How FilterPixel uses AI to cull and deliver event photos faster, with Aayush Arora

Your camera can shoot 3,000 sharp photos in a day. So why does delivery still take a week? We sit down with Aayush Arora, CEO and founder of FilterPixel, to unpack the real “last mile” problem in professional photography: what happens after the shutter click. The bottleneck is not capture, it is the post-production workflow, especially photo culling and image selection when modern cameras produce tons of near-duplicate keepers that all look “good.” 

We trace the personal moments that pushed Arora toward building AI tools for photographers, then get specific about what makes culling so brutal: repeated sittings, decision paralysis, and the challenge of choosing the best frame from bursts where expressions change by millimeters. From there, we dig into how FilterPixel approaches AI photo culling with genre-aware criteria, why weddings and sports should not be judged the same way, and how transparency builds trust when an algorithm is picking images for your brand. 

Privacy is a major theme too. Arora explains consent-driven model training, retention policies, and why a clear privacy policy matters more than the simplistic “offline is safer than cloud” argument. We also explore AI editing as automation for redundant tasks like white balance and basic color correction, not a replacement for creative taste, plus event-ready tools like branded frames, live galleries, and QR-code sharing aimed at same-day delivery for conferences and high-volume shoots. 

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Erin Manning 0:09

Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast, the photo imaging industry's leading news source. Here's your host, Gary Pageau

Gary Pageau 0:18

Hello again, and welcome to The Dead Pixels Society podcast. I'm your host, Gary Pageau, and today we're joined by Aayush Arora, who is the CEO and founder of FilterPixel, and he's coming to us from New Delhi, India. Hi, Aayush. Hi, how are you today?

Aayush Arora 0:35

Hi, Gary. I'm great, and I'm so excited for this. Thanks for inviting.

Two Moments That Sparked FilterPixel

Gary Pageau 0:40

So tell us a little bit about your journey into photography. We're gonna get into FilterPixel, later, but, what w- what was your background that got you interested in this very, technical, side of the imaging business?

Aayush Arora 0:56

Actually, there are multiple stories that led me into this, not only one story, but there are a couple of situations in my life that, pulled me into this kind of industry. It started with 2019 when I was just pursuing my entrepreneurship course at MIT Boston. While, I just visited MIT for the first time and I was at the campus, the professor and me had nothing in common, so we started playing chess. And interestingly, there was a photographer who was taking our photos. So after the photo shoot was done, and I won two to three matches, I wanted the photos right away to post on my social

Gary Pageau 1:37

media.

Aayush Arora 1:37

So I asked this photographer, "Can I get those photos which you have just taken?" And, out of nowhere, he started talking about how difficult it is to get those photos to a client, and the client does not understand that, and they want the photos right away, but they-

Gary Pageau 1:54

Have no thought- You took the pictures. They're digital. Why can't I have 'em right away?

Aayush Arora 1:58

Yeah, and he started talking about how difficult it is and how painful it is to go to the home after a photo shoot is done, and then backing, backing it up, and then sorting it through, then editing it, then retouching it, then finally making a gallery. All of that frustration was coming through that photographer. And, but that started like a spark. That was the first spark. That was the first light bulb moment, where I was figuring out why he said that, though I was having no idea in 2019 about this whole, workflow or situation or AI or... I was just a person doing a normal job, going nine to five in the office, and then started a course, for entrepreneurship that I w- I was just interested. I came back to India and I started a research project, and I emailed almost 200 photographers a day, and there was... That was not the time of ChatGPT where you can automatically write emails. You have to manually write it. So I was writing emails to photographers and asking them if it's a real problem, if it is something that they face as well. And if they really face it, can they just come on a call for 20 minutes and explain me their workflow? And I got 200 interviews like that. Most of them were from US and UK.

Gary Pageau 3:20

Right.

Aayush Arora 3:20

So that validated the problem, but I was not sure whether this is worth solving, and I was just understanding the workflows out of curiosity.

Gary Pageau 3:30

Right.

