Why I Switched from Imagen to Narrative as a Wedding Photographer | AI Culling & Editing Comparison
Hot take (maybe?): I am not against AI as a wedding photographer.
I know, I know!!
BUT before you stop reading, hear me out; I am not against AI, I am, however, against using AI in a way that removes the artist from the parts of photography that make it art.
The human touches that make photography an art that cannot, should not, and will not be taken away from us and our innate desire for humanity in art.
But why should you care what I have to say? I’m by NO means a software engineer, AI researcher, scientist, or world-famous photographer.
I am a self-taught photographer who’s work people seem to like. Someone who has made something out of nothing: A photography business where people pay us thousands of dollars to fly us to insane places to have us document their weddings.
I’ve been hearing more and more that our followers and fellow photographers trust our word and our opinions. Call that being an “Influencer” if you want, but I like to think of it as having influence because I was busting my ass to build a community of trust, originality, and authenticity.
Disclosure: We are officially Narrative partners, and this is our affiliate link. But Narrative did not tell me what opinions to share. These are my actual thoughts, based on my experience using both platforms in our photography business.
To know us (Dan and I) personally, is to trust that we do our best to be as open and authentic as we can be with anything we promote, teach, or believe personally. Who we are is what we want our business to be.
To lose the humanity and control behind my editing workflow would be to lose my brand all together. I want AI to support my process, not become my process.
Do the above statements resonate with you? Good. Then this is the article for you.
You can also watch Dan’s YouTube video talking about this topic here or at the bottom of this article.
TLDR: Why I Switched From Imagen to Narrative
I did not switch because I wanted AI to do more of my job.
I switched because I wanted AI to be really, really good at the parts of my workflow that drain me, while still leaving the artistic parts of photography in my hands. I want help grouping duplicates, checking focus, spotting closed eyes, and giving me a strong base edit.
I do not want to hand over the storytelling, final image selection, cropping, color grading, retouching, or small intuitive decisions that make the final gallery feel like MY work.
Imagen is moving toward a more integrated process where culling and editing can flow together inside one cloud-based platform. That may be exactly what some photographers are looking for.
I realized it was not what I was looking for.
Narrative gives me technical information, recommendations, and a starting point, but I still feel like I am the person actually making the photographs into my photographs. That distinction is everything to me.
The Parts of Photography I Do Not Want to Give Away
Editing has never been just a chore for me. It truly has been the MaiN part of my artistic process.
Clients hire me for my artistic eye, not just my ability to take a technically “correct” photo. My creative decisions typically continue long after I’m done physically taking the photos. Cropping, color grading, and artistic choices and human intuition are all part of authorship in my photography. Every single photo I deliver to our clients is directly hand-edited and reviewed by me before final delivery. That was true when I had a human assistant, and it’s still true today with my workflow using AI.
When someone hires me, I want the final gallery to come from my brain. My eye. My decisions. If other photographers want fully automated workflows, that is completely up to them. It is just not the process I want for my work.
Culling Is Actually One of the Most Creative Parts of Photography
I think culling gets talked about like it is just the annoying step where you delete the bad photos.
Get rid of the blurry ones. Get rid of the closed eyes. Pick one out of the twenty almost identical photos. Move on.
But culling is SO much more than that to me.
Culling is when I decide how the story is going to feel.
It is deciding which expression feels the most authentic to the client who I’ve gotten to know personally, even if another one is technically more “correct.”
It is deciding whether the motion blur feels like a mistake or feels like movement.
It is deciding if I want one photo from a moment or five photos that show the entire thing unfold.
It is deciding whether the technically sharpest photo is actually the one that says the most.
Those are not just technical decisions. Those are artistic decisions.
And I will be the first to admit that I am an overshooter.
I need help.
I do not need to manually zoom into every single face in fifteen nearly identical group photos to see who blinked. I do not want to waste the limited brain power I have after photographing a wedding deciding between twelve photos that are almost exactly the same.
That is the part where I am more than happy to let technology help me.
But I still want to SEE the photos.
I still want to be able to disagree.
I still want the final decision.
I Was Doing This Even When My Human Assistant Was Culling for Me
Long before I was using AI to help me cull, I had an actual human assistant helping me.
And even then, I would go back into the photos she did not select.
Not because I did not trust her. Not because she was bad at culling. She was another artistic person who understood photography.
