Digital Horizons
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Digital Horizons
Amplify Your Content Creation With AI
Prepare to unlock the next level of your content creation game as Jasmine Howkins, joins us to unravel the magic of AI in revolutionizing your digital canvas. Her wisdom sheds light on how generative AI is a game-changer in Photoshop, slashing hours of meticulous work with features like generative fill that redefine the bounds of product photography. Imagine automatically perfected images, tailored captions for social media, and the surprising ripples of AI-flagged content on the reach of your digital masterpieces. Our conversation isn't just about the tech—it's a roadmap to marrying AI innovation with your creative instincts, amplifying your content strategy to resonate across the digital sphere.
As we shift gears to the sonic layers of podcasting, I'll share my rendezvous with Autopod, the Premiere Pro plugin that's like an intelligent scalpel for audio editing, ensuring your podcast is nothing but lean, engaging storytelling. We'll also peer into the wizardry of Opus Pro, which transforms extensive audio into shareable, brand-aligned snippets that are ripe for viral moments on platforms like YouTube. We're talking about AI that not only comprehends your creative prompts but also fetches the perfect stock video and audio to echo your vision. For those threading narratives in the digital realm, this episode is a clarion call to embrace AI as your trusted sidekick, propelling your content to uncharted territories of excellence.
The Digital Horizons Podcast is hosted by:
James Walker - Managing Director Walker Hill Digital
Brian Hastings - Managing Director Nous
Being able to retouch and have much more freedom in terms of like, adding different assets or phone manipulation utilizing generative AI, is amazing. It's not a hundred percent great, but it's 90 percent, which is incredible. I think that's where a lot of people are underestimating. Ai is just in the time that it can save you. I think a lot of people are expecting it to do everything, but it's not going to do everything. It's just going to be a fantastic tool for you to be able to do more. So we've been using DScript for auto captions and, based on the transcription feature that you use, you can then turn those into captions, which is fantastic, and if you notice on TikTok, it's got AI content used in this, like they're flagging it. I'd love to see if that affects performance at all.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Digital Horizons podcast. Today I am joined with Jasmine Halkins. Jasmine has been working in graphic design or doing graphic design for the past eight years and over the past five years has had more of a focus on digital content creation. Jasmine works with us here at Walkio Digital as our team lead on our content team. Jasmine, welcome to the show, thanks for having me. So today, jasmine and I are going to be talking about AI tools that you can use to amplify, speed up and just making content for your social media profile and website so much easier. Jasmine's identified a bunch of tools that she uses and that she feels that would be really useful for anyone who's listening to this podcast for their content creation process. So, jasmine, let's have a chat about what is the first tool you'd like to talk about.
Speaker 1:I think a huge one and anyone in the space and has obviously had it being blasted over the past year is generative fill in Photoshop. It's definitely not replacing skills that you learn for Photoshop, but it's just making the process 10 times quicker. You're also then a world of different creative possibilities, especially in product photography, so we actually did a shoot last week for a beauty serum company. Images looked great just from the rules, but then being able to retouch and have much more freedom in terms of adding different assets or for manipulation utilizing generative AI is amazing.
Speaker 2:Okay, and so when you say generative fill, what does that mean for people who don't understand, I guess, how that impacts what they're getting out of their Photoshop file?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So basically, you've got your image, say that I've taken it in a vertical format. I then need to resize, make sure that I can utilize it on a bunch of different assets, so web banners, facebook ads, anything like that. It's basically utilizing generative AI to make up the image so I don't have any of the image on the right or the left side and then using generative AI is looking at the image and figuring out what would be there if I had actually taken the photo. So it's super smart and actually a little bit creepy when you apply it and then it looks exactly like it did when you were doing the shot, but obviously Photoshop wasn't there. So it's amazing that it figures it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. We had a client or one of the other business students on the printing side and one of our designers had used generative AI and just to create some bleed around the edge of the file to make it printable, because the file wasn't working. And the clients come back and go, hey, what is this stuff on the edge? And from our team looking at it, they didn't realize that they'd been used. It looks so real and so a part of what's going on. But this client had picked it up as to just seeing something that they hadn't supplied. So it's cool how well it actually works when you pull it together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so handy and also when you're in a pinch, like, say, you're already shooting, you've only got a couple of images, you may have forgotten to take the different sizing versions it's really handy in that sense as well.
