Topaz Labs CEO Eric Yang on the Future of Photo and Video Creation

In this episode, we chat with Eric Yang (@yangez) , CEO of Topaz Labs (@topazlabs), about the future of photo and video creation over the next 5 to 10 years. Eric shares how advancements in AI and creative tools are set to make high-production-value visuals nearly effortless, shifting the focus from technical skills to the art of authentic storytelling. We explore how these innovations will redefine what it means to be a creator, placing creativity and originality at the forefront. With a behind-the-scenes look at Topaz Labs’ role in driving this evolution, Eric offers invaluable insights for filmmakers, content creators, and anyone passionate about the future of media.

Expect to Learn:

- How AI tools democratize high fidelity content creation, rivalling big productions
- Why being a great storyteller will be more valuable than ever
- If your current technical photography and videography skills will remain relevant
- What the landscape of the photo/video landscape looks like 5-10 years from now
- How to integrate AI into your workflow and avoid being left behind

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Thanks for listening!
Go get shooting, go get editing, and stay focused.

@sethmacey
@mantis_photography

Transcript

INTRO:

00:01.43
Seth Macey
Hey, you're listening to another episode of the photographer mindset podcast. I'm your co-host Seth Macey.

00:09.97
Aaron
And I'm your co-host, Aaron Mannes.

00:11.82
Seth Macey
Today we had on Eric Yang, the CEO of Topaz labs company that makes products that both you and I use, don't we?

00:20.15
Aaron
Yes, for a long time now. Been a savior on ah many of photos that I've taken.

00:25.69
Seth Macey
Yeah, no kidding. Well, preface us with saying this is not a sponsored episode. We were just excited to have Eric on and talk AI and photography, where it's heading some things that Eric is excited about, some trends he's seeing, where he thinks that ah the industry will be in five to 10 years. Really fascinating stuff and how we can get better at integrating and not fighting This technology is here to stay. We talked a lot about how the importance of being a good storyteller may begin to override some of the technical prowess because the ability to make high fidelity, high production values, videos and photos, it's going to be much, much more easy and it's going to put much, much more value on the story and the fundamentals. So is there anything else people should listen out for in this episode?

01:16.75
Aaron
I just think it was a cool conversation, uh, where the future is headed and very interesting.

01:23.18
Seth Macey
All right, well let's get right into it.

INTERVIEW:

00:02:07.54
Seth Macey
All right. But OK, I had no idea. I should explore the the apps more. Well, let me ask you this. What excites you most about AI in transforming photo and video creations, especially in ways that people might not have noticed yet or might be misunderstanding?

00:02:29.88
Eric Yang
Yeah, I think the really exciting thing about AI is in three to five years, we will basically be able to tell any story or any concept that we have in our minds at a really high production value.

00:02:47.32
Eric Yang
without having to go through all the cost to realize that production value. So in effect, I think the value of high fidelity and fancy cameras and equipment and hiring actors and everything

00:02:52.94
Seth Macey
Thank you.

00:03:05.20
Eric Yang
will go down whereas your ability to tell a story or to have an interesting concept and to share it or to share some genuine part of your own life that becomes way more important. So I think we can talk more about the mechanisms for this but in the next three to five years the value of storytelling goes up and relative to the value of just being able to like compose a technically perfect shot or have a high resolution image.

00:03:31.23
Seth Macey
yeah That makes a ton of sense. I think also there's this idea that if AI makes it easier to craft excellent work and there's less input, that eventually all content is so excellent that it ends up being paradoxically average.

00:03:48.42
Seth Macey
Kind of like if everything is great, then nothing is. It would be another way to phrase it.

00:03:50.67
Eric Yang
Yeah.

00:03:51.91
Seth Macey
Do you see AI leveling the playing field? or widening the gap between who is creating quality work and who is not. I know those are two different subjects and what we started on. You mentioned just ease of access in your first point, but I'm i'm more curious to hear your thoughts on a leveling or widening of the gap between what is great work and what's not as we progress.

00:04:12.95
Eric Yang
Yeah, so I think right now there's a couple things that set content apart, right? So first is the actual storytelling. And you can tell a story with high production value or low production value.

00:04:26.45
Eric Yang
um But currently, I think really high production value is still rare enough and high friction and high barrier enough, expensive enough, to make it special when you see it. So you can kind of get away maybe with producing an average story at a really high production value and it can still seem pretty good.

00:04:51.13
Eric Yang
I think in the future, the way that will change is an average story will just be an average story, regardless of the production value. Because anybody can achieve high production value. So it will democratize things in the sense that production value and the quality, the visual quality of the output will become commoditized.

00:05:09.69
Eric Yang
But relatively speaking, the value of the story and the human connection goes up.

00:05:11.62
Aaron
Mm hmm.

00:05:16.06
Eric Yang
I think there's an interesting analogy here, actually. I play chess on the side. Don't play much anymore, actually.

00:05:22.08
Seth Macey
Okay.

00:05:22.53
Eric Yang
It takes so much time. And I get mad when I lose. but um So obviously, computers are way better at chess than humans are. And back when you know Deep Blue beat Kasparov in the 90s or whatever it was, it was this big thing.

00:05:37.34
Eric Yang
like okay is First of all, are humans going extinct? Second of all, is chess going to die? Because humans are no longer with the best at chess. But nowadays chess is bigger than ever. it's ah it's it's it's ah I think more people in the world right now play and enjoy chess than ever before. And if you look at the games that are played,

00:05:56.08
Eric Yang
from two computers, right? Technically speaking, they're amazing. They're these works of art genius, you know, and you know, they sacrifice a a major piece and end up winning in the end and it's like amazing.

00:06:09.04
Eric Yang
You can't even understand it. But I think that's a problem.

00:06:10.81
Seth Macey
Right.

00:06:11.58
Eric Yang
That's why people still want to see human grandmasters play each other and listen to the stories between them that actually makes it interesting and adds context. um like there was a you know cheating set scandal where Magnus Carlsen the best player in the world thought that somebody cheated using a like a vibrating device in their pants or something no like

00:06:25.19
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:06:30.61
Seth Macey
I remember that, and didn't you refuse to play?

00:06:33.40
Eric Yang
Exactly. exactly so it's you know that the bill adds color yeah It all adds color to the um the the stories ah that are actually told through the medium.

00:06:35.14
Seth Macey
There's something to drop on the chest about it's incredible.

00:06:45.16
Eric Yang
I think you know but a similar thing will happen with content creation where maybe the technical excellence of when you see the photo, it's perfectly lit or it has really high resolution. That will no longer be a differentiating factor, but the stories will remain and actually be elevated even more so.

00:07:06.86
Seth Macey
Right. It's like if everyone can make a hit song, it's the story behind, it's the song writing would be another analogy.

00:07:14.96
Eric Yang
It's the message that you're trying to tell.

00:07:18.05
Aaron
or the instrumentation is not going to hold you back, right?

00:07:18.10
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:07:21.01
Aaron
Like I have this, I have this narrative, I have this original idea, but I cannot really play piano.

00:07:21.79
Seth Macey
right

00:07:28.27
Aaron
But if I can program something to create this amazing background piece, and then tell my story, then I've got something.

00:07:39.08
Eric Yang
Yeah, absolutely.

00:07:39.13
Aaron
Right? Like it's the come on Right.

00:07:39.72
Eric Yang
Whereas before, maybe you needed to hire a band or something to to help you

00:07:44.91
Aaron
And that has its own limitations too. Like that's not exactly what I was thinking or I can't really tweak it. or I got to pay you way more to try it again. Like that sort of thing. So I can see that there.

00:07:54.08
Seth Macey
Great.