But she was not inside my brain when I took the photo.
Only I knew what I saw in the moment.
Only I knew why I photographed something a certain way or what I imagined I might do with that photo afterward.
Going back through the photos visually brings me back into the wedding. I remember the moment. I remember the light. I remember what I saw before I even pressed the shutter.
Sometimes I find a photograph that someone else, or someTHING else, might see as technically imperfect, but I immediately know exactly what I want to do with it.
I do the same thing with Narrative.
Sometimes Narrative tells me a photo is an unlikely or undesirable pick and I think:
“Aha. AI did not know what I was going to do with this one.”
And then I turn it into something incredible. Honestly, I kind of thrive on that.
If AI tells me that a photo might not be good, a part of my brain immediately thinks, “Wait. Watch me make this cool.” That is a relationship with AI that I actually enjoy.
It gives me its mechanical opinion. I bring the human opinion.
What Parts Of My Photography Workflow I Actually Want AI To Do
I do not want to pretend that I enjoy every single part of post-production.
I absolutely do not.
There are parts that are mentally exhausting and repetitive and have nothing to do with my artistic vision.
Here is what I want AI to help me do:
- Group together photos that are extremely similar
- Tell me which faces are actually in focus
- Show me who has their eyes closed
- Help me quickly compare expressions
- Flag technically questionable photos
- Reduce thousands of photographs into something more manageable
- Apply a base preset or starting edit
- Send everything into Lightroom so I can finish it
- Save me from spending hours on decisions that do not actually require my creativity
That is why I particularly like Narrative’s Close-ups Panel.
I can see the full photograph while also seeing close views of the faces in the photo. Narrative gives information about focus, eyes, and expressions, so I do not have to zoom in and move around every single image manually.
It is giving me information.
It is not telling me what the emotional value of the photograph is.
Narrative’s First Pass also gives photographs different assessments, such as likely picks and unlikely picks. I can filter those categories or adjust how strict I want the AI to be.
But it does not delete the photos or permanently decide what I am allowed to see.
I still have access to everything. I can still say no. I can still say, “Actually, this technically imperfect image is staying.”
That is what I need.
I want AI to make it faster for me to see the information I need to make my OWN decision.
I Want an AI Culling Assistant, Not an AI Replacement
This is probably the simplest way I can explain why I switched.
I want an assistant. I do not want a replacement.
Some photographers want the most automated workflow possible. They want to import a wedding, have AI select the photographs, edit them, crop them, apply masks, retouch people, remove distractions, and get the gallery as close to finished as possible.
I understand why.
Wedding photographers are tired.
We are trying to photograph weddings, answer emails, make social media content, write blogs, update websites, meet with clients, edit galleries, run businesses, and have some vague memory of what it was like to possess free time.
The promise of pressing one button and having everything done is appealing.
But it is not appealing enough for me to give up the parts of the process that I actually love (and that our clients likely expect us to do ourselves).
Imagen’s current workflow allows photographers to upload photographs, use AI to cull them, and then send the selected photos directly into editing to have everything done for you, ready to share with your clients. Their focus seems to be leaning heavily into replacing, not assisting.
To be very clear, Imagen does allow photographers to review its culling results and make the final call. I am not saying that Imagen locks you out of your own photographs or forces you to accept every decision.
I am saying the overall direction and messaging felt more focused on moving the photographer toward one connected, highly automated process.
For some people, that will be the selling point.
For me, it was the thing that made me realize what I DIDN’T want. I do not want the goal of my workflow to be eliminating the “second pass.” I want to make the second pass more enjoyable and less exhausting.
There is a huge difference.
Imagen vs. Narrative: What Is the Difference?
Both Imagen and Narrative can use AI to help photographers cull and edit large numbers of photographs.
The difference, for me, is the ROLE I want the software to play.
| Comparison | Imagen | Narrative |
| Culling process | ai analyzes and rates the shoot, then allows you to review and refine the results | ai gives assessments, scene groupings, focus information, and close-ups while leaving the photographs available for you to review |
| Processing | Imagen’s official documentation says photographs are uploaded and culling takes place on Imagen Cloud | Narrative says photographs loaded into the application remain locally on your computer and are not uploaded for processing or analysis |
| Editing workflow | Culling can flow directly into Imagen’s AI editing tools | Selected photos can be sent into Lightroom with a Personal, Artist, or Core AI Preset applied |
| Photographer involvement | Can support a highly integrated, more automated culling and editing process | Feels built around helping the photographer evaluate the shoot and then personally finish it |
| Best fit, in my opinion | Someone who wants more of the overall workflow handled inside one platform | Someone who wants substantial help but still wants to stay deeply involved in culling and editing |
This is not me saying Narrative is automatically better for every photographer on Earth.