Speaker 2:Definitely, and I guess, when you're trying to roll content out across all different platforms, if you're trying to do stories and even stuff like a image for YouTube whatever you need it in different formats that's going to make it really easy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:Perfect. So what's the next one that people can be using?
Speaker 1:So the next one is chat to BT, which everyone knows and loves, but I think a lot of people are relying on it to write captions and everything, which is great. Definitely use that as a bounce board, but it's such a good tool. We do social schedules in like a sheet, so if you take a screenshot of that sheet, prime chat to BT with that, let it know. Hey, this is a example of a social schedule that I did up for a client last month. Here are some analytics of what's performed really well from last month and get those analytics from whatever scheduling platform you're using whether it's metal or later is what we use. Ask it to have a look at those and pick out any correlating things that may have worked.
Speaker 1:May not have worked. If it was a hashtags that looked like it performed well in that post. If it was because it was a real, if it was because it was a carousel. You can then take that information into the next kind of lot of content creating that you're doing and create content based on that information rather than going in blind. And also it's just speeding up the process of looking at the data instead of having to go back and forth between all these sites yourself. Chat to bees doing in like five minutes.
Speaker 2:That's awesome and it's definitely not a, I guess, a standard use case, as you said, of what people are using it for. I've found I even for I think it was one of the recent podcasts that I did I uploaded, I actually put the URL link to someone's profile on it and then said, hey, based on this profile, what are some questions based on the content that they're using to that we could be talking about on the podcast? So I think even just inserting a link to a profile potentially could show the style of the content that's being created on the page 100%.
Speaker 1:It's so exciting to see how much it's grown over, even just the past three months like since images being able to be uploaded, and it's just gotten more and more powerful. So I'm really keen to see even just what it has at the end of this year for us.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool. So we're using chat to PT to be able to, I guess, analyze data and ideation for social posts. What would you say the next tool that people should be using in regards to content creation?
Speaker 1:Probably so. In terms of speeding up the editing process, with us doing these podcasts quite frequently, one that we found is fantastic is Autopod. So basically it's a plugin for Premiere Pro. You upload all of your footages from your A-cam, b-cam and then your main cam. It uses AI to cut out all the ums and rs, all the butts, all the kind of dead space, and then switches between speakers. So it's picking up. Who's talking about this point cuts that, so it's turning like a three hour editing process into a 10 minute little clip. You just watch it go. It's fantastic, and after that there'll be a little bit of tweaks, but it's really great for speeding up that process, especially when you are pumping out podcasts at quite a high frequency.
Speaker 2:And do you find that, like this tool, like we've previously talked about other tools and they're not quite at the level where you'd like them to be at, like the concept's there, it does sort of what you want to do, but to like, say, 70%, do you feel this tool is actually getting it right and most of the time you're having to spend not a lot of time of editing or how you find in that that the output of what it's doing is aligning with what you could have done if you manually did it?
Speaker 1:100%. I think it's not 100% great, but it's 90%, which is incredible for the time that's saving for you Literally yeah, you can upload it and then go about your day, do other things, so you're twice as productive, which is fantastic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Okay, and so with that platform it's only a Premiere Pro plugin, is it? Or is it an online platform that anyone who's using that doesn't use Premiere Pro? Is there a, I guess, online version? People can just buy a subscription tool and use that without the software.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure it is only Premiere.
Speaker 2:Pro. It's only an add-on, okay, cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's. There are the ones out there that are of a similar style of what it's supposed to do. I haven't tested them so I couldn't talk on them, but that one is definitely only Premiere Pro plug-in.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool.
