Impossible Things Review: AI RAW Photo Editor

What if your editing process were as easy as selecting photos, choosing a style, and pressing a button?

This is what Impossible Things, a new AI Photo Editor promises to do.

Editing photos is a time-intensive process that often takes days and sometimes even months.

But with Impossible Things – a Lightroom native AI image editor, you can process your photos with just a few clicks.

It’s a super-fast Lightroom plugin that, apart from applying a preset, intelligently adapts 38+ separate slider predictions to arrive at a final edit.

Overall, Impossible Things claims to reduce your processing time significantly.

In this review, I’ll guide you through all the features and show you how you can speed up your workflow with Impossible Things.

So let’s get started.

What is Impossible Things?

 

Impossible Things is a Lightroom plugin developed by working photographers; Jeff Newsom from DVLOP and Pye Jirsa from SLR Lounge.

It’s designed to automate tedious and time-consuming manual editing tasks and provide photographers with a fast bulk-editing system.

Under the hood, Impossible Things uses an advanced AI engine trained on over a million photos shot with 200 different cameras and 300 unique lenses. It ensures you get suitable adjustments every time, whether you’re editing wedding photos or family portraits.

It also means that Impossible Things makes intelligent decisions about how to edit each shot based on the lighting conditions, camera brand, camera profile, and much more.

Out of the box, It comes with a library of cloud styles by well known photographers like Jose Villa, Two Mann Studios, Chrisman Studios, Eric Floberg, and others that let you get started immediately without owning any presets.

The cloud styles library is continually expanding and being updated.

If you already have presets that you love, whether you bought them or created them yourself, Impossible Things will automatically work with those.  However, for best results, you may have to tune the engine with a quick process they call “custom tuning.”

Advanced features like adaptive noise reduction, adaptive lens correction, and AI masking preconditioning save you many steps of manual work.

Getting started with Impossible Things is easy, with a straightforward installation process. The user interface is intuitive and doesn’t involve a learning curve. However, you may need to experiment with tweaking a few sliders to gauge the intensity of the effects.

Impossible Things works within Lightroom, meaning you don’t have to leave the Lightroom window. The plugin being Lightroom native makes it convenient for you to fine-tune settings and review in real-time.

If you’re not satisfied with the edit, you can re-edit any image an unlimited number of times within the first 24 hours of the original edit.  The re-edit feature also lets you explore different cloud styles and presets without worrying about additional fees.

Impossible Things is compatible with Adobe Lightroom Classic CC on both Windows and Mac. It’s a great tool that has the potential to change the way photographers edit their images.

By automating manual editing tasks, photographers can save time and focus on their craft while achieving stunning effects with just a few clicks.

How to use Impossible Things

Impossible Things promises easy operation for photographers of all skill levels, from beginners to seasoned pros.

To get started, create an account at Things.co and install the plugin on your pc or mac, open Adobe Lightroom Classic CC, and navigate to File-> Plug-in Extras-> Account Login.

Once logged in, we recommend that you take 10-15 minutes to train the custom tuning feature by going to File-> Plug-in Extras-> Custom Tuning.

While you can get started right away without custom tuning, putting in some time up front will help customize the final results to your style and get you better overall results.

When you’re ready, you can start editing by selecting the photos you want edited, opening the plugin (File> Plug-in Extras> Edit Photos), and selecting the preset from one of the Cloud Presets, Artist Tuned Presets, or your own preset folder.

Optionally, you can also use Adaptive Lens Correction, Noise Reduction, or AI Masking Preconditioning. When you click Proceed, it will apply the effect to your photos in just a few seconds.

That’s it!

Remember, if you’re unsatisfied with results or if you want to experiment with other styles, you can re-edit the photos as many times as you’d like within a 24 hour period.

Additional Features

Impossible Things has a wide range of features designed in a simple interface to streamline editing. There are more than 38 sliders to give users precise control over the look of the final image.

Let’s take a deeper look at some of the exciting tools available in Impossible Things.

Intelligence Slider

The Intelligence Slider in Impossible Things is an AI feature that predicts appropriate adjustments to the key settings for a photo.

It’s part of the Custom Tuning options discussed in the previous section.

When the Intelligence Slider is at 0, it only limits the predictions to exposure, tint, and color temperature without affecting other sliders.

However, at 100%, it sets values to all 38 sliders based on the scene, subject and light conditions.

Impossible Things recommends that the Intelligence Slider should be at 100% most of the time for the best results. Though, using a median value can often help users quickly achieve a well-balanced image with this single slider.

AI Masking Preconditioning

This feature is available for Lightroom 12 and above.

With AI Masking Preconditioning, Impossible Things masks the subject in a photo, and applies automatic adjustments to specific areas such as facial skin, body skin, teeth, iris, and background.