00:07:55.51
Aaron
I also see it like following this trend through all of technology where, you know, I don't know how many years ago, but it was all film photography. And that, that bumped out a lot of people because it's like,

00:08:08.26
Aaron
let alone bringing it to the store to get it developed. Before that, even like you need a dark room and you need to understand the process and and dodging and burning and and how to edit, then you're able to have CVS do your photos and get those disposable cameras. Now it's accessible to a lot more people. Then there's digital. Then there's Lightroom and Photoshop, where you can add a whole bunch of texture and things to it.

00:08:33.48
Aaron
And now the the qualities and cameras have increased. There's AI, there's helpful things where if it's not sharp, you can actually sharpen it. ah you You can print at a huge size if you want, where you you know you had to zoom in before and now you couldn't. So there's there's all this technology that's just continually getting better and making it more accessible and easy for people to tell their stories.

00:09:00.90
Eric Yang
Yeah, 100% agreed. I also think that ah one other effect of the increasing or the rising tide of production value, I guess you can say, is um authentic content that paradoxically is lower fidelity and maybe lower but production value also becomes more desirable or interesting.

00:09:22.20
Eric Yang
If you have a thousand times more highly produced perfect content than than you have right now, all of a sudden somebody with a great story to tell who can tell it in a really authentic way that maybe is just talking to the camera or um taking wedding photos, for example, that are really authentic rather than super magically produced, um all of a sudden has a lot more value than maybe it does right now.

00:09:48.73
Seth Macey
So you mentioned what the landscape in your opinion looks like in three to five years. It's funny because I have written down what do we look like in 2035 in the photography and videography landscape. Is that too far out? I'm giving you permission to be entirely wrong on a prediction or a guess. or

00:10:04.34
Eric Yang
I usually don't need permission for that, so that happens all the time.

00:10:07.81
Seth Macey
You're enough.

00:10:09.96
Eric Yang
Yeah, 2035. So I think there's a couple of things that I know almost for a fact that will happen.

00:10:20.13
Seth Macey
open okay

00:10:21.46
Eric Yang
um By 2035, I think any anything you imagine in your mind

00:10:28.64
Aaron
Ha.

00:10:32.68
Aaron
Ha ha.

00:10:33.16
Eric Yang
with anybody in it, with any style, whether it be photo realistic or like a cartoon or anything. um you will be able to describe using words and other inputs into a system that will get you a perfectly photorealistic result in the output for video, image, and possibly whatever the next form factor is, like 3D or VR or what what what have you.

00:10:58.81
Seth Macey
and

00:10:59.46
Aaron
Mm hmm.

00:10:59.83
Eric Yang
So in a world like that, I think it has several pretty interesting ramifications for society. um that that we can talk about, but I think that that'll probably be the biggest change from from from now, I would say.

00:11:16.74
Seth Macey
Yeah, let's say more. Let's talk about those impacts.

00:11:20.08
Eric Yang
Yeah, so I think one thing is, um well, one thing that we talked about already is the value of the story will become a lot more important when anybody anywhere can tell a story and it will all look amazing, right?

00:11:32.43
Eric Yang
um And there's basically zero friction to creating a story in a really nice way.

00:11:32.49
Seth Macey
right

00:11:39.75
Eric Yang
But the second kind of counterintuitive thing that will be different is, i this might be a hot take, like I don't know that this might be wrong, but I feel like it will be true, is in 10 years from now, the value of real photos and real videos, like as a recording of reality, will actually be 10 times higher than it is right now.

00:12:00.96
Eric Yang
Because there's going to be so much content that is generated that looks great, um but isn't actually a true reflection of reality.

00:12:01.00
Seth Macey
Right.

00:12:09.06
Eric Yang
It's like a concept, basically. And I think humanity, people, and society will um understand that the AI-generated content is more a conceptual thing than a true reflection of reality.

00:12:24.72
Eric Yang
And it's going to be so much more of that than actual photographic and videographic recording content.

00:12:31.69
Aaron
Do you think in 10 years we'll be able to tell the difference?

00:12:32.00
Eric Yang
um

00:12:36.72
Eric Yang
That's an interesting question. So right now, even for an image. Okay, maybe some people will be just held able to tell the difference. I can't tell the difference between a really well photoshopped image and ah one when that's not, right? One that's actually a reflection of reality. But yet, as a society, we've sort of developed mental um ways to deal with this. Like, we don't automatically trust every image, but we kind of use the context to see whether this is a trustworthy image or not.

00:13:05.10
Eric Yang
um And people can try to deceive us or fake it, but I don't think it's a major issue right now where photographic evidence is like a major societal issue that we can't deal with. So I think something similar will happen with AI-generated content in the future, where if it's not an accurate representation of reality, as a society, we will find ways to be able to differentiate that in recordings of reality.

00:13:33.88
Seth Macey
Yeah, I'm going to preface this by saying this is anecdote, but I do see a lot in online communities, people who successfully identify an AI generated image that isn't stated as so, and they'll write things like, this is AI garbage or so sick of seeing these AI images. This isn't real, et cetera.

00:13:50.77
Seth Macey
Do you feel like this emotional response comes from the feeling of someone feeling like they've been duped? Or do you sense there's more of a larger counter movement to art or images that could be created by humans but that aren't?

00:14:07.54
Eric Yang
That's an interesting question. I guess the thing that comes to mind is um so everybody says that ah they don't like being sold to, right? Like people generally don't have a greatest first impression of, for example, salespeople, right? It's like, oh, I don't like and only being sold to. But what people generally don't like is being sold to badly.

00:14:31.06
Eric Yang
you know they They don't like salespeople that are too pushy and too insistent and all these negative traits that you associate with them. But when you get sold to in a way that aligns with your interests and they're offering a solution that you actually need and want, it doesn't feel like you're being sold to.

00:14:47.41
Eric Yang
um But people don't consider that sales. So I think in a similar way, um I think a lot of the backlash right now to AI is the tools being used in

00:14:52.70
Aaron
Thank you.

00:14:57.80
Eric Yang
kind of maybe tacky ways or ways that threaten to replace, say, your 20 years of photography experience with something that looks objectively terrible, right?

00:15:11.43
Eric Yang
yeah And you just have an immediate emotional response to that saying, that's never gonna replace me, and I hate anybody that says it will.

00:15:12.42
Seth Macey
Right.

00:15:18.30
Eric Yang
um But I think in the long run, AI will actually help people's workflow by helping them do what they want to do already, rather than just like replacing them in the the most flavorantly possible.

00:15:31.94
Seth Macey
Yeah, it's the fact that you're interested in nobody likes being sold to or that you know people want, rather people want to be sold things that help them, that solve their problems.

00:15:32.40
Eric Yang
people

00:15:45.79
Seth Macey
At Topaz, what problem did you initially set out to solve and how has that changed with the landscape of AI rapidly accelerating and evolving on a day-to-day basis?

00:15:56.23
Eric Yang
Yeah, so this is actually a kind of an interesting story. um So it's it turns out it's really hard to build something that people actually want. ah It's both more important, I would say, and more difficult than I guess before. um The first project that we ever did was a, it was called Topaz Moment. um You would take a video and take one frame in it and try to upscale that using the surrounding frames as reference. Theoretically you get more information, you can get a higher resolution.

00:16:32.61
Eric Yang
Still from it, pretty cool concept. We thought people would like it. And so I started promoting it on forums and things like that. And a couple of people brought about it, but it was like waiting through molasses. Right. It was really, really hard to sell. And I got into a forum, like a flame war.

00:16:47.83
Eric Yang
with somebody where I was like, hey, there's this cool product. And they were like, this this is terrible. This is awful. um I don't know why you would have ever built this thing. I would never use it. um why Why didn't you build this other thing instead?

00:16:57.79
Seth Macey
Mm hmm.

00:16:59.06
Eric Yang
ah It's like this HDR effects generator thing. I would totally buy that, but I bet you can't do it. And so I was working with my dad Albert at the time and we saw this comment. We're like, you know what? We can totally do that. Let's just prove this guy wrong. So we shipped it in three weeks. It was called Topaz Adjust. And it was the first product that brought us to over a million dollars in revenue. when We released it. It was like 30K the first month, 100K the second month. It was absolutely insane. And it was a lot easier to do than the first product that we made.

