Sensei? No thanks.

Logan - taken with Nikon D810 and Nikkor 55mm 1.2 lens, all manual

I got word the other day that Adobe is rolling out its new Auto sensei program:

Using an advanced neural network powered by Adobe Sensei, our artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning platform, the new Auto Settings creates a better photo by analyzing your photo and comparing to tens of thousands of professionally edited photos to create a beautiful, pleasing image.

Is this not ridiculous? Now your photography can be adjusted, tortured and over processed to the group mean. In short, it can now look just as awful and mediocre as everybody else's work. Just let the cloud tell you what looks good. Point it and shoot it, we will do the rest...

My advice to every photographer out there is to forget about automatic settings, auto contrast, auto color, auto white balance, automatic exposure and auto focus. And for god sakes, forget about the cloud and utilizing artificial intelligence. Resist the urge to relinquish a single iota of your own personal creativity and control.

Put the camera back on manual and learn how to shoot pictures. Shoot wide open on occasion and focus manually and discover the actual width of the focal plane and the depth of field. Very simple equation, aperture, shutter speed and sensor or film setting. Blow some shots, make some mistakes but gain some control of your image and workflow.

You will soon discover that not everything can be averaged by a chip and that your eye is actually a better judge of what is good than a stupid algorithm or a consensus from the cloud. Fight the robots and artificial intelligence!  Make your own decisions.