This setting is part of the Edit Photos menu and offers two options for quick enhancements:

AI Enhance Subject: This works by reducing exposure in everything except the subject, which creates a hint of separation from the background.

AI Retouch Portrait: It masks the skin, smoothens it, and gives options for teeth whitening, eye enhancement, etc.

Impossible Things uses the term ‘preconditioning’ for this feature because, at the editing stage, the above settings do not affect the photo but have to be later applied via the menu, meaning the processing speed remains unaffected.

Cloud Styles

These are the built-in styles, ideal for users who don’t own any presets yet or are just exploring Impossible Things. They are part of the plugin and don’t need to be downloaded and installed locally on a computer.

Cloud Styles serve as an excellent base for customizing the look with Custom Tuning options. The brand often updates the lineup, and all the users of Impossible Things have access to them.

Artist Tuned Presets

These are the pool of presets created by artists. In the selection menu, artist tuned presets show a bold check mark which indicates that the creator has optimized the look to work best with Impossible Things.

Similar to cloud presets, these looks are continually updated and synced over the cloud. They can also be further customized via the Custom Tuning options.

Adaptive Lens Correction

This feature is part of Edit Photo options and allows you to correct the flaws often left out by Lightroom’s built-in profile corrections.

It works in conjunction with Lightroom’s lens correction option and addresses the issue of over or under-vignetting. As this is a resource-intensive tool, it’s best to use it with photos in groups of 100-200 at a time.

Impossible Things offers valuable features that require no training and helps photographers create stunning photos with ease and efficiency.

Overall Performance

Does it work?  Based on our test edits, Impossible Things produced results that were on par or, oftentimes, better than the other AI Photo Editing options we’ve tested.

Pye Jirsa and Jeff Newsome, with their preset creation experience and their real life experience as wedding photographers, have really created something refined and unique.

Impossible Things offer a smooth and seamless user experience with its speed and Lightroom native interface.

One of the main benefits is that it works effortlessly with a massive set of images.

Where most plugins get sluggish while editing raw files, Impossible Things handles 1000s of them at a time without slowing down.

Another plus point is it works with all presets regardless of whether you own DVLOP presets or your own.

It’s an efficient tool that can speed up your workflow if you’re a wedding or event photographer who often has to edit a considerable amount of photos in a limited time.

Alternatives to Impossible Things

The following photo editing software tools allow you to use AI in some way to help edit your photos.

(Click on any of the links to see our full user reviews.)

• Imagen AI
• Luminar Neo
• ON1 PhotoRaw
• Topaz Photo AI
• Radiant Photo

You can also see a list of photo tools which use artificial intelligence.

While some of the tools overlap in features with Impossible Things, each one offers slightly different features.

It’s worth finding the one that suits your existing Lightroom workflow the best.

Value for Money

Impossible Things is a high-value-for-money product primarily because of its editing capabilities, faster processing speed, and the time it saves.

Its offering starts with a pay-as-you-go plan where the user must pay around $0.07 per edit credit per image, but the monthly plans quickly bring the costs down to $0.03 to $0.05 per edit depending on your plan.

The higher-priced subscriptions provide more edit credits and a cheaper per-image rate when the plan credits are exhausted.

If you’re a professional photographer looking to speed up your processing speed, Impossible Things would be a great plugin option for you. However, the pricey plans don’t make sense for a hobbyist or a beginner photographer.

FAQ’s

What is Impossible Things?

Impossible Things is a Lightroom plugin to automate manual editing tasks and speed up workflow.

What kind of photos can I edit with Impossible Things?

Currently, you can only edit RAW files with Impossible Things.

Can I use my own presets with Impossible Things?

Yes, Impossible Things allows you to use your own presets with monthly subscription plans.

Does Impossible Things have a learning curve?

No, the user interface is Lightroom native and very easy to use.

Is Impossible Things compatible with both Windows and Mac?

Yes, Impossible Things is compatible with Adobe Lightroom on both Windows and Mac.

What is the difference between Impossible Things and other Lightroom AI editing plugins?

Unlike other AI editing plugins, Impossible Things allows you to use the existing presets you purchased or created. It’s a Lightroom native tool, so it doesn’t require you to leave the window.

Impossible Things Review | Conclusion

Impossible Things is an excellent Lightroom plugin for photographers who want to simplify their photo editing workflow.

It’s built on AI that is trained on over a million photos giving predictable and professional results. The interface is easy to use and doesn’t have a steep learning curve like some other AI editing software.

Though it has some limitations, it would be a valuable addition to wedding or portrait photographers’ workflow.

Have you tried Impossible Things? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.