Neurapix Plug-In Review

The Neurapix landing page makes a bold claim but for photographers shooting Raw and using Adobe Lightroom, there’s substance behind it. This is the current home page but is likely to change within 2-4 weeks.

Once your account is opened, check out the video and install the plug-in into Lightroom. More videos are available to guide you through the core processes.

Neurapix Features

Digital photography has brought a great many benefits and that includes the ability to shoot a great deal of photographs without worrying about film processing costs. That is, of course, a huge advantage and one many of us happily indulge in.

The downside, however, whether shooting Raws or JPEGs, is having to deal with the huge quantity of files afterwards. At least with JPEGS the files are usable out of camera, ready to post on social media, for sending out to friends and family, and they are more than good enough for professional purposes too. The thing with JPEGs is that experienced workers know that they have limited editing potential so work harder in the first place to make sure exposure, colour and white-balance are spot on at the time of capture.

Shoot Raw there’s much greater editing flexibility but you don’t get anywhere with the files until they are processed and outputted as TIFs or JPEGs, and that takes time on the computer.

For many photographers, editing is part of the creative process, but there are many who consider time spent working on images to be dead time and they’d much rather be out there shooting. Of course, this is especially the case with pro and semi-pro photographers.

The Neurapix dashboard is pretty rudimentary but shows your created SmartPresets and your three most recent projects.  

Neurapix is an online Raw image editing service that claims to keep the amount of time spent in front of the computer to a minimum meaning that its users can spend more time on developing their business and keeping their clients happy.

Two Neurapix services are on offer: pay per picture or a flat rate subscription.

Go for the pay-per-picture option and the first 1000 pictures cost €0.03 cents each, €0.02 cents after that and straightening costs €0.01 cent per image if you select that option; these are ex-VAT Euros prices so 33 edits costs €1. There are other benefits that include free SmartPresets training, regular free updates for SmartPresets and three ready-to-go SmartPresets – SmartPresets are explained below.

Neurapix has two subscription models: monthly at a flat rate of €79.95 or annually at a monthly cost of €49.95, both ex-VAT. In addition to the SmartPreset benefits outlined for the pay-for-use option above, there is no limit to the number of images edited, free image straightening and, access to Neurapix’s Instant features. These are available at no extra cost if you are on a flat rate package, and this means editing can be handled locally on your own computer rather than on the Neurapix’s servers.  

BEFORE

AFTER

The service’s Kickstart option means you only need to upload 20 edited Raws for the Neurapix’s AI to assess. Kickstart and take the pay-per-use option would suit hobbyist photographers. For a full SmartPreset, you need 500 or more edited Raws with a visual consistency. Images by Will Cheung.

Neurapix Features:

• Online Raw editing service (JPEGs a possible future option)
• Direct upload from Lightroom
• Suits Lightroom Classic v9.0 and higher
• Unlimited editing (flat rate packages only)
• Free SmartPresets that are AI-generated from your editing style
• SmartPresets handles basic and more advanced edits
• 500 edited Raws needed to train your SmartPresets
• Kickstarter offers quicker editing with 20 edited Raws needed
• Neurapix’s server can edit 600 photos/minute
• Free straightening (flat rate packages only)
• 24/7 customer support
• Instant-ready SmartPresets take two days to produce
• In Neurapix the first 1000 pictures processed cost €0.03 cents each, €0.02 cents after that
• Neurapix with access to Instant features costs €49.95 monthly on an annual basis or €79.95 monthly

Neurapix Ease Of Use & Performance

Please bear in mind that Neurapix is due to have a new website in the near future with a refreshed landing page and more user assistance and the screenshots shown here are of the existing site.

As a newbie to Neurapix I watched a couple of videos on its website before registering for an account and loading the Neurapix plug-in into Lightroom Classic. As with most Neurapix processes, there’s a video explaining how this is done in greater detail. The other thing I thought missing was tips to avoid any pitfalls. For instance, to make sure there are no JPEGs or TIFs mixed in with the Raws. You do get a message that such files have been ignored but it seems easier to be told to remove them from the upload in the first place.

There are three free SmartPresets to get you going but the point of Neurapix is that you generate a SmartPreset personalised to your editing style that you can apply to your pictures. To do this the next step is to upload a minimum of 500 edited Raws in Lightroom. That sounds scary because uploading full-sized Raws would take an age, but for this service, a Neurapix smart preview and essential metadata are uploaded so it’s done in a few minutes.

While Neurapix recommends 500 images, it suggests double that number, but you can add images later, or you might find that the first 500 gives you the SmartPreset and the results you are happy with.  

You can have any number of SmartPresets that you can ‘train’. To start you need to upload 500 edited Raws of a visual consistency for Neurapix’s AI to assess your style. Actually, it suggests doubling that number to produce a well-rounded SmartPreset but you add Raws later on if preferred.

The important thing is that you train your SmartPreset with edited images that have a visual consistency for Neurapix’s AI deep learning technology to work with but can include colour and black-and-white images. If your photography takes in different genres, location types and lighting situations, you’d ideally need a SmartPreset for each scenario, so there is quite a bit of work to be done first before you can fully enjoy Neurapix’s service.

Uploading is via Lightroom’s export command and you select Neurapix in the drop-down menu and give your SmartPreset a name, something that is an obvious reference to the uploaded images makes sense, i.e., weddings, school pix etc.

You may or may not have 500 images of a single genre edited in a similar style at your disposal. If all you shoot is newborns and portraits or weddings, you will probably have this number of images relatively accessible in a Lightroom collection. If you’re a more general shooter like me, you may have to work a tad harder. In the end, I used one of my Lightroom Smart Collections which had enough images and then made virtual copies to use with Neurapix so my own edits were left untouched.  