Aayush Arora 3:30

My second light bulb moment happened in my life when I was at an international conference, at Germany. It was Hamburg, and I was talking on the stage. I was giving a talk. It was a, it was a big conference hall. There were a lot of people And the same situation happened. I wanted the photos after my speaker session was done, so I chased out to the photographer, and he said I should take it from the organizer. So I went to the organizer, and he told me that I should find it out from the Facebook page. So when I came back to India, I went to the Facebook page, and there were a lot of photos, but then there was no photo of mine.

Gary Pageau 4:14

Right.

Aayush Arora 4:15

And I didn't get any photo from there as well.

Gary Pageau 4:17

Right.

Aayush Arora 4:17

So m- my parents when they asked me, because it was a big conference, it was a big hall. They wanted to see me on the stage.

Gary Pageau 4:25

Right.

Aayush Arora 4:26

And they were too emotional about that sentiment of them, l- looking for their son on a big stage was- something that I was not able to give them, in return. And that was something I thought about, like, why that happened, and why the photo was not there at the moment I needed it, while maybe Facebook, the Facebook page might have that photo two weeks later. So scenarios like that, always, intrigued me- I started my photography journey. I just purchased a camera in 2020, and I started taking photos like a hobbyist, going here and there. I'm still, not doing photography as a, professional or something, but after doing 200 plus interviews in 2019, 2020 itself, and then till from there till now, after talking to thousands of photographers, I think I understand the workflows at least a bit better. yeah. And interestingly, that all led me into this, that I'm gonna solve this problem. I'm gonna solve the problem of delivery. I'm gonna solve the problem of helping the clients getting their best shots at the time they need it- rather than after the deadline is over.

Gary Pageau 5:40

So what did you focus on first? You identified the problem, right? Which was the... everyone was excited about digital capture because obviously you're getting the picture right away, and you can see it on the back of the camera. But like it's a last mile problem. It's getting it to the person on the other side of the lens that's the problem.

Aayush Arora 5:59

We like, me personally was pretty curious about why it does not reach out to the person. Like, why it hasn't reached out to me when I was needing it. And I figured out that it's like a process having multiple steps. It starts with ingesting the photos after the shoot is over- to the process of sorting it out, or some people call it culling, and then doing editing over it, and then- finally creating an album out of it which goes to the client. And nobody wants to deliver low-quality photos. As a photographer, my responsibility is to make sure that my clients are happy after they see their photos. So I'm not gonna rush it out. I'm not gonna f- you know, deliver it quickly just because I want them to see it quicker. It needs to be quality. It's my brand. I've created it for so many years.

Gary Pageau 6:50

Right.

Aayush Arora 6:51

So the balance between quality and time and delivery is very important. And to solve the problem, we have to start with the first problem, which is photo selection, and that's what we did. 2020 to 2023, three years-

The Real Bottleneck In Delivery

Aayush Arora 7:10

we just focused on one single problem: How can I select my photos faster- As a photographer? And nothing else. So three years we have given to solve one single problem. And the case, the problem, the, of culling was frustration.

Gary Pageau 7:31

Right.

Aayush Arora 7:31

It was not like an interesting thing to sit in front of a computer for hours and,

Gary Pageau 7:37

yeah. Yeah, you must have found out the typical wedding, right? They're shooting, what, 3,000 pictures, right? So if it takes them, 10 seconds to review a picture, that's a lot of time

Aayush Arora 7:49

One thing is the time, so this process of culling was not happening in a single sitting because it was boring.

Gary Pageau 7:56

Right.

Aayush Arora 7:56

I... If I'm clicking 3,000 shots, I'm not gonna sit in one single sitting doing 3,000 shots.

Gary Pageau 8:04

Right.

Aayush Arora 8:04

It requires multiple sittings. And every time I sit, I f- I forget what I did before.

Gary Pageau 8:11

Right.

Aayush Arora 8:12

I need my mind clarity.

Gary Pageau 8:14

Right.

