Australia's Nine newspapers have harnessed AI including Google's Vision engine in the first phase of a project to automate image enhancement and workflow.
Working with integrator News Hub Media, Nine has gone live on v12 of Elpical's Claro high-volume image enhancement software, with Automator used for editorial graphic and ad pre-flight and normalisation, and GoMediaHub to extend workflow automation and integration across its publishing division.
Apart from new image processing and functionality improvements, the AI technology integration includes Google's Vision AI engine to improve image understanding and automated metadata creation, and Remove.bg's background removal technology. The platform is scalable for all digital and print media outlets.
Publishing technology director Domagoj Filipovic says as Nine continues to deploy Claro, they plan to extend the image enhancement platform to more areas of the business. "Claro is the state-of-the-art image enhancement platform, capable of handling Nine's high image volume and improving our image quality.
"We have leveraged the Google Vision AI and Remove.bg integrations with the Claro workflow to improve image enhancement even further, and to selectively remove backgrounds from some images."
Nine's activities span TV, VOD, print, digital and radio, and include former Fairfax Media mastheads The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Financial Review.