imagic + Claude: cull, grade and mask a whole shoot by asking

0:00Intro

Four hundred and sixty-nine RAW files from a week in Sicily, and one conversation with Claude. This is imagic driven by an AI agent, on a real shoot, start to finish.

0:13How it works

Here's how it works. imagic runs an MCP server on your computer: a plug that lets an assistant like Claude use imagic's tools. Claude decides what to do, and imagic does the actual work, on your own files. Nothing is uploaded, your RAWs are never changed, and every edit is real slider values, not AI-generated pixels.

0:38Connect it to Claude

Setup takes a minute. In Claude Desktop, open Settings, Developer, Edit Config, and add imagic as a server. Restart Claude, and imagic's tools show up. On ChatGPT or Claude in the browser, switch on Remote control from imagic's Home screen instead.

1:00Import & cull 469 RAWs

Step one: import and cull. Four hundred and sixty-nine RAWs, one prompt. imagic scores every frame for sharpness, exposure, noise and composition, and groups the bursts and near-duplicates. About a minute later: a hundred and thirty-six keepers, the rest set aside or in the trash. Nothing gets deleted.

1:25Stricter, looser, or a number

You decide how strict it is. Ask for stricter or looser, or give it a number. I want the best hundred and twenty for the album, one per burst. It re-ranks the whole shoot from the stored scores in a blink, without analysing again.

1:44Your saved presets

Next, your own looks. The cull is only a suggestion, so first I keep a favourite it left out. Then I ask for two presets I saved in imagic: my sunset look on the keepers from the saltpans that evening, and my street look on the Erice lanes. Claude finds them by capture time and applies both.

2:06Crop

Cropping takes one line. A tight one-point-eight-to-one around the sun, about sixty percent of the frame. imagic does the pixel maths, and the crop carries through to the export.

2:21Exact sliders by prompt

You can be exact, too. On this alley: highlights minus fifty, shadows plus forty, clarity plus fifteen. The same sliders as imagic's editor, set by name, on top of the preset.

2:40Describe a look

Or describe a look in your own words. A moody film still with a warm glow on the lights. Claude picks the Bleach Bypass effect that matches the description, lifts the exposure, and adds grain and a vignette. There are twenty experimental effects.

2:59Experimental effects

Ask, and you get the list: bleach bypass, CineStill, infrared, cyanotype, duotones and more. Infrared black and white turns the trees white and darkens the sky. Masking works by prompt.

3:16AI masking

Make the cat pop: imagic's AI finds the cat, brightens it and adds clarity there only, then darkens the background so it falls away. Same with skies: mask the sky, deepen the blue, and the tower stays as it was. These are real mask layers. Open the photo in imagic and each one has its own tab. Last step: export.

3:45Export

A hundred and twenty-one full-resolution JPEGs from the RAWs, with every preset, crop, edit and mask baked in. Before and after.

3:58Before & after

RAW on the left, finished on the right. Agent mode comes with imagic Max and the

4:24Where to get it

free trial, and works with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other MCP apps. Get it at imagic dot ink.