Aayush Arora 8:14

I, if I do it in a single sitting, I g- I will go into decision paralysis, which is like I cannot decide which is better. And, there's a... when we take burst shots, we get attached to the photo. Like-

Gary Pageau 8:28

Sure

Aayush Arora 8:29

so the problem is not about how to deselect or how to reject a photo. The problem is to select the best out of similar. Because that's the duds, like the photos which are too bad, are out of focus, it's very easy to just get rid of them. While the cameras have progressed since- Right 2021, now we have a lot of good cameras in the market. So everyone is clicking better and better. And now we have too many duplicates, and all of them are good. So how do you select? That's become... that is something that is changing, and that is where- has happened from 2020 to 2023.

Gary Pageau 9:06

So what was the beginning of your data set, right? Because you weren't using existing data sets, right? You had to build this thing from the ground up. It's not like today where you can go out and license models. Because back then, you were early in on this. So where were you getting the information about selection and choosing pictures and all these things?

Aayush Arora 9:29

I would like to let you know that when I was in MIT, doing this, project and started the research project when I came back to India, during that time, I met a few photographers in the US itself after emailing. One of the photographers, and Jim Better, he was an amazing, photographer at that time. He is still photographing, and, he's a great guy. He's a good friend. He met me in a cafe, and he told me about all of that, the problem of coloring and editing. Then there was another lady, her name was Erza. She's also, based out of, San Francisco. We had a meetup in a cafe where she explained me her workflow. These people became the part of the early cohort or early community. And they shared their photos with us, and we shared our, software with them for feedback. So initially, our initial idea was to use their photo as a testing set.

Gary Pageau 10:30

Right.

Aayush Arora 10:30

And we created a community, and we asked them to share their photos in exchange of feedback and getting the software, and that's how the initial data came in.

Gary Pageau 10:41

Right.

Aayush Arora 10:42

And that helped training. That helped building a strong community which really believed in the product, which really want the product to improve. And over time, we found ways where we don't need the data from the customer. We can synthetically generate data, which means we aren't, we, we don't need data which are actual photos. We can, can take data from internet, which is, open source, which is available to all to use. Whenever there was a complaint, whenever anybody was, saying that, "Hey, this does not work for me because..." And they had a reason, so we asked them, "Can you share your gallery with us?" "Would you mind sharing these photos? Can we train this for you? If you don't mind-" can we use these photos for training?" And a lot of people agreed. A lot of people agreed to use that data to improve the product in exchange of the software, and we did that initially. So- I think the trust, is very important and the transparency is very important. We were very transparent about the process of how we use data. And, we created very strong privacy policies at the very start of the company to set up a foundation where we are clear about how do we use the data of photographers. And we cannot train a model without their consent. So if a photographer is willingly

Why Culling Causes Decision Paralysis

Aayush Arora 11:55

giving their photos, they're part of a community, they're saying, "Hey, use my data. Train these models." "I want to improve it for myself." Obviously. Sure. But we cannot use the data, according to our privacy policies to, i- if they don't agree to our terms and conditions.

Gary Pageau 12:11

So it's not one of those things where, oh, let's say I'm using the Filter Pi- Pixel platform. By participating in it, there's no little checkbox in the terms of service that lets me train on the data. I have to actually opt in for that. It's-

Aayush Arora 12:28

So yeah, so in the terms and conditions, it's pretty clear that, you can ask us to, remove your entire data. You can just request a complete data deletion. There's a clear retention policy, like till how much time we hold the data of the customer. It also talks about, in what format we, we are going to store the data and where we are going to store the data. So for example, we d- we do not do anything to the actual files. We don't even store the actual files.

Gary Pageau 12:56

Okay.

Aayush Arora 12:57

We store an encrypted version of a file. For example, if your file, if you are shooting a raw photo, it's approximately 30 to 50 MB. But what we need is just 50 KB of information from that photo to train a model.

Gary Pageau 13:10

Right.