00:17:29.51
Eric Yang
So I think that was kind of the first lesson in just building something that people actually want. And in 2018, when we first experimented with GAN models for upscaling, a similar feel happened as well, where the quality of the results were just so good ah that they were blowing customers away, even though it was the product was kind of crashing all over the place at the time, um that we just refocused the whole company to work on that.

00:17:56.91
Eric Yang
By the way, this is a little bit of a tangent, but I kind of feel like currently the applications of AI that are on top of everybody's minds right now in the world, like text to image generation, text to video, they're a little bit like that first use case where, yeah, it has a good amount of value, but I don't think it has unlocked all the value of the technology yet. It's kind of like that first Topaz moment product.

00:18:25.29
Eric Yang
And I think the world has yet to sort of fully realize the use cases that the technology can fulfill past just like the immediately obvious one.

00:18:37.63
Seth Macey
Yeah, speaking of things the world has yet to realize, what are some harsh truths you feel people need to hear about how the world has changed permanently? It's becoming clear and clear that the continued integration of AI in diverse industries is no longer hypothetical.

00:18:57.65
Eric Yang
yeah um so ah guess yeah yeah Yeah, I think the most salient one right is people are always concerned that AI will take jobs.

00:19:02.33
Seth Macey
Let me say your phrase, not harsh truths, just truths.

00:19:12.80
Eric Yang
right And I guess to examine this, we should just look at, for example, some of the use cases of photography.

00:19:23.99
Eric Yang
So I think for most forms of photography, they are They have a basis in telling a human story that actually happened.

00:19:34.85
Seth Macey
Thank you.

00:19:36.27
Eric Yang
For those forms of photography, like wedding photography, portrait photography, things like this, that have a root in the real world, I think actually AI will be beneficial for these. Because um like I mentioned before, the value of recording reality and presenting something as it actually is, I think will go up relatively to where it is right now. But for the kinds of photography that are purely about creating a pretty image,

00:20:02.53
Eric Yang
that have no real root in reality for example uh say stock photography the value of those photos just come from the aesthetic like composition and like sort of a generic subject being depicted right i think for that kind of photography actually ai will completely replace it so That might be a comfortable uncomfortable fact for stock photographers. um I guess you could see it that way, or maybe if you do stock, maybe you want to look more at AI tools. um But depending on the use case, I think it will replace certain roles and elevate others.

00:20:38.20
Aaron
Yeah, it's constantly shifting, right? like there's I was just looking into a company that is AI um will take food orders and talk to you completely through the telecom.

00:20:40.58
Eric Yang
yeah

00:20:48.50
Aaron
So you drive up through McDonald's or Wendy's and you're talking to AI and they're they're getting your order completely. like So now maybe you don't need a person that's listening and making mistakes or putting in in the the thing wrong, whatever it is, but maybe you need more cooks on the line. Maybe you need more servers because now there's quicker and faster orders. So I feel like it's a constant shifting and refocusing. I mean, one step below AI is the change between, I think, the the drive of photography versus videography and how ah Reels and TikTok has changed that sort of landscape in terms of what

00:21:23.79
Aaron
companies want from photographers. Uh, we actually really would love some videographers, you know, so, so learning learning that craft and learning that new skill is a shift and you can either jump on the jump down the river with everyone else or kind of fight it. But then, then you might miss out.

00:21:44.56
Aaron
Just some thoughts there.

00:21:46.43
Seth Macey
Yeah. Well said. Well said. Speaking on that, what are some industry trends you're watching closely or what are some ways you think that the framework of AI is going to be used in a more unique and engineered, like more innovative way?

00:22:03.30
Eric Yang
I think a major trend has been to find um in in the industry has been to find different verticals that are most applicable to the technology. um For example, one interesting business use case that a lot of startups are trying to tackle right now is AI.

00:22:31.17
Eric Yang
headshots, so AI avatars, where they can explain a product feature to people. um And essentially, that's rather than trying to generate anything at any time, it's narrowing on a specific business use case and trying to solve that end to end. From what I've seen, I think a lot of the activity has revolved around that sort of thing. um I also think that um So another possibly tangential analogy, we use a software called HelpScout for customer support here at Topaz. Basically you send us an email, it goes into a ticket in HelpScout and we respond to it through the ticketing system.

00:23:17.71
Eric Yang
You might expect their adoption of AI to be, hey, we have a fully automated customer support chatbot. Here it is. um You'll never have to answer a ticket again. I think that would be a terrible idea. And they didn't actually do it that way. Instead, they introduced AI tools to enhance the support agent's workflow, to make them a lot more productive.

00:23:38.78
Eric Yang
um And I think ah so in a similar way, gradually the industry is shifting more towards that approach of taking existing workflows that people already do and just making them better rather than seeking to replace them outright. ah Not to do our own horn, but that's exactly what we're trying to do, which is people already want clearer and higher resolution and sharper output. And instead of trying to, you know, like regenerate all of that from scratch and replace a need for a photo for it for a camera or ah ah or or videos completely, we just do that thing. And um so far, people seem to really like that approach.

00:24:17.06
Seth Macey
Yeah, that's

00:24:17.16
Aaron
and I certainly have.

00:24:20.36
Seth Macey
yeah

00:24:20.44
Aaron
Saved me many.

00:24:22.21
Seth Macey
no kidding.

00:24:23.40
Aaron
yeah

00:24:23.36
Seth Macey
ah This may be an odd question, but what does lisa topaz what does artificial intelligence even look like? Is it truly lines and lines of code that builds upon itself?

00:24:34.26
Seth Macey
And follow up question, at what point is there no need for human intervention to approve upon the code or algorithms?

00:24:41.29
Eric Yang
Ooh, yeah, so this is starting to get more into, ah at least for right now, more into science fiction than than reality currently.

00:24:51.40
Seth Macey
Should I grab this book? Should I grab my book here? Should I grab my 1984 Orwellian book?

00:24:57.56
Eric Yang
Oh yeah, that book is a, that's a heavy one for a podcast.

00:25:00.97
Aaron
Yeah.

00:25:02.06
Seth Macey
I sit here and I read the whole thing.

00:25:02.32
Aaron
Yeah.

00:25:03.18
Seth Macey
It's 10 hours long.

00:25:04.53
Eric Yang
Yeah. um Right now, I still think it's a little bit, it's it's definitely pretty far off ah to ever imagine a reality where an AI model will just train itself.

00:25:17.94
Seth Macey
and

00:25:18.49
Eric Yang
I think they're doing some pretty cool work with but agents now at OpenAI and other places, but um it's definitely in the early stages. Right now, AI just means the technology of the types of models that we're using rather than it's self-learning in any way.

00:25:32.21
Seth Macey
Right.

00:25:36.04
Seth Macey
Right. Well, you just made a lot of people sleep easier tonight.

00:25:39.41
Aaron
Shoo.

00:25:41.87
Seth Macey
So on this topic, we'll get back to more at some, maybe some more enlightening things, but we asked you what you were most excited about. What kind of scares you the most and how do we avoid that? Either in the photography industry or in general, if anything.

00:25:56.69
Eric Yang
Yeah, that's an interesting question. um

00:26:02.45
Eric Yang
I'm not sure that there's too much that concerns me. past I'm not sure if this is the forum for the discussion, but have you ever heard of PDoom?

00:26:12.55
Seth Macey
No, what's PDoom?

00:26:13.81
Eric Yang
Okay, so I'm not super into this, but it's the idea that um there is a certain percentage chance that AI will destroy humanity in some form.

00:26:25.62
Eric Yang
And everybody has their own PDoom number, which is the percentage chance that you attribute that to. So this is kind of discussed a lot in like AI safety and circles and things.