Use Lightroom’s export interface to upload files to Neurapix. At least 500 images are required for SmartPreset training to be available. An email confirms that training has started.

Once you click ok, Lightroom uploads the file data to Neurapix. At your first attempt, don’t be surprised to get the odd dialogue warning box. For instance, if Neurapix detects that Raws have been edited you will get a warning that existing edits will be overwritten (hence I used virtual copies) and if you have TIFFs or JPEGs in your selection, you will be told that those files have been ignored.

After hitting export, my 535 images were uploaded to my Neurapix account in under five minutes and I got an email confirming that the images had been received and that ‘Depending on the current onboarding queue your SmartPreset will be finished in a few hours.’

Once your Raws are successfully uploaded you get the option to start training and if you click yes that is confirmed by email.

My upload was sent on Sunday night at 11.21 pm and I received an email confirming that my SmartPreset was ready for use at 00.44 am with a link to a Vimeo video with details on how to apply the SmartPreset.

I applied the SmartPreset to 155 Raws that I sent off to Neurapix at 1.11 am and got a confirmation email at 1.14 pm and two minutes later an email came through telling me that the edits were ready.

With the SmartPreset ready for use, in Lightroom go to Library>Plug-in Extras>Run Editing and the Raws will be uploaded for processing. An email will tell you when the images are ready to be re-loaded.

I followed the instructions on the email and a few minutes later the images in the Lightroom catalogue had been updated with the SmartPreset. Comparing the work of the SmartPreset with the original Raws I could see the changes thanks to Neurapix with images lightened, highlights recovered and colour tweaked a little usually giving a slightly warmer result. The changes were mild but still beneficial.  

BEFORE

AFTER – Taken a WWII re-enactment shoot, I wanted a faded, de-saturated look, so used Kickstart and edited 20 images to generate a SmartPreset which I than applied to all the pictures. Images by Will Cheung.

SmartPresets can be trained further, if necessary, not just with more pictures but if you make any further tweaks to edited images these adjustments can be sent to Neurapix for the preset to be updated.

Certainly, I had no quibble with the time saved even with my modest number of images, although cropping is still a manual procedure.

Assessing precisely how much time is saved isn’t straightforward because we all work at different speeds, some images need more work than others and features such as Lightroom sync can save time too. That said, if you are dealing with a great number of Raws from a wedding or event shoot, the time it took to use Neurapix on my modest number of photos was impressively short so time-savings for large batches could be significant. Of course, any time saving is worthwhile but the service also takes away the sheer drudgery of editing large numbers of images and that is a very good thing.

Going back to the 500 initial edited and visually consistent Raws for Neurapix’s AI to work with to produce a preset, there is another, much faster alternative and that is called Kickstart.

In Lightroom when you go to Library>Plug-in Extras to call up Neurapix the first option is Kickstart and in this, you upload just 20 edited images.  

In Kickstart Neurapix will pick 20 unedited Raws for you to edit. If your selection includes edited Raws, you will receive a warning that the images will be reset to the initial import settings.  

You can start with many more Raws and Neurapix selects the 20 that show the greatest variance for the AI to learn from, then you edit them before sending them to Neurapix to generate a SmartPreset.

This feature worked well although having a much smaller sample size than 500 does mean the SmartPreset might not have the in-depth data available from 500+ images, but it does work and the preset can still be refined in the future.

Whether you take the pay-per-picture or flat-rate route, once you have created a SmartPreset you can train it further and use it whenever needed for similar images. Plus, you can have as many as you want so to have a collection of SmartPresets prepared for different assignments, i.e., weddings, church interiors, studio lighting, industrial, events, new-born and so on. All this means time invested at the front-end but the ongoing benefits are worth it.

Another time-saving option is to use one of the three free SmartPresets or buy a trained SmartPreset from a photographer who has been using Neurapix’s skills. The cost of the presets is set by the photographers rather than Neurapix and I found prices varying from €99 to €280 plus VAT, so it is not a cheap option and only you can decide whether to take that route. You can try them for yourself with 20 of your own images.

BEFORE

AFTER – While Neurapix is targeted at pro event, social and wedding photographers using a Lightroom-based Raw workflow, it can save enthusiast shooters time too and the pay-per-use option means there’s no need for a monthly subscription. Images by Will Cheung.

Value For Money

The flat rate service is aimed at the high-output photographer and it’s fairly priced considering the time-saving potential. Enthusiast photographers would find the pay-per-picture interesting and the service is still very fast. Various price options are available, visit the Neurapix website for more details. 

Neurapix Verdict

Neurapix is an impressive service and while it is not cheap, a subscription can pay for itself very quickly, but it obviously depends on your photography and your workflow. It’s certainly attractive and makes sense to busy photographers with an Adobe Lightroom Raw-based workflow who shoot prodigious numbers of images and have clients anxiously waiting for the results. So, if you’re a commercial, event, fashion, portrait, studio and wedding photographer, Neurapix is worth checking out.

The pay-per-picture option might appeal to hobbyist and enthusiast photographers using Lightroom. If you’ve been on a holiday, family occasion or just had a busy shoot, and come back with hundreds of pictures, Neurapix and its Kickstart mode means can produce a SmartPreset with 20 images to look after the editing and the time saved you can put to more creative use.

Neurapix will probably be new to most ePhotozine members but you can try it for yourself. With the pay-per-picture service, the first 1000 images are free and there’s a free week on offer with the flat rate/instant service.

[REVIEW_FOOTER]R_features=4|R_Handling=4|R_performance=4|R_value=4|R_overall=4|A_level=4|A_text=Neurapix works well and can definitely save time and skips round the chore of editing thousands of images. |E_id=8048[/REVIEW_FOOTER]