It is better for ME.
If you want the software to complete as much of your post-production as possible, you might look at the exact same comparison and choose Imagen.
If you want AI to help you move faster while still personally shaping the entire gallery, Narrative may make more sense.
The actual question is not: “Which company has the most AI?”
The question is: Which parts of your process do you actually want AI to control?
Why Narrative’s Culling Makes More Sense to My Brain
One of my biggest problems with culling is not necessarily the number of photographs.
It is the mental exhaustion of evaluating the SAME kinds of things over and over again.
Is this one sharp? Are her eyes open? Is his expression weird? Is this one better than the one immediately before it?
Now repeat that thousands of times.
Narrative helps with those technical questions while keeping me involved in the answer. When I look at the Close-ups Panel, I can quickly see the faces in the photograph and get information about expression and focus.
When I look at First Pass, I can see which photos Narrative believes are technically stronger or weaker within the scene.
I can let Narrative do most of the heavy lifting when I am dealing with a repetitive part of the day.
Then I can slow down and review more carefully when I reach an important moment where I know the “best” photo may not be obvious to a computer.
That balance is exactly what I was looking for.
But Narrative Does AI Editing Too, So What Is the Difference?
Yes. Narrative also has AI editing.
And yes, I use it.
So what is the difference between letting Narrative apply an AI edit and saying that I do not want AI to take over my editing process?
The difference is what happens NEXT.
Narrative can apply a Personal AI Preset, an Artist AI Preset, or one of its Core AI Presets while sending the selected photographs into Lightroom.
That means the photographs can arrive in Lightroom with a strong base edit already applied.
I LOVE that.
I have no emotional attachment to manually pasting the same base preset onto hundreds of photographs. That is not the part that makes me feel like an artist. It is a starting point.
Once those photographs are in Lightroom, I still go through them.
I still adjust the crop. I still make color decisions. I still decide if a distraction should be removed. I still decide if an imperfection is distracting or if it is part of the humanity of the moment.
I still hand-edit every final photograph.
Narrative can also learn from the corrections photographers make to a Personal AI Preset in Lightroom, which allows the starting point to become more consistent with the photographer’s style over time.
But again, I see it as a STARTING point.
I want AI to paste the paint onto my palette. I still want to make the painting.
Why Local Processing Matters to Me
Client privacy matters to me.
Weddings are full of incredibly personal moments. There may be people grieving someone who could not be there. There may be children in the photographs. There may be private ceremonies, family dynamics, emotional breakdowns, addresses, signs, documents, or details that were never intended to become public content.
I am not saying that cloud processing is automatically dangerous, and I am not saying that every cloud-based company is using photographs for training or doing something unethical with them.
Those would be claims that require actual evidence, and I am not making them.
I am saying that, whenever possible, I personally feel more comfortable with a workflow where our clients’ photographs stay on my own computer.
According to Narrative’s explanation of how it uses photographs, images loaded into Narrative remain locally on the photographer’s computer and are not uploaded to the cloud for processing or analysis.
Imagen’s documentation says that photographs are uploaded and culling takes place on Imagen Cloud. Again, that does not automatically make one process safe and the other unsafe.
It means they are different.
Local processing better matches my personal comfort level, the way I want to work, and the promises I want to make to our clients.
It also means I am not waiting for an entire wedding to upload before I can begin looking through it. That matters when you are dealing with thousands and thousands of RAW files.
Narrative Feels Like It Was Built Around Photographers
I care about the product. But I also care about the people, community, and philosophy behind the product.
Narrative was founded by photographer James Broadbent. According to Narrative’s story about the company, he had photographed hundreds of weddings himself and built Narrative after experiencing how much time photographers lose to culling and post-production.
That means something to me.
Not because a photographer can never build something bad. And not because a technology company without a photographer as its founder can never build something good.
It means the original problem was a photography problem. The goal was not simply to find another creative task for AI to take over. The goal was to help photographers spend less time on the exhausting parts of the process.