00:26:32.45
Aaron
Wow.

00:26:37.83
Eric Yang
um But I'm not really a huge a believer that AI will end up doing that. And aside from any of those concerns, I feel pretty good about where where AI is headed, actually. um I really think that it will improve the lives of a lot of people and give us much more capability to tell better stories and connect with each other much better than we can now.

00:27:08.78
Eric Yang
um I also just think that even just from a purely practical point of view, it would be amazing to have some of this stuff be a part of our daily life, not even talking about the creative aspect, just having a personal assistant on your phone that has access to all your email and that you can trust implicitly. um That would be absolutely amazing. And that's the future that we live in. you know um so i

00:27:33.14
Seth Macey
How would you use that virtual system on a personal level?

00:27:36.33
Eric Yang
Yeah, I would ah probably talk to it all the time. you know It's just ah scheduling certain meetings. Or um if I have some email that I don't remember ah ah when it came in, but it had some info in it, I could ask it to look it up.

00:27:41.10
Aaron
Yeah. you

00:27:49.37
Eric Yang
um I could even discuss certain ideas with it. Right now, I use chat GPT to bounce ideas ah ah off of it all the time.

00:28:01.01
Eric Yang
And yeah, I just think the the future is pretty pretty bright when it comes to becoming fairly superhuman, um having normal people become superhuman by today's standards with the help of AI.

00:28:16.63
Aaron
The company i I just read an article about ah made ah made a deal with a motor company, ah but it's just the interface. So you can, instead of looking up like I want ah Mexican food on the way home and I have to pull over or search it or Google it, you're driving and you can pretty much say, hey, you see where I am. I'm going home. Is there a Mexican restaurant on the way home? ah Could you order me in three tacos and or whatever, some churros to go. And it's like, yep, sure takes care of it. And then it lets you know, like the pickup time. So it's like talking to a buddy in the passenger seat. That's what it seemed like versus doing all the work and trying to figure it out while you're trying to drive or whatnot. So just the the ease of

00:28:59.83
Aaron
those sorts of moments, I thought it was very cool to be able to just have sort of a conversation with your interface of what you're thinking and it figures out those things like, oh, where are you now? This is where you're going. Let's try to find something on the way. Let me reroute the directions for you doing like all those little steps that right now we could do, but we'd have to really kind of think about and, you know, pull over and map it out.

00:29:24.80
Eric Yang
Yeah, Aaron, actually, that's a fantastic point. I think um one of the big sort of revolutionary events that happened in tech ah was when Google and Search brought the world's information to everybody's fingertips. As it as anybody almost anybody in the world, you now have access to the world's information. That's amazing, right?

00:29:47.54
Eric Yang
I think what AI is about to do is, as anybody in the world, you now have access to superhuman capabilities, like to superhuman um cognition and ah the ability to do anything that you could, given direction, but do it better and faster and more efficiently.

00:30:05.43
Eric Yang
On the creative side, of course, that includes being able to tell any story that you want to tell with a really high production value. But it extends everywhere. um And I think that can make for a pretty interesting and and unique world in 10 years from now.

00:30:20.42
Aaron
i'm I'm curious 10 years from now, if you know, nowadays, we're looking for maybe in a movie, we need an actor with a certain look, right?

00:30:20.60
Seth Macey
ah we can use the

00:30:29.20
Aaron
So that that's a first stop gate, like they got to look a certain way, they got to be in a certain age frame, whatever it may be to to make this character happen. Uh, or we need someone with a certain kind of vocal, uh, technique or ability. We need someone that just all these stock gates to figure it out in real life versus the search for, you know, not does anyone look this way or any models that we can use, but the search being, does anyone have a cool story?

00:30:56.05
Aaron
Right? like Like, I could see stories that are real and come from real life interaction being kind of bought and used to then create in any way that you want.

00:31:07.71
Aaron
Whereas now it's kind of like, let's let's make a story around these actors or around this scenario, what have you.

00:31:17.95
Aaron
So like you said, I could see storytelling and and narratives and actual events being sought after.

00:31:24.73
Seth Macey
All right.

00:31:27.11
Eric Yang
Yeah, absolutely. i think a So one time i um I was working with a product person on our team. ah He actually had just joined the company and he he wrote something that I thought was really, really good, just really comprehensive. It was also quite concise. It didn't ramble on and on.

00:31:48.80
Eric Yang
And I was telling him, man, you did a great job with this. Because historically, the quality of your writing, to me, is a great indicator of sort of clarity of thought and how much um how how deep you go on a certain topic. If you have a really clear piece of writing, it says a lot about the person that just joined your team. And then he turns around and he says, oh, yeah, that that was pretty good. I did it in 10 minutes using Chat TVT.

00:32:14.74
Eric Yang
And I was like, wow, you know one of my kind of ah deeply ingrained um rules of thumb or shortcuts when evaluating a person is a writing skill.

00:32:26.34
Eric Yang
But now maybe I can't do that anymore. Maybe I have to actually evaluate the quality of the content much more than just the presentation style. And I think it will be the same thing with content.

00:32:37.36
Eric Yang
you know Right now, a lot of people evaluate content by the production value.

00:32:38.66
Aaron
Yeah.

00:32:41.05
Eric Yang
I don't think that that will be the case pretty soon.

00:32:43.69
Seth Macey
Yeah, it's almost like you have to decipher now.

00:32:43.94
Aaron
Yeah.

00:32:46.29
Seth Macey
Your evaluation is now based on almost quality of prompt.

00:32:51.22
Eric Yang
Right. Right. Or the quality of the underlying concept.

00:32:54.06
Seth Macey
Yeah, which is so fascinating to me.

00:32:54.54
Eric Yang
I want to tell. Yeah.

00:32:58.60
Aaron
Yeah, but even even in I work in a school.

00:32:59.54
Eric Yang
yeah

00:33:02.46
Aaron
That's my full time job. Eric's I'm sure you did not know that be weird if you did. But the the time that AI has helped me to save and and get a well composed letter out to ah a parent or a teacher uh that have us my main points and I don't have to slave over thinking like ah did I let me check for typos let me check for punctuation let me check for the how this sounds the tone it's an amazing starting point at the very least to get my idea across and get a form going and get it out there I need the information sent and I need to move on to other things versus get really stuck on these

00:33:44.61
Aaron
kind of trivial moments in my day, which is like just and checking grammar and checking, making sure I don't look like a fool, honestly.

00:33:48.77
Seth Macey
Thank you.

00:33:53.88
Aaron
And it helps me to get my point out, get the message out that I need to and move on to other things. ah So even in in many different applications, it it becomes just allowing me to be and have the human connection that, you know, with the students as a counselor more time in that realm than composing an email to a parent and making sure it sounds good. So again, just the shift in time, a shift in where energy goes is how I see it.

00:34:25.90
Eric Yang
Yeah, and I would argue too that that frees you up to maybe do things that only you can do rather than AI can do.

00:34:33.12
Aaron
Yeah.

00:34:33.54
Eric Yang
and add value in ways that you uniquely know how to do. So I think it's a you know a net positive for the world.

00:34:38.23
Aaron
yeah Yeah, that's a good point.

00:34:41.61
Seth Macey
That's a good point because I was going to make the argument, do you worry about the level of atrophy? For example, in not writing your own letters, but Eric, you bring up a good point that it allows it may actually be a net net positive value because you can focus on more of what you're an expert in.

00:34:58.14
Eric Yang
Yeah, for sure. I actually kind of have a... weird attribute when I use Google Maps a lot every day, but I always orient it so that North is facing up on the map instead of you know the where you're going as facing up.

00:35:10.32
Aaron
Mm hmm.

00:35:10.44
Seth Macey
ah

00:35:14.04
Eric Yang
And to myself, I tell myself it's because, oh, I want to keep my own map reading abilities intact. you know Just in case I have to read a map again, I want to know how to orient myself. In practice, though, I will probably be useless without Google Maps at finding directions to anywhere.

