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Creative use of Car Pics.

Some third-party marketplace sites already use "AI" image detection to automatically re-arrange photos to their preferred order and sometimes even exclude certain photos.

So, my concern would be if this tactic becomes popular among dealers that third-party marketplaces could too easily re-homogenize the SRP and eliminate any competitive advantage.

We're experimenting with AI generated car photos. You give it a transparent png cutout of the car, tell it the scene you want, and then magic! Here a few examples where we gave it a BMW photo and told it to place it in a country side road, snowy road, and urban city setting.
AI is doing a decent job, but shoppers will have a cognitive dissonance looking at these photos. These photos belong to a brochure, selling the dream of driving a performance car on a curvy mountain road. Maybe these are good for new cars, but for used ones, shoppers expect to see a photo of a car at a dealership. It could be just my personal opinion but it feels weird to see a car in motion when visiting a dealer's site.
The #1 job of photos is to match shopper's mental checkboxes and help make a decision whether to consider the car as a candidate or move to the next one. Is this the right body style? Does it have the right features? is it in a good condition? These are the question in my mind when I look at car photos.
I think some dealerships are overthinking it and are chasing new shiny AI toys instead of focusing on the best lighting, clean cars, and thoughtful photography that tells a story about each specific unit.
 
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Same photo with about 15 seconds of playing with sliders in Mac OS preview. This is where AI can truly shine: identify photos where the lighting is not optimal and tweak them before displaying on a website. There are a few tips available on car photography that tell exactly where to place light sources, how to avoid hard reflections, and showcase all the beautiful lines. With today's cheap LED lights available on Amazon, any dealership can setup a photography space that produces spectacular results.


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Same photo with about 15 seconds of playing with sliders in Mac OS preview. This is where AI can truly shine: identify photos where the lighting is not optimal and tweak them before displaying on a website. There are a few tips available on car photography that tell exactly where to place light sources, how to avoid hard reflections, and showcase all the beautiful lines. With today's cheap LED lights available on Amazon, any dealership can setup a photography space that produces spectacular results.


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Problem with just playing with sliders is the noise that comes with it, and image quality degradation. Granted, you are working with a web reduced image, versus a straight OOC (out of camera) image - if you had a higher res photo to start with,there is definitely data saved in there that could be used to edit the photos some. Just a matter of aptitude, desire, and available (at work) technology to accomplish it.

My philosophy is to always get better images OOC, than to spend hours editing.
 
Problem with just playing with sliders is the noise that comes with it, and image quality degradation. Granted, you are working with a web reduced image, versus a straight OOC (out of camera) image - if you had a higher res photo to start with,there is definitely data saved in there that could be used to edit the photos some. Just a matter of aptitude, desire, and available (at work) technology to accomplish it.

My philosophy is to always get better images OOC, than to spend hours editing.

Agree 100%! My example was just for illustration purposes only. Nothing beats a properly taken image from the camera, and I know it first hand, as a co-founder of Zenfolio (having spent 10+ years working with pro photographers). However, some clever post-processing optimized for on-screen presentation vs printing as well as specifically for car photos could make the images pop, tell a better story, ultimately selling cars better!
 
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This is where AI can truly shine

I know of 2 dealers now who have just switched to capturing their photos with a Google Pixel phone.
The newest generation of those phones has a whole whack of AI on-chip, so they can remove backgrounds, fix lighting and standardize their photos much easier than before.

It needs some work, but I do think the concept of building the AI into the camera itself is the next phase.
 
WOW!
V, looking thru zillow, some of the photography is clearly next level. We need this in auto, What tools are these top performers using?
In automotive? Lighting, lighting, lighting. 65% lighting, 15% camera, 20% photographer eye / skill / experience.

Before I got into the car business, I used to take pictures of houses for real estate listings.

Below is the one and only way I sold my services to realtors.

Which of these 3 pictures make you want to be in this room?

Iphone Picture:

3 Cellphone.jpg

DSLR Picture:

2 DSLR.jpg

DSLR Picture that has been edited (and this isn't even great compared to what I could do now):

1 DSLR Edited.jpg
 
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wow, sexy! Tell me more @AutoAlex (p.s. your profile is set to invisible)
For dealer photography, everything gets killed by harsh lighting.

Your black Durango above for example, how many lights can you see in the reflection of the car? I think I counted 8. That's what makes it look "not good" compared to the silver 4Runner which the neutral color diffuses the light versus the hard reflections.