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Sony has announced Visual Story, a new iOS application for Sony camera users. The app has been designed with wedding and event photographers in mind and provides users with simplified gallery creation, cloud storage, and web delivery solutions.
Visual Story offers automated image transfer from compatible Sony Alpha cameras to the cloud. From there, users can edit and deliver curated digital albums directly to their clients. To speed up image selection and organization, the app also utilizes AI and reads the metadata of your images.
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‘The voice of our customer is at the center of everything we do. Today’s professional photographers constantly challenge themselves to deliver higher quality content faster than ever to their clients,’ said Neal Manowitz, deputy president of Sony Imaging Products and Solutions Americas. ‘Visual Story allows them to streamline their workflow, ultimately giving them the ability to edit, select and send photo galleries to their clients on the day of the ceremony or event. Sony continues developing innovative hardware and software solutions empowering content creators to capture, communicate and share in ways never before possible.’
With Visual Story, photographers can quickly and easily create, edit, curate and deliver a photo gallery. When your camera is connected to the app, images are automatically transferred from the camera to the connected smartphone or tablet in addition to Sony’s cloud service. Images are automatically organized using AI and can be sorted based on metadata, star ratings, shooting timeframe, focus position and additional parameters.
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AI can also sort based on different types of images from an event. For example, AI can detect cake and ring ceremony images from a wedding, identify photos of speeches and dances, and more. The app can also detect when a subject’s eyes are shut, reducing the number of images you must choose from when creating a gallery.
Visual Story includes auto presets as well. Photographers can automatically apply custom edit presets or utilize built-in fixed presets. You can register an edit preset prior to shooting, such that all transferred images are automatically applied as the images are transferred, ensuring a consistent look across all photos. Additionally, the app includes a variety of editing functions, including controls over exposure, white balance, contrast, hue, saturation, and luminance.
By utilizing cloud storage, images can be synchronized across multiple devices. Further, ‘Visual Story also allows wedding photographers to automatically create an online gallery for their clients, which can be delivered instantly on site. This can be offered to their client as an additional service, or complimentary and included in their wedding or event package.’ You can also embed a selected logo and social media information directly into the images in the photo gallery, making it easier to market your business when clients share images online.
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When creating a photo gallery in the app, your ratings and selections can be saved as an XMP file as well, meaning you can transfer your ratings/selections to your computer for easier processing later.
Visual Story is available now for iOS in the Apple App Store. It is a free download. Your iOS device must be running iOS 13 or newer. Visual Story is compatible with select Sony cameras, including A7C, A7R IV, A7S III, A9, and A9 II. The Sony A7 III will be supported in a planned firmware update in Spring 2021.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)