00:35:23.44
Seth Macey
Right?

00:35:23.60
Aaron
That's funny.

00:35:28.77
Eric Yang
but Thinking about it, I that's okay.

00:35:30.26
Aaron
Yeah.

00:35:31.60
Eric Yang
As long as mapping technology is still around, I think my life is still okay without me knowing that.

00:35:35.44
Aaron
Yeah.

00:35:37.28
Seth Macey
Yeah, I guess you have to put faith in the reliability of the tech to remain existing.

00:35:37.78
Aaron
yeah

00:35:42.07
Eric Yang
Right, right.

00:35:43.32
Seth Macey
Otherwise, we'll all be turning left and bumping into each other and running stoplights and...

00:35:47.87
Eric Yang
What a world. with Perfectly produced content everywhere.

00:35:50.84
Aaron
Yeah, yeah.

00:35:51.07
Seth Macey
Exactly, exactly. Why do you feel that many photographers in the community are resistant to change this new world of AI? What do you think the difference is between those who are fully on board and integrating AI versus those who are not and pushing back? Not that one is right or wrong or better or worse.

00:36:17.10
Eric Yang
I think it's a combination of things. um One of the biggest ah objections that we've seen before,

00:36:28.98
Eric Yang
um so so we in 2018, this is before chat GVT, before all the other AI stuff, we did the first AI image upscaling tool. Back then, nobody actually knew what AI was.

00:36:42.69
Eric Yang
In fact, our first products were called like Giga Pixel AI, Denoise AI, Sharpen AI, and especially for Sharpen AI. So they would call it Denoise AL, like it was A-L.

00:36:51.32
Aaron
Yeah.

00:36:51.68
Eric Yang
Nobody knew what the acronym AI was. And they kept calling ah Sharpen AI, Topaz AL Sharpton. And like people just completely didn't have the concept of of AI.

00:37:00.11
Seth Macey
That's great.

00:37:01.42
Eric Yang
And so actually a big part of our jobs was trying to educate people with AI is and all this stuff. And one of the biggest issues that we would run into is I think um people would always say, look, you just got to become a better photographer so you can take it right in camera. like Why would you use an AI tool to fix it if all you could do all you have to do is just become a better photographer? So it's the idea that I think because a lot of people have spent a ton of time working on perfecting the technical aspects of the craft that actually might become commoditized using AI. um I think that can cause kind of a sort of a very fight or flight kind of response when a newer photographer can come in with zero years of experience and maybe create something that's similar to the level of quality that you worked for 20 years to be able to produce.

00:37:52.32
Eric Yang
um I think where that breaks down, obviously, is if you spent 20 years learning how to tell better stories with your images or with your videos, then there's no way that newcomer can compete there.

00:38:02.65
Aaron
Right. And then you add the two together and then you're superhuman.

00:38:03.27
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:38:07.47
Aaron
ah yeah Like you you have the best of both worlds.

00:38:07.74
Eric Yang
Yeah, exactly. And then if you use... Exactly, exactly.

00:38:12.02
Aaron
ah For me, a personal story is starting off in wildlife photography, I always felt this a little bit of a stop gate where people are using this $13,000 prime lens and getting this beautiful blur behind, allowing more light to come in so their photos aren't noisy. When you're doing wildlife photo photography, It's usually at dusk or dawn and the lighting's not great ah and your your photos can be noisy. um Instead of spending $13,000 for a lens, ah finding finding your products a couple years back, just save so many photos that I... normally would be like, the lighting just wasn't absolutely perfect. Like it's too noisy. It it doesn't look great. Being able to apply that to edits and and save photos and put them at a level where they're smooth and silky and and have a sort of a an effect that really went with the way I edited anyways, just was like,

00:39:10.92
Aaron
a huge game changer to keep me going and propel me. you know I never felt like the $13,000 lens unless someone gave it to me is a wise investment and now definitely not because of software that can help me out get through some of those those issues.

00:39:30.99
Aaron
so

00:39:31.49
Eric Yang
Yeah, that means a lot that um it would help so so so much, actually. I think ah these stories are always really, really gratifying whenever we hear that we can get you quality that otherwise it would take a really expensive lens to take.

00:39:46.97
Aaron
Yeah.

00:39:47.04
Eric Yang
So I appreciate that.

00:39:48.67
Aaron
Yeah, absolutely. So

00:39:50.76
Seth Macey
and So speaking on this topic of storytelling and putting a lot of our emphasis there, how do the traditional skills of photographers and videographers remain relevant as we progress forward in this industry that's leaning more on AI?

00:40:13.54
Eric Yang
Well, um I'm not sure if I have any special insight as to what specific skills will remain relevant and what doesn't. I think right now, if you divide the amount of time that photographers, especially videographers, spend on technical aspects of the job, like culling photos, developing ah the raw files, making sure the exposure is right in post-processing, even during the shoot, framing it correctly, ah and denoising it, sharpening it, picking the right ones, versus actually being the creative director of the shoot. What story you want to tell with it? What memories do you want to capture?

00:41:07.24
Eric Yang
I would say would welcome y'all's input on this as well, but I would say that most of the time would be spent on technical aspects. Now, I think in the you know in the new world that we're talking about in the future, like you would still want to take the photos, so that part wouldn't be saved. But everything else, I think, can be handled for you. And so I guess for whichever creators,

00:41:32.25
Eric Yang
currently spend more time on the storytelling aspect, they stand to gain more as the tools get better. Because I think the tools will never replace the creative direction. um So I guess ah and you know a way to think that that I think about this is before you would have to be the painter and paint every single brushstroke on the canvas. um And for a painter that has just spent decades perfecting their ability to paint individual brushstrokes, AI tools are going to be ah quite a shock to them. But if you're a painter who spends a lot of time learning and anatomy and how to tell a story of a human that in in in your in your work, then I think that part of your skill set will be much more valuable.

00:42:23.57
Seth Macey
Yeah, for sure. I think it also is really dependent on what you love doing. So for example, I would love to, I love filming. I love filming wildlife. I like being behind the camera, pressing record, composing shots, but I'm not as excited in premiere or final cut editing.

00:42:41.96
Seth Macey
but like I would love a software and ai software that just creatively edits with transitions and in a way that I could prompt so and it's finished because I simply don't like doing that.

00:42:42.77
Eric Yang
know

00:42:54.71
Seth Macey
And then it allows me to go film more, which I like doing and capturing those shots creatively with with a human aspect.

00:42:57.77
Eric Yang
Yeah.

00:43:02.34
Eric Yang
Yeah, that's a great point. I saw a funny quote or meme somewhere once that was like, um you know, I wanted AI to do my laundry and do my dishes so that I could create art, not to do my art so I could spend my time doing dishes and doing laundry.

00:43:18.01
Eric Yang
But um I think on the creative side, actually, AI is going to be doing the metaphorical dishes and laundry.

00:43:18.19
Aaron
Yeah.

00:43:25.77
Eric Yang
It's going to be taking care of the post-processing and the technical aspects of it while you can play a creative story.

00:43:25.73
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:43:30.26
Seth Macey
Right. Or you could be somebody completely opposite to me or it's like, I don't, I really love editing and building the story through creative cuts and transitions, but I don't want to go out and film the stuff.

00:43:42.72
Aaron
Mm hmm.

00:43:43.85
Seth Macey
So it's, it's It's all dependent on the individual and where their interests lie, which it to me is amazing, the potential.

00:43:55.34
Eric Yang
Yeah, that's a fantastic point. At some level, content and creativity is meant to be consumed by other humans. And people are interested in human stories and connection and craft. So um as long as somebody is injecting some part of that either in the production process or the storytelling process or even just even the story of how you created that content, I think that has a lot of meaning to people.

