Frustrated with "auto" in PS & LR for simple image editing compared to phone apps

Ivframes, your comment reminded me of something I heard a while bad about the grungy HDR images. Seems most photographers hated it, but the general public loves it. It's like the cross processes look - fades, low values a different color than the highlights - it makes me cringe,  but people love it. 

I'd still maintain these are two different markets. It might be possible to incorporate both into Photoshop, but the danger is that as it becomes everything for everybody, it also becomes a lot less for the core pro market. This isn't necessarily about numbers. Photoshop has become dominant because it's the industry standard. Everybody wants a piece of that.

I'm staff photographer where I work. I deliver state-of-the-art high-quality work - that's not bragging; that's my job description. I still work here because the demand for that has in fact not diminished, quite the contrary. I have more work piled up than ever. We also have a social media/web team. When things are moving fast they whip out their phones and get the job done. I'm fine with that, they're not doing my job. They rarely need Photoshop, but they might need what you're describing.

Some years ago "everybody" thought expensive DSLRs, a ton of lenses and studio flash setups were a thing of the past. But over time it has become clearer and clearer that these are simply two different realms. One does not threaten the other. They complement each other.

Alright, thank you everyone for fast and informative replies, especially Chuck that gave me an idea how to compare both cameras (and oh, I agree on Fuji/Kodak comparison, though my preference went to Fuji Velvia over time 🙂 ).

I'd like to point out several things and clarify my initial question.

- PS & LR are also part of my job that I do for a living and as I said, I used them (PS) for more than 2 decades.

- I work in stock photography industry where MASS shooting is a norm. Everything that can do the job quicker has lots of pluses.

- I too used to properly edit my images. I still find edits from 2010 - 2015 "timeless". When I return to these images, they are top notch. However, there was a deterioration in overall quality for requested images. Not only by inspectors, but buyers as well. Just as an example, what was before considered an unintentional motion-blurred image now it's perfectly usable. Blown out highlights? No problem if the main subject is ok. I guess buyers just need something to get the job done and move on. I'm talking about lifestyle images (not landscapes or architecture).

- Smartcamera images became more and more frequent and requested. Fake DOF? High noise? Effects? No problem. What used to be a gimmick just few years ago now it's not a big deal, if at all.

I don't like it, but it's just the way it is. I became frustrated on spending lot of my time editing images that could be taken on my phone, edited and sent in just 15 or so minutes. Of course I would see the flaws, but many buyers would not. And vice versa - I could send perfectly edited image, but if it's not what the buyers want, they don't care for fantastic edits, natural colours, respected and preserved tonal dynamics. And that's the point. I'm still struggling to find the balance, because I dislike the new trend, but I have to draw the line somewhere and stop wasting my time on something I'm the only one or a minority who cares and sees the flaw.

Right. Those are the two crucial conditions Photoshop has to meet: Predictability and interchangeability.

Hi
I would not judge the success of any image editing on a mobile device. Neither iOS or Android use colour management but both use wide gamut displays. That is a guaranteed recipe for incorrect colour. So the colour may look good on that device but send the image for viewing on colour managed devices and it will look very different. That is why we use Photoshop, a powerful editor, but importantly one in which we can get predictable results that will look the same when we send them onward to others who use colour managed applications.
Dave

In other words - market segmentation. This might be appreciated and work well in Photoshop Elements or some other more specialized app. But some of us use Photoshop to make a living, and the very last thing I need is the application making aesthetic decisions for me.

There are two types of auto functions. One is automating tasks that produce a predictable and clearly defined end result, like e.g. Auto-Align which is very useful.

The other is making decisions on my behalf, like Auto Tone in Lightroom. I avoid those like the black death. I know very well what to do to an image to make it look like I want.

Photoshop is in fact a very specialized application - it's not supposed to "do everything". I don't know why so many people think that, when there are infinitely better tools already available for what they want, including from Adobe.

You got me curious. Yes, there are some apps coming out that use AI to make corrections, so I'm not saying that isn't happening, but I'm wondering if what your seeing is more how the mobile chip responds compared to the chip in a DSLR. I've noticed that with my phone, the color are way over saturated from the get go, before I even make any corrections, hence the more snappy appearance. Have you compared taking a straight raw image from your mobile device and processing it in a desktop app and seeing it it is that much different, and loading a file from your DSLR on your phone and seeing how the mobile app handles it? I've played with an app that claims AI processing, and while it does seems to do that, it also gives me, what I feel are results that A: are over dramatic or B: harder to control, if you want an exact output. Decades ago, I used to work in a pro photolab. Once of my jobs was color correcting in the portrait department. At the time, all the color correctors hated Fuji film compared to Kodak. Kodak's Vericolor film was much flatter, but gave more realistis color renditions. Fuji was contrasty and the colors were very punchy. It had, what we called crossover, where the shadows would be a different color than the highlights, which were impossible to color correct to make both look good. The general public loved Fuji for the reasons we hated it: bright, snappy, punchy colors. I'm wondering if there isn't a similarity now between chips and device processing of DSLRs and mobile devices. Mobile devices' cameras have gotten a lot better, so it's not hard to believe that the manufacturers want to gear the output to the general market.