Our AI Promise
How we use AI on your photos and videos · Updated November 4, 2026
Today's photo and video software includes helpful AI features, and so do some of the tools we use. This page explains plainly where AI helps with your project, where it doesn't, and the promises we make so your family's history stays truly yours.
People do the work. AI helps.
Every project is handled and checked by our own team before it comes back to you. AI never decides what your memories should look like. We use it the way a careful craftsman uses a good tool: to save time on repetitive work and to recover detail that is hard to bring back by hand.
Where AI helps with your project
- Cleaning up scans: reducing grain and noise, and selecting areas such as the sky or a person so we can fix color and exposure precisely (Adobe Lightroom Classic, Adobe Photoshop and Topaz Labs).
- Restoration: helping repair scratches, tears, dust and fading on photos you ask us to restore (Adobe Photoshop and Topaz Labs).
- Video: helping sharpen and steady old home movies and tapes when enhancement is part of your project (Topaz Labs).
- Organizing: finding faces so we can group and name the people in your collection, and reading dates, labels and handwriting (Mylio Photos, Tag That Photo, and our own Well Tools: Datewell™, Labelwell™ and Sortwell™).
Mostly on our own computers
Most of the AI features we use run right on our studio computers, so your photos and videos never leave the studio for them.
A few features work in the software maker's cloud instead. When we use one of them, the photo or the part being worked on is sent securely to that company to be processed, and the result comes back to us:
- Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom Classic: Generative Fill and Generative Expand in Photoshop, and Generative Remove in Lightroom Classic, which can help rebuild missing or badly damaged areas. These are powered by Adobe Firefly, and Adobe says it does not use customer content to train its generative AI models (Adobe Privacy Policy).
- Topaz Labs: some of its photo and video enhancement models run in Topaz Labs' cloud, under the Topaz Labs Privacy Policy.
If you'd rather none of your photos or videos go to a cloud AI service, just tell us and we'll use only the features that run on our own computers.
Face groups and names we create to organize your collection stay on our studio computers. They come to you only as the people tags in your own files, if you asked us to name people.
Your history stays true
- We tell you about big AI changes. If AI rebuilt a face or a missing part of a photo, or added color to a black and white photo, we'll tell you. Routine cleanup, such as removing dust, scratches and grain, is part of normal restoration and isn't called out separately.
- We never invent your history. We don't add people, places or moments that weren't there, and we don't colorize or "improve" a photo unless you ask us to.
Your photos never train AI
We never use your photos or videos to train AI, and we never share them with anyone except, when needed, the software services named above to do the work. Your memories are used only to do the work you asked for.
Questions? Ask me directly
If you'd like us to avoid AI on your project altogether, or on certain photos, just tell us. We'll work by hand and let you know if that changes the time or price.
John Spear
The Picture Org LLC
john@thepictureorg.com · (425) 200-5314
See also our Privacy Promise, which explains how we care for your items and keep your memories private.