00:44:29.37
Eric Yang
um There's a, speaking of $13,000 lens, there's a reason that a lot of people still shoot Leica and it's not because it's easier to use or even higher quality in any way, right? It's kind of the the, it enhances the story even to yourself of how you actually took the photo and the meaning behind it.

00:44:52.22
Seth Macey
ah That totally totally makes sense How do you keep up with the demands of creators at topaz? We ask a lot

00:45:03.51
Eric Yang
Yeah, um um I'm a big believer in focus. So from 2008 till I would say mid last year, we just focused on basically one thing, improving the visual quality of images and videos.

00:45:22.24
Eric Yang
um People have been asking us for a lot more, and now there's so many new things in AI where we're starting to expand a little bit more from from there. So, for example, we're starting to look at improving lighting and color, where experimenting with a feature to turn regular images into to live photos, things like that. um So I think the really interesting thing is before we show somebody and before photographers actually start using it, we almost have no idea how well it will do. So it's a very experimental process to find product marketing. So I guess the name of the game for us right now is we're experimenting with a bunch of stuff and working with photographers in order to to refine it and figure out what's actually valuable.

00:46:09.31
Seth Macey
And how are you deciding what's essential? It can be difficult to zero in on what the most pressing or important thing is when there's so many interesting directions you could go. So I'm curious to know how you remain focused and what criteria deem something essential for you and your team.

00:46:34.19
Eric Yang
A moment that we talk a lot about internally is the magic moment or the wow moment. So there's kind of a moment that you use or that you experience when you use something and you see it work in a certain way and you're like, wow, holy crap, that was amazing.

00:46:53.50
Eric Yang
That's the moment that we look for in anything that we do. So basically, we work with photographers who have a certain need. And then we try to design a solution to that need. And then we show them and say, here it is. And watch them use it. And if their jaw doesn't drop, it's probably not a good feature to work on. But if their jaw drops and they're like, OK, how do I buy this right now? That's the kind of thing that we keep.

00:47:15.42
Eric Yang
moving forward. The really nice thing about this AI push is now there's so many opportunities for this wild moment, um especially adapted to improving images rather than replacing them because nobody else is actually working on this.

00:47:30.90
Eric Yang
Everybody's just working on creating things from nothing. um So we're actually in a pretty unique position where we get to work on improving photographers' lives with things that they already want to do and dropping their jaws that way rather than a use case that they might not want to touch right now.

00:47:40.64
Seth Macey
Right.

00:47:45.24
Aaron
That's interesting.

00:47:45.37
Seth Macey
Yeah, that totally makes sense.

00:47:46.58
Aaron
Let me think, do you want a multi-million dollar idea? I got one.

00:47:51.66
Eric Yang
Yes, absolutely.

00:47:53.64
Aaron
It's recorded now.

00:47:54.01
Eric Yang
All right.

00:47:55.10
Aaron
It's recorded, so I want some sort of a cut. But medical imaging, that has come a long way. However, it's still at a stage of very kind of grainy, undetailed photos.

00:48:08.36
Aaron
I mean, that seems like a... a cash cow, if you could give expecting mothers a really detailed, upscaled picture of their baby inside of them.

00:48:21.55
Aaron
What's that called? um I don't know. um What's it called when you get your, like your scan and your imaging and they, they placed that.

00:48:28.75
Seth Macey
ultrasound.

00:48:29.71
Aaron
Yeah. And ultrasound. just Thank you, Seth.

00:48:30.81
Eric Yang
Yeah.

00:48:32.01
Aaron
Uh, an ultrasound where you can kind of upscale it or MRIs where you're upscaling it and getting incredible detail in, in certain ways and helping, uh, the medical fields. I don't know if that's an avenue that you've gone down or experimented with, but, uh, just seems like a kind of a cool ability.

00:48:51.71
Eric Yang
Yeah, I think that's a huge future um application of AI for sure. um Yeah, we haven't really gotten into it just because it's, it's tough to be in two businesses, you know, one the creative business and then also a ah business like that.

00:49:05.33
Aaron
Yeah. yeah

00:49:09.27
Eric Yang
um I would say that That one, it would be immensely valuable. But the current way the technology works, as far as diffusion models and GAN models, um it's it's not really a perfect fit when accuracy is the objective.

00:49:32.41
Aaron
Right.

00:49:32.60
Eric Yang
When you want something to look good, right now, the research is fantastic at making that happen. It's progressing really quickly too.

00:49:40.30
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:49:40.50
Eric Yang
when you want something that is true to reality. um it's ah it might even be theoretically impossible to to do that.

00:49:48.43
Aaron
Right.

00:49:50.06
Eric Yang
So we have had actually, yeah, it it is a good idea.

00:49:50.24
Aaron
Okay. All right. I tried.

00:49:55.14
Eric Yang
if um if I think if a company were to really focus on that, it would ah it could possibly work pretty well. And actually, we've seen that certain, um for example, tumor detection algorithms actually do work better when you reduce noise using some of these models.

00:50:09.61
Aaron
no

00:50:09.96
Eric Yang
um But it is a a pretty difficult technical challenge to solve as well.

00:50:14.19
Aaron
Interesting.

00:50:15.13
Seth Macey
but Aaron's going to take his idea and he's going to make Topax Labs.

00:50:18.80
Aaron
Yeah.

00:50:20.12
Eric Yang
Yeah, I look forward to Sapphire Labs.

00:50:22.37
Aaron
There you go.

00:50:23.91
Seth Macey
here's ah you know Here's an interesting question for you. Do you feel technological progress follows a pattern of diminishing returns? For instance, early innovations like the invention of the wheel required minimal resources, yet had a massive impact on human advancement.

00:50:40.80
Seth Macey
In contrast, modern breakthroughs like developing a cancer treatment, let's say, demand billions of dollars and combined efforts of the brightest minds to to move the the needle an inch, incremental progress.

00:50:54.79
Seth Macey
Do you feel like AI has the potential to reverse this trend and create a more linear or accelerated rate of progress? Or does it, in your opinion, primarily serve to handle the more labor intensive aspects of innovation?

00:51:17.08
Eric Yang
yeah When it comes to using AI to push forward the boundaries of science. um I am a little bit outside of my wheelhouse here.

00:51:28.07
Eric Yang
I don't know.

00:51:28.14
Seth Macey
That's okay.

00:51:28.78
Eric Yang
I would hope I can accelerate.

00:51:29.80
Seth Macey
That's okay. We just develop stuff for creators and photographers.

00:51:33.94
Eric Yang
yeah Yeah, I just make things look good, man. But I would i would hope it does. I think ah um everything is moving forward. Human progress in general is moving forward a lot quicker, in part because of all the efficiencies that we gain from technology. And I personally think that AI will be a massive accelerant there. um But nothing I work on and on a day-to-day basis has any relevance to that.

00:52:00.29
Seth Macey
Right. Well, we'd just like to try and get very existential.

00:52:03.26
Aaron
Yeah.

00:52:04.29
Seth Macey
Do you feel like technological progress is is a law diminishing returns or do you feel like it's more of a constant?

00:52:09.85
Eric Yang
I feel like technological innovation is progressing faster. I think it's accelerating. um

00:52:17.82
Seth Macey
Really?

00:52:19.29
Eric Yang
And I completely different topic, but I think the ah free market and the sort of free exchange of ideas and the competition between them is a big factor in that in the last 200 years.

00:52:36.00
Seth Macey
Right, right.

00:52:36.39
Eric Yang
Sorry, that completely went off the rails there. That's a completely different topic.

00:52:39.46
Aaron
Yeah.

00:52:39.47
Seth Macey
it's good we don't We don't like to always stay in the photography box.

00:52:40.71
Eric Yang
ah

00:52:42.75
Seth Macey
We return to it, but we leave it.

00:52:43.29
Aaron
No.

00:52:44.67
Seth Macey
We keep it within sight.

