Zev Farbman is the Co-Founder & CEO at Lightricks, a pioneer in revolutionary technology that bridges the gap between imagination and creation. As an AI-first company, with a mission to construct an revolutionary photo and video creation platform, they aim to enable content creators and types to provide engaging, top-performing content. Their state-of-the-art technology is concentrated on photo and video processing and relies on each groundbreaking computational graphic research and generative AI features.

What initially attracted you to computer science?

I grew up in a science-minded house with each parents trained as mechanical and electrical engineers. We emigrated to Israel after I was 12, where I developed an interest in computers and all the time liked creating beautiful pixels, starting with using Basic after I was just ten. The sphere’s capability for problem-solving and innovation was a serious draw.

By the point I entered university, computers had already change into worthwhile tools for creative tasks, reminiscent of enhancing photos, just like the edits being done for high-end magazines. Though I gravitated toward computer graphics and image processing, I used to be fascinated by all of the areas of computer science and learned what I needed to advance my studies.

Could you share the story of how a tutorial discussion you had about editing images on a smartphone suddenly created a lightbulb moment for a brand new business opportunity?

My research colleagues and I were working on recent ways to administer the characteristics of pixels that make up a digital image. This was through the time when social media was just entering the “selfie” era, and we were having a tough academic discussion about the constraints of image editing on mobile devices. We were exploring how smartphones, despite their growing camera capabilities, lacked sophisticated editing tools.

This gap out there led to a eureka moment. We envisioned a mobile app that would bring professional-level photo editing to the common smartphone user, making it as easy as a number of taps on the screen.

How did this discussion then transition to the launch of Lightricks?

We realized that academic research, while worthwhile, would not have as broad an impact on as many individuals. And with the explosion of social media, there was a possibility to leverage our knowledge – so we transitioned from academia to industry and created Lightricks, a completely bootstrapped company.

The primary product that you just launched in 2013 was Facetune. What was the initial concept for this app, and what made it such an enormous success?

The initial concept for Facetune was to democratize photo retouching. Before Facetune, such editing was mainly reserved for professionals using complex software. We simplified this process, enabling users to attain magazine-level photo retouching on their phones. Its success was attributable to its simplicity and the increasing desire for high-quality social media content.

At first, we were aware that each expense, even a further table, was significant. One in every of our co-founders actually chased journalists to introduce our app because we had no promoting or marketing budget. As we grew, we wanted office space but couldn’t afford much. We ended up renovating an abandoned student dorm into our office space. It began humbly but eventually became a terrific workspace.

What are a few of the other popular tools you’ve got offered over time?

Following Facetune, we expanded our suite with apps like Enlight, a more comprehensive photo editing tool, and Videoleap, which brought our approach to video editing. Each tool was designed with the identical philosophy: to make professional-grade creative tools accessible. For instance, Videoleap offers powerful video editing features in a mobile-friendly format, making it easier for creators to provide high-quality video content.

How have your legacy tech stack and apps evolved with the appearance of generative AI?

For a very long time, our backend systems have trusted different degrees of AI to edit content without disrupting the unique source. Over time these have evolved, and it is barely within the last yr or in order that the AI layers are visible – and understood – by users.

 These intuitive features integrate a setting, makeup, hair, or clothing in a way that assists in understanding user intent and automating complex tasks. For example, AI-driven features in photo editing can suggest edits based on the content of the photo, or automate tasks like object removal or style transfer, making the method more efficient and artistic.

Lightricks has recently released an open-source variant of Stable Diffusion’s AnimateDiff called LongAnimateDiff. What is that this specifically and what should users expect from this tool?

LongAnimateDiff is our open-source contribution to the community. It offers advanced capabilities for animating sequences but additionally extends the variety of frames that may be created to 64. It doesn’t sound like quite a bit, but it surely’s an incredible leap toward true generative AI video.

You stated recently that you just consider that photo editing will soon be a commodity, could you elaborate on this statement and the way it should impact software corporations?

It’s not a surprise that advanced photo editing tools have change into widespread and user-friendly. Correcting or enhancing photos was once only done by experienced photo editors using expensive software and hard to come back by computing systems. Today, you’ll be able to fix a selfie with the flick of your finger. And now even the early challenges of the primary AI images that made them awkward looking and non-realistic have been addressed.

Video will probably be coming right behind – and as democratization expands, any unique selling points for software corporations will increasingly lie in user experience, community constructing features, and specialized functionalities. Firms might want to innovate always to supply value beyond the fundamental editing capabilities that may change into standard.

What’s your vision for the longer term of the creator economy?

In the longer term, I see the creator economy becoming much more dynamic and inclusive, with AI playing a pivotal role. AI will unlock recent tools and opportunities, especially in areas like video creation, where it may automate time-consuming processes or generate recent content ideas.

This may lower the barriers to entry, allowing more people to take part in the creator economy. For instance, AI could enable creators to generate custom animations or enhance video quality, opening recent avenues for creativity and monetization. The impact of AI will probably be to make sophisticated content creation more accessible, thus empowering a broader range of voices and skills within the digital landscape.