Evoto has launched a tasty trio of AI-infused treats, with a sneak preview of a brand-new video editing software prompting the most audible "oohs" and "aahs" from the crowd of working photographers and videographers at its Evoto AI ONE event in New York City. That was after the AI outfit announced Evoto Desktop 6.0, a major update to its flagship photo editing software, alongside a new mobile app, Evoto Instant, designed to streamline the workflow of event and wedding photographers.
If you haven’t heard of Evoto before, it’s a subsidiary of Singapore-based company Truesight and is headquartered in California. Like most AI-centric companies, it’s very much in its infancy, but growing fast. Evoto was established in 2022 and has since expanded its reach to 158 countries, with over one billion photographs exported. Until yesterday’s Evoto AI ONE launch event, held at Love Studios in New York City, the company’s offerings centered around Evoto Desktop and Evoto iPad. But yesterday afternoon, that all changed...
Evoto Desktop 6.0
Evoto Desktop, the company’s flagship software, has now received a major update in the form of Evoto Desktop 6.0, and it’s clear that updates are a key part of Evoto’s business model. I sat down with US Sales Director, Jay Peterson, after his keynote address, who commented on the evolution of the software. “It’s come a long way,” he said. “You guys go back and look at old content (...) it’s really matured.”
The company’s appetite for customer feedback – good and bad – was a running theme throughout the launch event, with Jay himself stating, “please tell us, please talk to us about it (...) it informs all of the decisions that we make for these products.” And the proof is in the pudding, with update 6.0 including a raft of new features, chief of which is AI culling. This allows users to filter out various criteria, such as closed eyes, blur, or overexposure, from their image library at the click of a button.
Now, I understand it’s a big ask for working photographers to trust artificial intelligence to perform the sacred act of culling, but not only does Evoto stand by the software’s capabilities now, it expects it to improve as time goes on. “I’m wildly optimistic about what we have currently designed, that's going live,” said Jay, adding that any “limitations that customers feel are inhibiting the amount of time savings (...) those things will get resolved very quickly.”
Perhaps the next biggest addition is a new workflow feature called Cloud Spaces, featuring both Team Space and My Space. The former allows collaborators to work via one Evoto account so that edits, tags, effects, and metadata can be synced in real time without repeated exports. With the latter, individuals can manage their own projects within the Evoto Desktop. As of right now, Cloud Spaces is only available on Evoto Desktop, but the team is working on expanding its compatibility to other Evoto products in the future.
Other notable 6.0 upgrades include wireless tethering and real-time live view, with support for over 1,000 different camera models. AI color enhancements with fully-customizable sliders for greater precision, alongside new instant response options such as auto masks, auto white balance, auto exposure, and scene enhancement. AI transform, for quick perspective and geometric tweaks. Background adjustment enhancements that will automatically detect and remove color spill in indoor locations. Quality-of-life upgrades in the form of simplified file management and UX tweaks. And of course, a plethora of new portrait retouching enhancements. This includes body blemish, retouching on newborns, specialized hand dodging and burning, and nasal, cheek, and perioral wrinkle removal.
I got to spend a little time with the updated software. Granted, I was editing a curated selection of images and will reserve my final judgement until the upcoming Digital Camera World review, but my first impressions were positive. I can certainly see why Evoto Desktop would appeal to both prolific portrait photographers and those who want to provide clients with almost instantaneous results during a live shoot.
Evoto Desktop uses a credit-based payment system, meaning you pay one credit to export a watermark-free image. I was told to think of Cloud Spaces as a team credits system, where one user has administrative rights over a pool of credits, where they can then monitor each team member’s usage.
Evoto Instant
During the keynote speech, I noticed that one of Evoto’s event photographers had their smartphone attached to their camera, which appeared to be uploading each shot in real time. It turns out, the photographer was using the newly announced app for iOS and Android, Evoto Instant.
This software borrows a “curated” list of features from its desktop sibling, allowing users to tether their phone, wired or wirelessly, for photo uploads, automatic culling, edits, and photo sharing from anywhere. What intrigued me most about Evoto Instant is that you can essentially set up the shoot before you even fire the shutter. That’s to say, you can select your preferred preset, set retouching guidelines, apply watermarks, and define your export criteria, all ahead of time.