00:52:45.53
Aaron
Yeah.

00:52:46.11
Seth Macey
We say, we see you, we'll come back.

00:52:48.74
Aaron
Yeah.

00:52:48.95
Seth Macey
and

00:52:49.45
Aaron
Can't talk about that 250 times in a row. We gotta get out there. Gotta get off the rails.

00:52:55.65
Seth Macey
It's true, it's true. ah you know Besides improving, I feel like our storytelling, what do you think are some, what's some advice for creators on how to better integrate AI software into there their workflow, maybe with or without your products?

00:53:12.96
Eric Yang
one

00:53:15.96
Eric Yang
One concept, I guess, that might be interesting to think about is usually new tools at the beginning before they become actually useful to you, they start off looking like toys. They start off looking like things that would never see the light of day.

00:53:35.13
Eric Yang
At the beginning, Google search was terrible. um And ah at the beginning, the first iPhone, you couldn't even copy and paste. And no serious business user would use it. right so But instead of completely dismissing it off the bat, I would maybe encourage people to experiment with them and see what resonates with them. And maybe it's not ready for prime time now, but maybe you ah keep trying it and see what the good parts are. And in that way, I think um you can have a sense of where things are going better than somebody who all of a sudden ah wakes up one day and everybody else is using AI and they're not. So I guess I would just encourage people to be experimental, keep an open mind and try things out.

00:54:25.90
Seth Macey
Yeah. Do you have any awesome stories where of people using your software and products to do really amazing things? We have a friend who's been on the show quite a bit, Ian Jones, who he gave a gift to his mom. He refurbished all of her old yearbook photos.

00:54:43.58
Seth Macey
and gave it to her as a gift and she was floored. and I just think that's such a heartwarming story. I'm curious if you have any more, maybe not necessarily heartwarming stories, but just unique and innovative ways that you've seen people use some of the products and and the technology.

00:54:57.29
Eric Yang
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think um some of the most heartwarming stories are the ones where there is some photo or video that is un um but is priceless because it will never happen again. So somebody that passed away or um a moment in time that will never happen again like ah like a day of a wedding and maybe the photo was damaged or it was just way too old and somebody tried our software restored it and ah basically had a you know very intense kind of emotional reaction um that they shared with us and that made us also you know feel the same way.

00:55:38.24
Eric Yang
um I think that happens pretty frequently and in fact we we have a live feed in our Slack chat of all the reviews that come in and whenever those come in I think a lot of us kind of get together and read it and it means a lot. um Some of the other cool use cases are ah our our products were ah taken up to the the ISS at one point to try to enhance the the space photos up there.

00:56:04.96
Eric Yang
um They wanted a a version that didn't phone home because the ISS couldn't phone home for authentication.

00:56:05.47
Seth Macey
Wow.

00:56:12.22
Eric Yang
So we did that for them.

00:56:14.31
Aaron
Wow.

00:56:14.49
Seth Macey
That's really cool.

00:56:16.43
Eric Yang
There's a lot of kind of disparate use cases for it that are pretty cool.

00:56:20.91
Seth Macey
That is really cool. I bet when you, you mentioned the Slack channel, I bet when those messages come through, that's gotta really keep a really a a really tight knit bond with the team. And it's gotta be a constant reminder of why you're there doing what you're doing.

00:56:41.55
Eric Yang
Yeah, absolutely. um I think it's all just about enabling people to do things better and to enable human storytelling and connection. It sounds very abstract from you know our our mission of upgrading the value of content, right?

00:56:57.96
Eric Yang
But I really think that's where most of the value in the world comes from, especially when it comes to creative realms.

00:56:58.94
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:57:06.15
Eric Yang
So whenever we get a very evocative and specific instance of that, it always serves as a great reminder.

00:57:14.42
Seth Macey
Yeah, for sure. Uh, I did see you had an issue with your mobile launch and my question is not to dig into what happened, but how do you personally deal with mistakes because they're bound to happen to everybody, professionals, businesses, the most skilled people, even sometimes when errors that might not even be your fault. It was really nice that Instagram posts you had where your team kind of owned it, but I'm curious to know how you personally deal with mistakes, uh, when you're in charge of a large company and how you respond.

00:57:40.61
Eric Yang
Yeah, for sure. um I mean, I think, the fundamentally, if these things don't happen, then I don't think we're moving fast enough, right? Now that is this like, even though we we're moving this fast, I still wish that it didn't happen. But in in the grand scheme of things, these things will happen. So it really is just ah moving forward, moving quickly and being okay with sometimes in the short term, withstanding some pain.

00:58:10.03
Eric Yang
This iOS app launch was very painful, actually, specifically.

00:58:13.28
Seth Macey
Yeah.

00:58:14.39
Eric Yang
um so ah But i for me personally, i um I know that we have a fantastic team. And even without me you know saying, oh, this is terrible and things like that, like we're we're doing um we're we're being very proactive in terms of resolving it.

00:58:33.20
Eric Yang
And I think each crisis like this i brings the team a little bit closer and also teaches us a lot about the future as well. um For what it's worth, this has happened quite a few times in our past, not super frequently, but enough to where we're always reminded that um we need to work hard in the future to mitigate these. I remember there was this one Not to go into a big list of things, but I remember one time we ah started adding the option to pay for upgrades for Topaz. Looking back, we probably could have handled it a little bit better, but there was a huge uproar about that um before we always gave free updates for life. And I announced a change where we would charge for upgrades. So you still own the software. We charge you for upgrades. um This was like four or five years ago or something.

00:59:27.57
Eric Yang
I think going back and doing it again, I might have done some things differently. But basically, there was this huge uproar, and we got a lot of pushback on it. And we're still kind of dealing with some of it today. um But we learned a lot from that episode. And I anticipate there there will still be some in the future.

00:59:40.54
Eric Yang
But ah but what's life with it?

00:59:41.78
Seth Macey
Oh, inevitably so. I mean, I ask these questions because it's the photographer mindset. So we you know we dive into how to deal with mistakes and failure and how to to push forward and things that are all in that that arena.

00:59:46.23
Aaron
Yeah.

00:59:55.45
Seth Macey
And you know you're in ah you're in a position that is a and you know there's a lot of pressure. I'm sure it demands a lot of you. And another question would be, how are you How are you able, and this is for listeners that maybe struggle with this, able to be decisive? You know you said you made a decision about pricing upgrades, just to use that example, that you maybe look back on it and wish you had done it differently, but you had to be decisive in that moment. Maybe when you don't have all the the pieces of information in front of you, how can people get better? What are you better at you know being more decisive? What do you do? How are you able to concretely make decisions without dithering and installing?

01:00:34.70
Eric Yang
Yeah. One thing I think about a lot, actually, I think this is my only job at the company, is really clearly identify and communicate to everybody what the number one most important thing is at the company for us to achieve in the next quarter or year or whatever. Like if we did nothing else, just doing that one thing would get us to where we need to go.

01:01:04.24
Seth Macey
Mm hmm.

01:01:05.41
Eric Yang
And then all decisions that lead up to that are basically made for you already. You don't really have to make those decisions, right?

01:01:11.50
Seth Macey
Is your dog.

01:01:13.12
Eric Yang
Everything already applies to that one goal. For example, in the case of charging for upgrades. What we were seeing is that we the cost for acquiring users was going up and up. Because we every single year, in order to maintain our growth, we had to resell the product to new users. And it is 10 times as hard to sell to new users as existing users. At the same time, existing users also had a lot of demand um for new features and things that wouldn't actually acquire new users. and we wanted to

01:01:46.58
Eric Yang
solve those things, but we didn't have as a business any monetary incentive to do so.

01:01:53.07
Seth Macey
Right.

01:01:53.26
Eric Yang
So then for us, the most important thing was like, okay, how do we align our incentives to improve ah the product a lot more for existing users rather than just trying to like run sales and get new users all day?

