Is Neurapix a Good Solution for High-Volume Event Photographers?

As someone who has dabbled in high-volume event photography, I know how difficult it can be. Whether it’s weddings, business events, sporting events, or something different, these occasions force you to take huge amounts of photographs, often taken in relatively short timeframes.

When all is said and done, you’re often left with thousands of raw images to sort through, organize, review, cull, and edit. It’s an enormous workload, and there’s only so much that conventional editing tools can do to help, but fortunately, AI-powered alternatives, like Neurapix, are changing the game.

An AI-powered add-on for Lightroom, Neurapix is designed with the high-volume photographer in mind, helping users cull and edit massive amounts of files in a matter of minutes. To some, it may sound too good to be true, but read on through my Neurapix review to see how effective this add-on really is.

What Does Neurapix Offer?

Before I look at the nitty-gritty of Neurapix’s key features, pricing, and other important aspects of this software, I’ll first provide a broad overview, so you know exactly what it is.

In a nutshell, Neurapix is an AI-powered photo editing plugin designed exclusively for use with Adobe Lightroom Classic. You can add it to your Lightroom interface to enjoy access to new features like batch photo processing, AI-powered editing, automated cropping, straightening, and more.

It’s like your own AI assistant, built into Lightroom, to help you work your way through thousands of raw photos following a big event. It takes care of the hard parts for you, making minor adjustments here and there in the blink of an eye and even learning your distinct editing style via its “SmartPresets” feature.

This tool has already proven immensely popular with professional photographers around the world, including wedding photographers, interior photographers, and concert photographers.

It’s not hard to see why Neurapix has been such a big hit so far, as it’s not just a massive time-saver, but also an intelligent one, flexibly adapting to suit your style, your needs, and your workload, editing hundreds literally or even up to 1,000 images every single minute, so you don’t have to.

Key Features of Neurapix

Neurapix doesn’t boast dozens of different features, but, instead, it mainly focuses on a small but important selection of functions that are designed to make life easier for high-volume event photographers. Here’s a closer look at what it can do.

AI-Assisted Image Selection and Labeling

One of the big recurring challenges for high-volume event photographers like myself is having to sort through all their images after a shoot and get rid of the duplicates or the pictures that aren’t quite right, i.e., images where people have closed eyes, red-eye, or poor lighting.

Usually, that task can take hours and be a slow, laborious, painstaking process. Thanks to Neurapix’s “Culling” feature, which is currently in beta but is already working wonderfully well, that process can become a thing of the past.

This feature uses AI to scan through entire sets of raw images for you, sifting through thousands of photos in a matter of minutes.

To activate it in Lightroom Classic, I simply had to go to the “Library” menu, find the “Plug-in Extras” option, and select “Culling.”

In less than a minute, Neurapix had scanned the full batch of images and labeled them. It added icons for photos that featured subjects with their eyes open or closed, as well as those that were smiling, or not smiling, and those that were either looking at the camera or elsewhere.

These handy icons made it easy for me to scroll through my batch of photos and easily sort them or delete those that didn’t meet my needs. It doesn’t work well on the likes of landscape and nature photographs, but for portraits, it’s ideal.

Editing in Bulk

Neurapix was designed with bulk image editing in mind. This isn’t the kind of tool you need to use if you’re only working with a few dozen photos or a handful of images; it’s aimed at high-volume, heavy-duty use, perfect for projects in which you might capture 1,000, 5,000, or even 10,000+ photos.

It can process up to 1,000 raw images in a single minute. That’s far faster than any conventional photo editing tool, and dramatically more efficient than having to work through your images manually, checking each picture, one at a time, culling those you don’t need, saving those you want to keep, etc.

The speed and efficiency of this Lightroom add-on are among its biggest selling points, and there are very few tools that can work with this many pictures at this speed while maintaining such high levels of accuracy and reliability.

SmartPresets

Arguably, the best feature of Neurapix – and one of the main reasons so many photographers have invested in this tool so far – is its SmartPresets feature.

The technology underpinning this tool is both complex and powerful, but the way it works is quite simple: SmartPresets are like preset filters you can apply to your images, shifting their brightness, contrast, lighting, and other elements, all in the blink of an eye.

There are different SmartPresets built into Neurapix for specific event settings, like weddings, corporate events, and family photoshoots. The wedding SmartPreset, for example, will automatically brighten up dimly-lit images, add a bit of background blur, and bring out the best in the bride, groom, and guests.

But I also like that you can make your own SmartPresets, tailoring them to match your exact editing style. To do this, I simply have to click the “Create SmartPreset” button in the “Plug-in Extras” menu.

I can then choose between the faster “Kickstart” option, when working with smaller batches of photos, or the “Regular creation,” which is better when working in bulk.

Since I only had a smaller selection of photos to edit at the time, I opted for “Kickstart.”

Once the process began, I was instructed to edit images in my distinctive style. Neurapix would then learn that style, create a SmartPreset to match it, and I’d be able to deploy that SmartPreset for future edits.

This wasn’t a quick process. I had to manually go through each image in Lightroom and apply my unique edits. Only then was the plug-in able to create a SmartPreset.

Once I’d named my new preset, Neurapix needed some time to process the data, but helpfully sent me an email later that day to let me know the process was complete.