Aayush Arora 13:10

So we don't put 50 MB photo on anywhere. We just extract what we need for- training purposes, and then for that also we have a clear retention policy that after, few days in our privacy policies, these photos will be automatically deleted. And if you wanted to delete, these photos right away, you can write the opt- and right away

Gary Pageau 13:33

So you're hopefully getting around some, some of the suspicion people have with the AI piece is you're very upfront

Aayush Arora 13:38

And I think, if you are very clear about your transparent po- your policies and how do you handle data- It's, it does not matter, whether you are doing it on cloud or whether you are doing it offline. What you need to be clear about is how do you handle it, because even if you are doing, if you are processing photos offline, there are so many software in the world that process photos offline and people are so happy about it that because the software does not need internet, my data is safe. No, not true at all. Not true at all. What is safe, the definition of safe, is the privacy policy. The definition of safe is to understand how that company handles data- and, to find out the answers of the questions with the company before you opt in for them- rather than just believing the idea of offline or being- offline is better than being on cloud. And, and yes, to come back to your original question of getting data and collecting data, because every AI

Training Data Plus Consent And Privacy

Aayush Arora 14:35

model needs to improve with data, we really ask our customers to share their data with us, you know- with their consent if they really want to improve the AI. And they see real results, after the improvement.

Gary Pageau 14:50

So continuing the product development. So if you got into culling, but you've added a bunch of other features too. Now, before we get into those features- What are some of the things the culling model looks at, right? Because you got closed eyes, you got blurry faces, you... But even gets into expression and some of the emotional content as well, correct?

Aayush Arora 15:10

Here is what we did different after 2020, in 2026 beginning, which we released few months ago and which is new. 'Til 2026, we were having this model learn about any, expression and closed eyes, accidental blinks, and- the blurry photos. We had a lot of feedback from our customers who were talking about that it does not select the way they would like it to select. And when we went into calls and when we talked with users, why they felt that way, we understood that because of the type of shooting that they are doing, it... the criterias of selection changes.

Gary Pageau 15:55

Right.

Aayush Arora 15:55

So if I'm doing a wedding, my selection criterias include moments, storytelling, Compositions, artistic, photos, creativity around it. And obviously there are some technical quality checks like blinks and, blur, which are very basic. But if you just compare wedding with sports or schools- the criteria of selections of sports are not similar at all like weddings.

Gary Pageau 16:29

Right.

Aayush Arora 16:29

For sports, the criterias are peak action moments.

Gary Pageau 16:34

Right.

Aayush Arora 16:34

Where there's an action happening, the expression on the face needs to be-

Gary Pageau 16:38

Or there may not even be a face, right?

Aayush Arora 16:40

Exactly. And sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. So for an AI algorithm to be very generic, like all other software in the market, and obviously like us b- in 2025, when we were also trying to solve the same problem in the same way like others, we were also creating a basic AI culling algorithm which looks for blinks and, e- expression and, the, exposure, and- it looks for blurry. But in 2026, the first thing we changed about how the AI sees a photo is to make sure that it's different for different genre. So you have different criterias of selection- for different genre of photography. And the second thing we changed is we made this entire process transparent, which means you can see on which criterias this AI has selected or rejected a photo with different scores. So you have the complete transparency- over the process, and it's not like a black box anymore. It's- it's not I'm have selected 200 photos for you, but you figure it out yourself how they are selected.

Gary Pageau 17:48

Can the user impose their storytelling, style, if you will,

Deep Culling By Genre With Transparency

Gary Pageau 17:55

within the platform and say, "Listen, I'm more of a romantic, dreamy kind of person for a wedding picture, and I'm..." 'Cause that's where I think, would be an interesting opportunity.

Aayush Arora 18:06

Here where, the world is going to move, and that's what we believe in. We believe that people will come on the platform, and they will have their own way of thinking on how I want to create or how I want to curate, I would say- Right this gallery. Your own

Gary Pageau 18:22

curation style, if you will.

Aayush Arora 18:24

Yes, and they will define their curation style. And that's where the world is moving. we figured out that we are getting a lot of queries from photographers who are shooting high volume, whether it's a sports, whether this is schools, whether this is, weddings, whether this is concerts, whether this is community events. And these people... Or whether this is conferences.

Gary Pageau 18:50

Right.

Aayush Arora 18:50

And these people are under a deadline. They want to deliver the same day. They want to deliver it today, but they don't want to deliver bad quality.