It’s also designed with the client in mind. Not only can image galleries be shared with clients, but face filtering allows only photos of a specific individual to be shared with the necessary client. Individuals can also search for images featuring their own face by taking a selfie. Like Evoto Desktop, Instant uses a credit-based payment model, but early adopters can take advantage of a limited-time free bundle, which includes 12GB of cloud storage, and free AI culling, personal gallery delivery, gallery branding, and face recognition finds. Only JPEG files are supported for now, but RAW support will be coming in the future.
Evoto Video
Seeing footage of Evoto Video in action for the first time was undeniably impressive. I’ll admit that some of the footage did stray into uncanny valley territory, but it’s important to note that I only saw a brief sneak preview. Now, I’m no software developer, so I can’t say quite how ground-breaking this technology is, but I’ve not seen a company target the professional video space, certainly in terms of skin retouching, anything like Evoto Video.
This isn’t a novelty filter on a smartphone app. Evoto has taken its well-established photo retouching capabilities, and applied them to video. The company is calling Evoto Video a “professional retouching tool” that’s “designed for high-resolution, cinema-quality video”. A crucial component of this is that there’s no compression when retouching, meaning the resolution doesn’t change. The software also supports 4K video with flexible export in MP4 and MOV, with greater file-format compatibility in the works.
No matter the brand, AI can require a lot of processing power. My mind immediately went to the immense processing power required to retouch video footage, and as you’ll notice in the product video (above), it states: “To make precise adjustments, it helps to split the video into segments.” This doesn’t surprise me and there, of course, have to be some limitations. But as Evoto Desktop 6.0 proves, the team is dedicated to constantly evolving its products. I certainly get the impression that this is the genesis of something that will evolve immensely over time.
I got to speak to Evoto Production Manager, Wayne Hong, who shed some light on the team’s approach when shifting their focus to video. “For videos, they are a sequence of photos,” he said, “so if we can deal with one single photo, we can deal with a whole video clip. The only issue is, how to kind of connect those frames.” It was here that Wayne discussed what the team calls blinking. If there are inconsistencies between frames, such as differences in exposure or retouched areas, the edited footage will flicker or ‘blink’. As such, Evoto Video’s AI algorithms are designed to deliver consistent frame-by-frame edits and in the footage I got to witness, at least, no blinking was present.
As it stands, the team has been focusing primarily on portrait retouching, but once again, the mood at the launch event was very much, this is just the beginning. According to Jay: “We’ll focus mostly on the portrait retouching effects and then, I think, pretty quickly, maybe even before the end of the year, we’ll start to get into some of the other [retouching] features that we’ll address.”
However, what excites me most about Evoto Video is its AI Color Match function. I didn’t get to properly see this in action, but if it works well, I can see it being a very useful tool indeed. It allows users to instantly match a video’s color grading to a reference video or photo, with no LUTs or masks required. This would allow, for example, a photographer who shoots a behind-the-scenes video to match that video’s grade with their photographic style. It also means that creatives working with video footage shot on different cameras with different color sciences can theoretically color-match the footage in an instant.
As it stands, no pricing models have been announced, but you can apply for the Evoto Video beta, due for release in November. An official release date in early 2026 is to be confirmed.
As my day in New York came to an end, I couldn’t leave Love Studios without asking the question that’s on most content creators’ minds when it comes to AI editing software: Are my photos being used to train the algorithm? Thankfully, the answer’s no. Jay told me: “As a matter of fact, we don’t even have access to users’ photos, they have to be manually sent to us, or manually pushed through the app.” Instead, licensed or sourced photos are used to feed the machine, as well as imagery purchased from Evoto users.
I came away from Evoto AI ONE feeling like I’d seen the next step in AI image editing. I’m certainly looking forward to getting my hands on the software and trying it out myself. Watch this space.
You might also like...
Want more AI-powered editing software? Check out Radiant Photo 2 and Skylum Luminar Neo. Also, if you want to streamline your workflow, take a look at the best photo organization software.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