Narrative’s philosophy also feels very aligned with how I see photography.
Their own website talks about image selection as part of the photographer’s craft and describes AI as something that should support the photographer’s decisions instead of bypassing them.
That is exactly what I have been trying to explain this entire time. I do not want to lose humanity because of AI. I want AI to create more space FOR humanity.
I want it to give me more energy to communicate with our clients… more time to build community with photographers…. more brain space to experiment creatively… more hours with my family… more capacity to make something I actually care about.
That is the future of AI in photography that I can get behind.
What About the Price?
Narrative also made more financial sense for the way I planned to use it, and you should look at the current Narrative plans and Imagen pricing before making your own decision.
But price should not be compared in a vacuum.
Imagen and Narrative are not offering the exact same workflow. If you want culling, editing, retouching, cloud storage, and a larger connected automation system, you may value the additional tools in Imagen.
I did not need every part of that system.
I needed extremely good culling. I needed a starting edit. I needed Lightroom to remain part of my workflow.
I needed to remain the artist making the final decisions.
When I compared the price based on the features I actually WANTED, Narrative made more sense. The software with the most features is not automatically the best value if half of those features are doing things you do not want to hand over.
What I Am NOT Saying About Imagen
I want to make a few things really clear because this is the internet, and the internet occasionally enjoys turning nuance into a cage match.
I am not saying Imagen is bad software. I am not saying photographers who use Imagen are less artistic. I am not saying using more automation makes someone lazy.
I am not saying that my answer has to become your answer.
I am explaining why one workflow fits my values, personality, clients, and creative process better than the other.
There are photographers who would happily let AI complete ninety percent of the post-production process so they can spend that time photographing, parenting, traveling, resting, or doing literally anything else.
Good for them. Seriously.
I am not trying to hand out morality points based on how many Lightroom sliders someone personally touches.
I just know myself. I know our brand. I know what our clients believe they are hiring us to do.
And I know which parts of this process I am not ready or willing to give away.
Are Our Clients Still Getting Photos Edited by Me?
YES. Every photograph in every gallery is still reviewed and hand-finished by me.
AI can help me group photographs. It can help me identify technical problems. It can show me focus information. It can help me apply a base edit.
It does not decide what your wedding should feel like.
It does not decide which strange, blurry, emotional photograph matters to me.
It does not decide whether I intentionally leave something imperfect because it makes the image more human.
It does not decide how I crop the photograph or how I want the final color to feel.
I do.
The purpose of using AI is not to give our clients LESS of me. It is to prevent my brain from being completely drained by the repetitive decisions so that I have MORE energy for the artistic decisions that actually require me.
Our clients are still receiving our vision. Our work. Our hands. Our brains. Our interpretation of their wedding.
That is not changing.
Should Wedding Photographers Use AI?
Yes. With boundaries. That is my answer.
Rejecting AI completely does not automatically protect photography as an art form.
Photographers have always used technology. Autofocus is technology. Light meters are technology. Digital cameras are technology. Presets are technology. Noise reduction is technology. Photoshop is technology.
The question has never really been whether a tool is involved.
The question is what the tool is doing and whether the photographer is still making intentional choices.
AI should solve a problem you actually have. My problem was never that I hated editing photographs.
My problem was that I was spending too much mental energy sorting repetitive images and evaluating technical details. So that is the problem I want AI to solve.
I do not want to invent a problem where my personal creativity is somehow an inconvenience that needs to be automated away.
Who Is Narrative Best For?
Narrative may be a good fit for you if:
- You are a wedding, portrait, family, or event photographer working with large galleries
- You overshoot and need help sorting repetitive frames
- You want help identifying focus issues and closed eyes
- You want to compare expressions faster
- You still enjoy personally selecting photographs
- You still enjoy editing or at least want control of the result
- You want to keep Lightroom in your workflow
- You want AI to apply a strong starting edit
- You prefer local image processing
- You want recommendations without permanently surrendering the final decision
- You want to save time without removing yourself from your work
Narrative may NOT be the best fit if your primary goal is to automate as much of your complete post-production workflow as possible.
And that is okay.
Who Might Prefer Imagen?
Imagen may be a better fit for someone who wants:
- Cloud-based processing
- A workflow that allows you to be as hands-off as possible
- AI tools for cropping, straightening, masking, retouching, and object removal
- A more automated route from the original photographs to a nearly completed edit
That photographer is not doing photography wrong. They want something different than I do.