Gary Pageau 19:00

So they want to make sure they-

Aayush Arora 19:00

cause,

Gary Pageau 19:01

because if you're being hired for a job and you're being paid, hopefully, thousands of dollars to shoot an event, you don't wanna provide substandard pictures to your clients just for the sake of expediency, which is a challenge. Because you always hear that in the professional photographer community, where you have the bride saying, "Oh, just give me the raw files. I just want the raw files for the socials." And it's just "No. D- please, no. I don't wanna do that." Because it's their pictures, right? It's their artwork that they don't wanna have out in an unfinished manner.

Aayush Arora 19:34

And that's where the problem is. When we were trying to solve it with, DeepCulling, which is the name of the new algorithm of 2026 which does this genre-wise selection and gives the scores and the reason. We got a lot of queries from photographers which were not exactly wedding, but, they were high-volume. So they were doing different parts of the, photography. For example, there was a photographer who does this, community events and, they had this problem of shooting so many photos, and there was no software that was working for them.

Gary Pageau 20:12

Right.

Aayush Arora 20:13

Put the photos, we will figure out the blank shots, we will figure out the blurry shots, and we will reject them. We will find the duplicates, and we will pick one from every duplicate set. Everyone was the same, and there was no way that the photographer doing this community event was agreeing on the criteria of blurring and bling and all of that. So things like that, we defined, a criteria, a genre in our app where people can choose which style or which genre, which profile they wanna use. And based on that, the entire experience of the app changes because y- your criterias, your selections, it's very different as a photographer- Yeah from a different photographer who is shooting a different style. So yeah, this has made the entire culling very effective. And we had the same question from everyone, "Why you cancel?" And everybody told about, "I have to go through the photos again after it does- the culling. So I don't think it makes sense for me to purchase or pay for a software service if I have to do the job again." Which makes sense. And now these people are coming back. Now these people are, subscribing again, and that gave us the confidence that this is the right direction.

Gary Pageau 21:34

So how much in the editing sphere have you gotten into, right? There's the culling piece, which you think you've got down to a high level, but now there's also the editing piece, right? Where people are starting to apply some AI into, cropping, color grading, blemish removal, and just basic stuff. Not high-end stuff, but maybe stuff that, would just be routine type things. How much have you integrated those type of features into that?

Aayush Arora 22:26

So it's very obvious that if we just limit ourselves to culling, we still will not be able to meet our goal of letting people deliver the same day- or the next day. So we need to definitely, take our roadmap to the next level. So we incorporated editing into the picture, but we wanted to incorporate editing only to the point where we would automate the redundant part of editing- and not touch the creative process.

Gary Pageau 22:56

Right.

Aayush Arora 22:57

So because we- because as a founder or even as a person who understand AI from the depth, I believe that

AI Editing For Redundant Tasks

Aayush Arora 23:07

AI has a limitation. And that limitation is that it can do redundant task pretty well, but it will waste your time if you do creativity with it, and we don't believe in the future where AI is replacing anyone.

Gary Pageau 23:22

If you outsource the creativity piece, your, those skills are gonna atrophy.

Aayush Arora 23:28

And, we believe that, in editing, we limited ourselves to a certain part of editing. So we do, all of the basic stuff that you see in softwares- lightroom automatically. So for example, when you think about, color correction, when you think about white balance- when you think about HSL color grading, all of that crops straight in of the photo. The basics of what can help you deliver the same day, we cover them all. Like- we don't want you to transform the photo. That's not our job. If you're thinking about a scenario in a conference, what does a conference or event photographer want? I just have taken- you know, photographs of a speaker, and my organizer is going to ask me the s- the photos in- an hour or so, how I'm gonna give that batch to them right away? So they can just open up our software, put the photos in, get the culling done- get the basic editing applied. They can also train their own profile if they want.

Gary Pageau 24:35

Right.

Aayush Arora 24:35

But they can also use the profiles which are already on the platform- to use very quickly, and then they can deliver.

Gary Pageau 24:43

So if you're looking at, let's say, an event, right? Let's say, for example, I'm having a conference. I s- hire a photographer. They're using Fi- FilterPix. A lot of times with those conferences, they wanna watermark the images with the conference name and all. Is that possible? Is that something you're working on, or, I mean- Yes.