Speaker 2:So I guess, on that style of one, one tool that I've been using personally is even just for smashing out these podcast clips is Opus Pro, and I heard about this from another podcast I was listening to and I found it such an easy platform to use.
Speaker 2:So what this one is is I just upload the I imagine it's the output that you're getting from AutoPod as the full YouTube version of this podcast, and then I'm uploading it into Opus Pro and then it will give me about 20, 30 different clips out of it, and I've found that, compared to other ones that we've tested, it's just so much more spot on in terms of actually starting at the right point, and it gives you a rating based on the hook and the different reason why it thinks it's actually a good clip, and you can also set up your branding in there and have multiple brands in it within it. So if we're putting out clips for Walk your Digital as opposed to Digital Horizons, we can then switch it out based on the branding and then it will do the captioning, everything based on what you've set up previously when you push the output button. This is one I've found to be extremely easy to use and just really good quality output.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome, are the captions super accurate as well?
Speaker 2:They have been. I mean, I don't sit down and read them all I probably should, but from what I've looked at they look good and I imagine they're right. I might have a look at. I was actually messing around with it last night, so I might actually jump on there and have a look and read through it as well.
Speaker 2:I mean, one thing I like it about as well is when you're upload it and you're telling it to find the clips, you can actually specify how long you want them to be, so you can say, under one minute, between one minute and three minutes, or auto, so it would just do a range of whatever, and so, being that predominantly using these for YouTube shorts, we're just setting it I'm just setting it as under one minute, and so those are very just quick, bite-sized pieces of content, and so it's doing a really good job of generating them. So I guess anyone who is creating longer form content, like a podcast or YouTube content, and wants to pull clips out of it, it is definitely a go-to platform that I'd recommend, and it was super cheap as well I think it's like 30% off or 60% off at the moment, so it's worth checking that one out. Do you have?
Speaker 1:a code.
Speaker 2:I don't have a code. I should Definitely something to try. What is the next one in your list for people to check out?
Speaker 1:So, on the same video editing train, I think a lot of the kind of stock video or the stock sound platforms that we're using so Invader, elements, freepix they now have AI features in them, so instead of having to manually scroll looking for the specific clip that you're needing to splice into a video for B-roll or a certain sound that you're needing, you can prompt these sites with hey, I'm doing a advertisement for a restaurant, I want it to be upbeat, and then they'll provide you any kind of clips or music that they think would suit the style of video that you're using. And the suggestions that they're putting out are fantastic. Like they, nine out of ten times are nailing what I'm looking for, so it's just saving.
Speaker 2:It's a huge time saver.
Speaker 1:It's such a huge time saver and I think that's where a lot of people are underestimating AI is just in the time that it can save you. I think a lot of people are expecting it to do everything, but it's not going to do everything. It's just going to be a fantastic tool for you to be able to do more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I've been finding the right piece of music. You're never going to get it 100% right anyway, so I mean having something that's almost there and it saves you that time. It's worth while doing, because you're never going to find that absolute, maybe it's unlikely. You're going to find the absolute, perfect piece, and so you just need something to get onto the next thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so another platform that I've been using for a little while now which I found super useful, is Descript. I think I've actually mentioned this one before, but the way this platform works is you can upload your video content or you can record directly within the platform. It will transcribe your content as your once it's uploaded and then you can basically read the text of what you've said as a pretty much like a Word doc, and so, based on that, then you can first of all, I will pick up all the arms and arms and filler words and stuff and you can just push a button or clear all that out. But you can also edit it in a way that removes any longer spaces or you can actually cut out. So you'd say a sentence and you'd like hey, actually I wanted to put that earlier in. You just highlight it and then cut and paste it like you would a Word doc.