It’s not the simplest process to set up, but once you’ve created a SmartPreset that matches your style, you’ll save a lot of time reusing it in the future.

SmartPresets Store

As well as using the built-in SmartPresets or creating your own, Neurapix also lets you browse and buy presets made by other photographers like yourself. You can visit the SmartPresets Store at any time to see presets that other leading professionals and photo studios are using.

Some are designed for the likes of concerts and sporting events, with black and white filters and dramatic lighting effects. Others are more oriented around weddings or corporate conferences, with subtler changes that help to elevate each image to its full potential.

While I prefer to focus on my own style and SmartPresets, it was encouraging to see so many options in the store for photographers who may like to mimic the style of someone else. I was also happy to see that 100% of the profits from SmartPreset sales go to the creators themselves.

Automated Cropping and Straightening

Another tedious task that so many high-volume photographers like myself have to face is cropping and straightening their images. Because when you’re editing hundreds, or even up to 1,000 images, every single minute, it’s not always possible to line every single one up just right.

Sometimes, your angles might be a little off, or you might not quite get your framing right, capturing distracting elements or background items that you’d prefer to crop out of the picture.

Traditionally, high-volume photographers had to do all of this manually. But now, thanks to AI and tools like Neurapix, there’s no need for that. This add-on can scan your entire photo sets, spotting any that are a little askew or subjects that aren’t properly centered and adjusting them automatically for you.

Again, like so many of Neurapix’s other features, this is a gigantic time-saver.

Data Protection

Last but not least, it’s worth noting that since Neurapix was made by a German software studio, it abides by European data protection laws and standards, which are some of the most stringent in the world.

Thanks to that, you don’t have to worry about any images you share with this tool being leaked, lost, or falling into the wrong hands. Your pictures and the identities of your subjects will be treated with the utmost care at all times.

Pricing

Naturally, a tool as powerful as this comes at a cost, but you might be pleasantly surprised to see just how fairly priced Neurapix actually is.

First, all new users benefit from 1,000 free AI edits just for signing up. That’s a really generous free trial, giving you ample time to see and experience everything that Neurapix can do before deciding whether or not to sign up for a paid plan.

If you do decide to go ahead and use this tool professionally, you have two options:

• Pay-Per-Picture: The pay-per-picture option lets you simply pay for the exact number of photos you need to edit. There are no monthly or annual subscriptions here; you just pay on demand, as and when the need arises, with a starting rate of just $0.04 per photo. For an extra penny, you also get automated AI cropping, straightening, and optimization, too.
• Unlimited: With an Unlimited subscription, you can edit as many photos as you like while paying either a monthly or annual subscription fee, starting at just $39.96 a month. For some, that might be too much, but if you typically photograph several events each month, Neurapix will soon pay for itself several times over.

Overall, I feel that these prices are fair, and it’s good to see Neurapix offering both pay-as-you-go and subscription plans, rather than forcing users into one option or the other. This ensures that the tool remains an affordable and accessible option for all, from seasoned, regular event photographers to those who may only do high-volume event photography every now and then.

Who Is Neurapix For?

There’s no doubt about who Neurapix was made for.

With its ability to edit up to 1,000 images every minute, plus features like SmartPresets letting you customize your exact editing style, the Neurapix Lightroom add-on is quite clearly oriented towards the high-volume photography niche.

It’s not for casual photographers or those doing the odd photoshoot here and there, capturing just a few dozen photos every hour. It’s for people like me who routinely find themselves taking hundreds, if not thousands, of images over the course of a single day or evening event.

It’s for people who have had to sit in front of their editing software for hours on end, sorting through page after page of raw files, deleting duplicates, culling images with imperfections, and making their own filters and workflows to save themselves some time.

If that sounds like you, and if you’ve been seeking a way to save some time on all those tedious editing processes, Neurapix may just be the answer.

More: The Best AI-Powered Tools in Lightroom & Photoshop

The Final Verdict: Is It a Good Choice for High-Volume Photography?

The one question I wanted to answer when I started writing this Neurapix review was “Is it really worth it for high-volume event photography?” and now that I’ve spent some time with this tool, I can confidently say that the answer is yes.

Neurapix isn’t just a good choice for high-volume photography; it was made for it. The German team of developers behind this add-on clearly had experience in this field and knew the hardships and challenges that high-volume photographers faced, so they wanted to do something to help them.

The result is an add-on that’s easy to work with and remarkably effective, with a suite of features all designed to make life easier for people who regularly have to work with large batches of raw images, sorting and editing them, one by one.

There are downsides, such as the fact that this add-on only works in Lightroom, which is the biggest issue, because, despite Lightroom’s popularity and versatility, it’s not everyone’s editor of choice. If you’re not already engaged with the Lightroom ecosystem, Neurapix may not be for you.

If, however, you already regularly use Lightroom or don’t mind switching to it from your regular editor, Neurapix is absolutely worth checking out. It may solve a lot of the problems you’ve had to face when working with large amounts of images, simplifying a lot of the time-consuming tasks involved.

I really appreciate the overall speed and efficiency of this tool, and it’s encouraging to see that the developers have been and are continuing to add new features over time, building Neurapix from an optional Lightroom add-on to a must-have staple in the high-volume photographer’s toolkit.