Aayush Arora 25:02

So we wanted to incorporate that feature in the last quarter. We are still taking a lot of feedback from photographers- in terms of what kind of watermarks will be, helpful. AI has became so advanced that- removing a watermark is- Yeah very easy.

Gary Pageau 25:20

I'm not talking about removing. I'm talking about, let's say you put on... Let's say I put on a conference and I wanna have the title of the conference at the bottom of every image- Yeah so people know that they went to that.

Aayush Arora 25:32

Yes. So we call it Frames.

Gary Pageau 25:33

Okay.

Aayush Arora 25:34

It's a separate product that we have. It's not integrated in FilterPixel- right now. But if somebody wants it, we definitely have it. And the way we do it right now is... And I can talk about that- but it's more of a separate thing that we do where people can- Yeah just put the photos- Yeah and create a live gallery out of it- Yeah with proper framing and proper watermarking- And can share a QR code with their clients.

Gary Pageau 25:58

Sure.

Aayush Arora 25:58

The clients can just scan the QR code, take a selfie, get their photos, or even if they don't wanna take a selfie because of privacy issues, they can see the entire photo gallery with watermarks- and can post directly on social media. So it's a great tool for a conference or an event. And it integrates pretty well with what we have built so far with culling and editing. Our next goal in the next quarter is to bring out culling, editing, and this

Frames Galleries QR Codes And Roadmap

Aayush Arora 26:27

tool together in one single place, where a conference photographer or an event photographer or a wedding photographer or even a sports photographer can create galleries where a client can find themselves very quickly on the same day of the event, and all the photos look, selected- and highly polished, which was the problem statement I faced.

Gary Pageau 26:49

Yeah,

Aayush Arora 26:50

absolutely. And it took me six years. Yeah. It took me six years, to be honest.

Gary Pageau 26:52

again, it sounds easy, but then when you think about it, there's a lot of hurdles that need to be overcome, a lot of decision points all along those periods other than just, "Give me this picture that I want," right? It's finding the picture, selecting the picture, editing the picture, putting it in a certain place, making sure there's, rights attached. Because a lot of times with, the metadata has to include the rights to the images- Exactly and all these other things. It's not a simple thing.

Aayush Arora 27:16

I would 100% agree. There are so many workflows in which people use or can use a certain product. And, there are so many different ways in which someone do their post-production.

Gary Pageau 27:32

Right.

Aayush Arora 27:33

I have seen, users doing culling in Photoshop. One photo, loading a photo can take a minute.

Gary Pageau 27:40

Right.

Aayush Arora 27:41

And I have seen people doing it in Photo Mechanic. I have seen people doing it in Lightroom, Adobe Bridge. I have seen people, doing it everywhere, and there's so many tools doing it manually, even in the file browser. To make sure that they understand and they're, like we are able to educate them that they need a dedicated photo culling software- to bring back the productivity in their life. It took us three years.

Gary Pageau 28:07

Right.

Aayush Arora 28:08

Understanding all of their workflows, mastering every- particular part of how they sort it- how they color it, how different ways in which they can, bringing all those features in and making sure that the community, i- is it's feeling this is home- after that, bringing editing into it was not difficult because- the foundation was set. So now features are coming quite quickly. But initially, it took a while, for sure.

Gary Pageau 28:32

It's almost it's a good news, bad news situation. The good news is you can take 3,000 pictures at a wedding 'cause it's digital imaging and the cameras are great, and they're, 20-megabyte files like you said, and that's great. The bad news is you've gotta look at 3,000 20-megabyte images to look at your wedding. And have it delivered within 12 hours, right?

Aayush Arora 28:52

Not anymore.

Gary Pageau 28:53

Yeah.

Aayush Arora 28:54

But yeah,

Gary Pageau 28:54

the original premise was, oh, everything's great. Digital solves a lot of problems. That created a lot more problems.

