaching Photoshop that I really hadn’t thought about, except I relate much more with Lisa.

And I think that’s the age thing. You’re like two years older than me. Well, you said you’re sad about AI.

And yeah, I feel that. I mean, it’s exciting. It’s really exciting what’s possible.

But I don’t I don’t want to lose the hand, the craftsmanship, like, you know, the things that are on the wall behind me are they’re Photoshop composites that have a lot of hand drawn in them. You know, it’s funny you say, Teresa, I was working a job yesterday and the sensor camera sensor had a ton of speckles all over it. And for whatever reason, the AI cannot pick it up.

So even Lightroom, Camera Raw, the dust removal not working. So I had to hand spot it in Photoshop. I cannot tell you the joy.

I had a giant cup of coffee, had a podcast going on. And I was just like. We’re so similar.

I know. Isn’t that crazy? I love being in that obsessive place. But it goes back to the tool for the job.

Yeah, it’s meditative. It was meditative. I really, really liked it.

It’s like that. I like vacuuming it. I’ll admit I like vacuuming.

I’m a weirdo. Well, the most important thing, the takeaway for me is this idea of collaboration. We are better together.

That’s just the reality. All of us that are working CreativeProfessionals are better at what we do if we collaborate with others, especially others that know things we don’t know. I’m going to tell you the best thing Teresa I ever did was start working regularly with Jesús and Chris Converse, Chris and Kim Converse.

Oh, my God. It completely changed the health of my studio. I want to say this publicly.

I do not like working with Chris Converse because he makes me look bad and makes me look stupid. Because he’s so smart. He knows everything.

Wicked smart. Yeah, it’s like imagine like a workout picture, like a workout routine. I’m the before picture and he’s the after.

Like that’s the difference between us. Yeah, he can. He can literally teach any tool.

Yes, he can. Anything. I’m I program events for CreativePro and I don’t know how many times in the first year I had a session I wanted to fill.

Who do you call Chris Converse? Hey, can you cover this? He’s like, yeah, I got it. No problem. Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, I’m glad that’s what you picked up on our conversation that I think the best thing anybody can do in the design industry for themselves right now is start collaborating with other people. Stop being alone. Don’t be siloed.

Don’t be in your head by yourself. Partner up with people when you can. And that’s that’s why you should all be members of CreativePro.

The best thing that I ever did for myself and my career was to become part of this community and make friends with you guys and everybody else that’s part of the Creative Pro community. So I also everybody. CreativePro was the very first conference that ever paid me a dollar to speak at.

CreativePro Minneapolis. Yeah, that was my very first paid speaking event. And then go to go back to Chris Converse.

I don’t think I don’t think David trusted me. And he’s like, you’re going to do one session and you’re going to have a partner and it’s going to be Chris Converse. And I was like, all right.

But it went well. So, yeah, I have partnered with Chris for presentations. He’s great to present with.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we all love Chris. We’re having a Chris love fest here.

You have to have Chris on the on the podcast. You should. And he’ll say that as I’m sure.

What are you guys working on now? Let’s wrap it up with that. But you got any projects going that you can share? I’m raising a child. That’s my new project.

She’s raising you, sunshine. That’s true. Yeah, my daughter’s four months old, so which which makes work incredibly challenging.

But I think what I’m focusing on now the most is for the longest time I’ve had, you know, as you mentioned earlier, Teresa, a YouTube channel and I never really focus on creating like large courses. So that’s actually what I’m focusing on now. Like I just published on my website of a masking course and an AI course.

And they’re just like four or five hour courses on that stuff. So that’s that’s what I’m focusing on in the last couple of months. Great.

Oh, good to know. Yeah, I’m I’m all about figuring out a mobile workflow, a professional mobile workflow, because any more you can get so much done at this stage on a mobile device before you even get into the box, as I like to call it for the rest of the work. And you’re using Lightroom for that, right? Lightroom and oddly enough, Photoshop on mobile.

Photoshop on mobile is incredibly powerful and it uses AI technology. So it’s full res, even though you’re down on a little device and that’s all transferable to the big box. So if I’m on location and I need to expand a campus, you cannot do that in Lightroom.

You have to use Photoshop on mobile. So I’m looking at them as seamless integrations, not either or. Well, we’re going to have to have you do a session on that.

Yeah. You’ll have to listen to the podcast with David and I talking about CreativePro Week and planning the programming, because I always bring Lightroom, you know, you guys know I’m a huge Lightroom fan. Amen.

Yes. We need to talk about Lightroom more. Yeah.

When we do Lightroom sessions, we don’t have the highest number of attendees attending those sessions. So I think we need to do maybe a better job of educating our community on why we should care about Lightroom. Yeah.

Like many Adobe products, they feel overwhelming and the why. I went kicking and screaming into Lightroom. A client made me do it for a job.

And afterwards, I was like, wow, what was that resistance? And it was ignorance. I just didn’t know. I didn’t know why.

There’s a big lift to get comfortable with it. It’s one of the things that I love teaching. I love that light bulb moment when you when somebody you’re working with finally gets it and they’re like, oh, yeah, now I get why.

Lightroom mobile is this app. The second app I use the most Photoshop being number one in Lightroom mobile number two all the time. I didn’t know you were using Photoshop mobile.

Yeah, not for Lightroom mobile. Lightroom mobile. Yeah.

And then regular desktop Photoshop number one. Oh, OK. Yeah.

All right. Well, we could talk all day, but I don’t know that our listeners would want to be listening all day. We should let you go back to your work.

Just want to wrap it up by reminding everybody that the Code podcast gets you $100 off these events we’ve been talking about. The same code gets you $15 off a one year membership. There’s no reason not to be a CreativePro member so that you can collaborate with all these smart people.

Absolutely. Thank you both for being here. Really.

Yeah, this is a joy. It’s always great to spend time with you. And we’ll look forward to seeing Jesús in April at Design and AI and then again in person at CreativePro Week.

And Lisa, we’re going to have to catch up sometime between now and then. Yeah, I think I’m going to see you guys sometime in March, though. We got something coming up.

We got that webinar thing. Oh, that’s right. We do.

Awesome. Yeah, so I’ll see you guys. I’m in the universe.

You’ll see me. All right. Thanks again.

See y’all. Bye. See y’all.

Bye. Thank you.