Speaker 2:When you're editing a Word doc and it's actually editing the video content, which works so easy and it's just such a great way to be able to edit a file for people who've got no idea what they do on a field. For yourself and people out there that have actually got video editing skills. You probably don't need this, but for someone like myself who just wants to move shit around, it just makes it such an easy, easy process to do. I know it's got plenty of other features. What have you been using for?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I use it a lot. Obviously, the different brands that we work with have different styles that they want to implement across their content that they're putting out. Some of those are aligned with the captions that Descript produces, so we've been using Descript for auto captions and, based on the transcription feature that you use, you can then turn those into captions, which is fantastic, and they're also really accurate. It's great to be able to filter to Australian English, which a lot of apps don't have, unfortunately. Yeah, so I use that. I also use their backgrounds, their green screen. Obviously, you can do it in a final card or a Premiere Pro, whatever platform you're using, but this is so quick and easy. It's also super accurate. It's a fantastic tool. You just upload it, tell it to remove background. It does it in two seconds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, OK, Something that a feature that I haven't really used but apparently is really one of its strong features is the overdub and voice AI side of things, so you can train it on your voice. So I think it needs quite a few hours of actual recordings within there, but once it has enough of your voice to be out of door, then you can as was talking about before about just editing it like a word doc. You could just replace a section, type out what you want to say, and then, in your voice, it then says what you want to change it to. Again, haven't really tried this feature out, but I think it is one of their top selling points of the platform, so it must be doing a pretty good job of it and something I'm really keen to test out more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've seen that you could have a whole podcast just by having some voices. That's going to just type the thing out.
Speaker 2:That would save a lot of time for the times when I miss when I'm supposed to record them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you'd have no video content.
Speaker 2:So well, I guess, based on all that, that's actually another one. Hey Jen is another platform I really want to try out. So hey Jen, actually just in the same way that Descript, lunge of Voice, hey Jen will do that on a video side of things. That's one keen to trial as well. But so based on, I think, everything we're talking about here, we could almost create a podcast with no actual voice or video once we trained it long enough. So we could use chat GPT to come up with the ideation of what we want to go over. Use a hey Jen to actually create the video, use Descript to edit it and then, I guess, output it through Opus or Autopod and that's podcast done and we don't have to sit in this room. That would be interesting.
Speaker 1:I've been very interested to see how that performs, especially now. I don't know if you've noticed on TikTok it's got AI content.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're flagging it now. They're flagging it.
Speaker 1:I'd love to see if that affects performance at all. I don't think it's been around long enough to have any clear kind of analytics around it, but yeah very interested to see if that's something that will impact content as we continue to move forward, if people obviously start to have it be their star.
Speaker 2:I believe so I know I mean Facebook is also now, I think, flagging any ads that are using AI content. Youtube has got now stuff about it as well, which I'm sure they're trying to stop it from being used as much as it probably has been. I believe there's channels that are just completely AI driven and pumping out hundreds of videos a day just trying to get, I guess, the revenue out of YouTube. So I'm sure there's going to be plenty of things put in place to try and stop it from happening as well. Okay, I think that's probably everything we wanted to cover off on today. Did you have any other things that you'd like to? I guess, let our listeners know about what they should be thinking about for using AI within content creation.
Speaker 1:I think the main thing is just thinking like you really don't know what you don't know, so you don't know what you can do on these platforms until you've tried it. Sometimes I'll ask chat to be to you hey, can you do this for me, Because I'm not sure if it can. And then it'll be like oh yeah, I just need this info from you, this info from you. I think a lot of people don't ask because they just assume the answers no, so actually go out, find out if it can help you do this area of your job or this area of your content creation process to speed it up, and then you can focus on other things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think trialling these tools as well like just giving them a go and seeing how they can work into your workflow. So a lot of them even do have free trials as well. What might be worthwhile? Just give it a go, see if it speeds your day up or it makes you more efficient, and then keep it going or scrapping it and moving on to the next one.
Speaker 1:Awesome. We love free trial.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. Well, thank you for joining us today. I hope everyone who's been listening is going to go out and at least try one of these tools for their content creation. I mean, if you're not using chat GPT, feel that that's definitely a starting point, because everybody that we talk to is currently using it in some shape or form within their personal or business life. So give that a go. We'll be back next week with another episode. Thanks for joining us. I'll see you guys in the next one.