The best platform is the one that removes the parts of YOUR workflow that drain you without removing the parts that make you feel like an artist.
Frequently Asked Questions About Narrative vs. Imagen
Why did you switch from Imagen to Narrative for AI culling and editing?
I switched because Narrative better matches the amount of control I want to maintain over culling and editing.
I wanted AI to help with repetitive technical decisions and give me a strong starting edit. I did not want the goal of my workflow to become removing myself from the post-production process as much as possible.
Is Narrative better than Imagen?
Narrative is better for MY workflow.
Imagen may be better for a photographer who wants a fully automated culling and editing process. The right answer depends on what you want AI to do and what you want to continue doing personally.
Does Narrative automatically choose your final photographs?
Narrative can assess photographs, group scenes, identify likely or unlikely picks, and help you filter the gallery.
But you remain in control of the ratings and final selections. Narrative’s “First Pass” feature does not delete photographs or make final culling choices.
Does Imagen allow you to review the culling results?
Yes. Photographers can review the culling results, make adjustments, and make the final call before editing. The difference I felt was not that Imagen prevented me from being able to review the selections. It was that Imagen’s overall approach is more centered around full automation, and that felt like a compromise in my workflow.
Does Narrative edit photographs?
Yes.
Narrative offers Core, Artist, and Personal AI Presets. Those edits can be applied while sending the selected photographs into Lightroom. I use the edit as a starting point, then personally review and finish editing the images.
Does Narrative process the images locally or on the cloud?
Narrative says photographs loaded into the application remain locally on the photographer’s computer and are not uploaded to its cloud for image analysis. This is a big reason we love Narrative. We can trust that our clients’ images are safe, and our work isn’t being used to train AI without our knowledge or permission.
Does Imagen use cloud processing?
Yes. Imagen’s current documentation says photographs are uploaded and culling takes place on Imagen Cloud. That does not inherently mean it is unsafe. It is simply a different technical process and one photographers should consider when choosing a platform, especially if you have any privacy or ethical concerns over images being uploaded to a cloud-based AI program.
Is AI culling accurate?
AI culling can be extremely useful for technical assessments, grouping similar photographs, identifying focus problems, and spotting closed eyes. It is not capable of fully understanding the photographer’s memory, intention, emotional attachment, or artistic plan for every photograph.
That is why I still review and make the final decisions and why I chose a platform built for supporting that workflow.
Can AI editing ruin your photography style?
AI does not automatically ruin a photography style. Using AI without intentionally deciding which parts of the process you want to keep CAN make your work feel disconnected from you.
I use AI as a starting point and personally make the final creative decisions. Every photograph is still fully reflective of me as an artist.
Are your wedding galleries generated or completely edited by AI?
No. The photographs are created by me, and each photograph is personally reviewed and finished by me. AI helps me organize, assess, and create a base edit. It does not replace my artistic choices.
Is Narrative worth it for wedding photographers?
Narrative may be worth it if you photograph large weddings, spend hours culling, overshoot, or experience decision fatigue while comparing similar images. Its value will depend on your volume, current culling time, editing workflow, and how much personal control you want to maintain.
Purely from a time-cost perspective: if you only want culling assistance (no editing), Narrative only costs $10/month. Let’s just say it saves you one hour of time each month, which is probably a conservative estimate for most photographers. By not spending that $10/month, you are essentially choosing to work for $10/hour.
Final Thoughts: I Want AI to Support My Process, Not Become My Process
I did not switch because I wanted AI to do MORE of my job.
I switched because I wanted AI to be more intentional about WHICH parts of my job it helped me do.
I want it to remove repetition, reduce decision fatigue, identify technical information faster, and give me a strong place to start. Then I want it to hand the photographs back to me.
Culling assistance gives me energy back. A base edit gives me time back. Local processing gives me peace of mind.
But the final gallery still carries my eye, my choices, my intuition, and my hands. That is the EXACT balance I was looking for.
AI does not have to remove the artist from photography. Used intentionally, it can create more space for the artist to actually be present.
That is why I switched from Imagen to Narrative. Not because I wanted less humanity in my process. Because I wanted to protect it.
Interested in seeing whether Narrative fits your workflow? You can try Narrative through our link here.