01:02:04.99
Eric Yang
um And so after we identified that, it it wasn't really a decision. Like we just kind of had to figure out how to do it and then just execute on it.

01:02:12.92
Seth Macey
Yeah, that's incredible insight that your your job there is to deem what is most important and then I guess decentralize the command and allow people to do what they do best.

01:02:23.16
Eric Yang
Yes, of course, I don't think it's, um it's not really just, you know, I'm sitting here and I'm thinking about, oh, what's the most important thing? It's like a lot of talking to people and everybody has ideas.

01:02:31.81
Seth Macey
hours just

01:02:31.95
Aaron
yeah Yeah.

01:02:33.35
Eric Yang
yeah just few hours Just thinking.

01:02:34.65
Aaron
Yeah.

01:02:35.05
Seth Macey
and in paper

01:02:36.34
Aaron
Just writing it on the chalkboard over and over for a whole quarter.

01:02:37.41
Seth Macey
of course

01:02:38.07
Eric Yang
Yeah, exactly. Because I would say yeah it's a lot of sense other than creation.

01:02:39.24
Seth Macey
it type yeah

01:02:43.20
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

01:02:46.08
Seth Macey
Yeah, the point is important though, right? um Big macro decisions, you know, the sum of small things leads to great things, right?

01:02:55.09
Eric Yang
Yeah, absolutely.

01:02:58.05
Seth Macey
Aaron, you have any more questions?

01:03:01.23
Aaron
I mean, just some, I think some personal experience. i ah What I've always loved about your company and the products that I use. And i don't I don't feel like I overuse them, but I have them. It's been a great security blanket knowing certain things can happen and and be saved or fixed or adjusted with some of the things going on. So there's just these moments, especially wildlife, where it's like a ah moment in time that happens and you want to capture this this this event this thing and if something slightly out of focus or it's a little dark or it was noisy knowing that you know going up on Lightroom and bringing it into your into your computer and seeing it from the the card and the camera sometimes you can have this moment of like oh like

01:03:55.55
Aaron
I missed it or i I didn't get that shot. It's not as so sharp as tactful as I thought it was going to be versus looking at the back of the camera, but knowing, okay, there's a tool that can help me get to that final place without feeling like I'm completely cheating, without feeling like I'm making it up from thin air.

01:04:14.47
Aaron
feeling like, okay, this is a tool just as Lightroom is a tool where I can sharpen or change the clarity or change the exposure and and fix things in little adjustments. These are very specific little adjustments that you offer that have saved countless photos.

01:04:30.26
Aaron
um and you know with like you said with skill and hopefully you get the shot right and hopefully best case scenario you don't have to use it as much but when you do it's like oh what a what a lifesaver and not to mention some of the the video stuff which i've gotten into uh having the ability to shoot in a certain frame rate and know that hey if i need to slow something down i can without it looking choppy but I don't have to fill up my SD card, always filming in 120 frames per second when I'm not going to use it most of the time.

01:05:03.68
Aaron
So just having these tools allows you to really accomplish some nice stuff when you normally would have been handcuffed. So just a a personal thank you from my own personal use.

01:05:17.37
Aaron
Not being sponsored to say that, but that is ah that's just a true statement.

01:05:17.34
Seth Macey
Aww.

01:05:18.17
Eric Yang
I appreciate that a lot.

01:05:22.16
Aaron
I've used it well before we even knew who Eric was.

01:05:22.21
Eric Yang
yeah and i Yeah, thank you so much. That that does mean a lot. And um I do also love that both the examples that you brought up there, their use cases that a photographer and videographer would have an intimate sort of knowledge and need for.

01:05:42.00
Eric Yang
But if you're just an AI person trying to do AI, you probably don't immediately solve those problems. You probably don't even know about them.

01:05:47.44
Aaron
Right.

01:05:48.82
Eric Yang
right So I think like especially for use cases like that, they're very close to what we want to accomplish in the world. um And so that does mean a lot.

01:05:56.38
Aaron
um Good.

01:05:58.39
Seth Macey
Yeah.

01:05:58.49
Aaron
Thank you.

01:05:58.55
Seth Macey
I can't tell you the amount of times i'm I've taken a questionable photo and the moment has passed and I'm opening up, I'm in Lightroom like, please, please, please, please, please be saved. Please be saved. Please be saved. Please save my photo.

01:06:09.66
Seth Macey
Make it usable.

01:06:11.68
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

01:06:12.53
Seth Macey
And then you have breathe a sigh of relief when it does just that. Oh. Eric, it's been a pleasure talking with you, man. Thanks for, uh, thanks for the taking the time today to answer, um, our questions and provide your insight.

01:06:25.12
Seth Macey
And, uh, thanks for the great work you and the team do at Topaz. We've like Aaron said, we've used the products long before we even knew who you were.

01:06:29.46
Aaron
Yep.

01:06:33.57
Seth Macey
Uh, and we're excited to see what you continue to come out with as I'm sure some of our listeners are. Is there anything that they should, uh, you can hint at or people should be on the lookout for?

01:06:44.55
Eric Yang
Um, no, I mean, there's a couple of new releases that we have coming out and a ah couple of, uh, new functionality, but, uh, we like to think that the results can kind of will speak for themselves as they get released. So I'm pretty excited about the future of both the company and of AI and also Seth and Aaron really do appreciate you taking the time to talk. It was a good time. I really, uh, enjoyed it and, uh, hopeful we'll talk more in the future.

01:07:11.24
Seth Macey
One last question for you.

01:07:11.54
Aaron
Yeah.

01:07:14.22
Seth Macey
What's your favorite Topaz product that you like to use?

01:07:17.43
Eric Yang
Ooh, my favorite topaz product is Gigapixel AI.

01:07:20.76
Seth Macey
Ah, nice.

01:07:21.61
Eric Yang
um Actually, not just because of technical capabilities, but because it's the story of it being the one that put us on the map, and we still have it today. So I think actually photo AI might be a little bit more powerful.

01:07:31.00
Aaron
Yeah.

01:07:33.53
Eric Yang
and It is, and it can do more. But Gigapixel always holds a special place in my heart.

01:07:40.00
Aaron
Me too, my one last story. I'm sorry. I'm gushing here. But one of my my favorite photo that I have ever gotten is a Fox mom with a Fox kit. It's it's on my page. um However, it was far away and it was a first time camera that I was using. I really had to zoom in to it. and It was only I think like a two mega ah megabyte picture. like it Not a very detailed photo, not a lot of not a lot of data in that photo. and i before This was ah early on photo, so I was ready to print it out on this huge print and it's like, nope, too small.

01:08:15.92
Aaron
And I think that's actually how I found your company was this moment of like, I want to print this out. And it was like, Nope, too small. So trying to resize it, it didn't look good. Found your company, downloaded gigapixel, made it huge. It sharpened it. It made it clear.

01:08:33.96
Aaron
And I have this huge metal print in my living room that I could have easily been stuck or felt like this just didn't work. Like that sucks that I missed the photo or I was too far away or whatever it is.

01:08:46.26
Aaron
But that, that, that definitely is a moment that like made things happen. So again, thank you.

01:08:54.12
Seth Macey
He posts it like four times a year too, because it performs so well on socials.

01:08:56.76
Aaron
At least.

01:08:58.26
Seth Macey
So Eric till next time.

01:08:58.97
Aaron
Yeah.

01:08:59.28
Eric Yang
Awesome. Glad it's still adding value for you.

01:08:59.58
Aaron
that i Well, I need that. I'm going to need that program that turns that photo into video, live action video, because now photos don't do as well. So.

01:09:10.82
Eric Yang
I'll send you something over email. You can check it out.

01:09:12.31
Aaron
Yeah. Awesome.

01:09:15.08
Seth Macey
It's been a pleasure.

01:09:16.83
Eric Yang
Thanks again.