Aayush Arora 29:01

I think, I read it somewhere in a book, that if you are solving a problem, with a solution, the solution that you create always creates a new problem to solve. You know- Absolutely even if digital ca- came into the picture, they created a new problem, which is- Yeah and then mirrorless came into the picture, they created one more problem. so opportunities are everywhere. And I think, what is important right now is we keep our ears open, we keep our eyes open- and we keep hearing from our community, which we always did, and we always wanted to. We keep asking people questions. We keep asking feedback on the software.

Pricing Integrations And How To Try

Aayush Arora 29:37

We make sure that we live very close- To our community, and that feedback is the only thing that really helped us, to grow in these six years. And I'm so thankful for the early cohort of, photographers who- Believed in us- When we were nothing. And who really thought that, this can become a big thing, and they wanted to be... Just they were thinking it like a project, and they wanted to be a part of our project.

Gary Pageau 30:02

Right.

Aayush Arora 30:02

And that's how it grew.

Gary Pageau 30:04

So let's walk us through a little bit the product itself, right? There's a software component, then there's a monthly mo- pricing model, right? So how does that work for a photographer who's interested in trying this out?

Aayush Arora 30:16

We have subscriptions, so we don't charge per photo. We have fixed subscriptions in which, we make sure that people are able to cull, people are edit- able to edit and deliver. We don't believe in costing them money, per photo, but we wanted to make them, sure that we deliver high-quality value. So the deep culling that we introduced, it's a highly advanced, system of culling, which is genre-wise. So what we did is in every subscription plan, we added few shoots per free for deep culling. So while the AI culling is unlimited and it's free, like in every plan it's unlimited. You can use it, by paying a subscription, and you don't need to pay per photo while it's editing or AI culling. The deep culling is, based on how many shoots you wanna purchase. So even if you are not sure whether you need it or you don't need it, what makes it great is the flexibility, where you can purchase a very basic plan, let's say $20 a month. And it covers approximately unlimited AI culling, unlimited AI editing- which is very good. Plus, it also gives you, two deep cull shoots a month, which is genre-specific, highly accurate, polished selections, where you don't need even to re-review it- which is the problem that everyone faces if the AI is just looking for the basic things- in the selection process. And then you can upgrade it by just paying per shoot. So instead of, paying per photo, you can just say, "Hey, I just need two shoots a month, but, maybe I need one more shoot." So you can just pay an additional shoot, and you can be- on the same plan.

Gary Pageau 31:55

And is Lightroom or Capture One required, or can you use it as a standalone?

Aayush Arora 32:02

So it can be used as a standalone application. You don't need Lightroom, you don't need anything to use it. But we have an integration with all of the industry, software. So if you are a Lightroom user, if you have a pre-set-up Lightroom workflow, it's very easy. You can select inside Filter Pixel, you can edit inside Filter Pixel, and you can click a button and it can take you into your software, like Lightroom, or it can take you into Capture One, and it transfers all of your metadata into that application. So the entire data that Filter Pixel creates for you- Whether that is star rating, color rating, whatever, it goes directly into Lightroom with a click. So you don't need to worry about learning anything new. Because now you are in Lightroom, Lightroom. What Filter Pixel did is it does your job of, mundane task or a boring task, it just did that for you, and then here's the creativity. You can bring it on in Photoshop, Lightroom, whatever creativity tools you want to use.

Gary Pageau 33:04

So where can people go if they wanna try this out to get more information about Filter Pixel and what you guys do?

Aayush Arora 33:11

Yeah. They can definitely go to filterpixel.com. They can also search Filter Pixel on Google. We have very active community on Facebook. They can go and search, Filter Pixel on Facebook and find our private Facebook community. And join it. They can raise a request. They can just let us know that they are coming through your podcast, and while they join the community. And, we would definitely let them in. They can always, look for our, lives that we keep doing inside our community to make sure- everybody understand the workflow and everybody understand how to use it. So we do a lot of education. We do a lot of classes. and updates, monthly. So we keep releasing new updates. We keep learning, keep releasing. And, filterpixel.com is the, all way to go.

Gary Pageau 33:58

Thank you for your time. Learned a lot. This was very interesting. Thank you so much for your time.

Aayush Arora 34:03

I'm so glad I got a chance to be here, and thank you so much for inviting me here.