Christian SchirmerThe image shows a portrait of a young man standing in front of a bread shelf. He is wearing a green fleece jacket and a white T-shirt. He has short blonde hair and a beard and is smiling at the camera. Behind him are several loaves of bread on the shelf. A green wall can be seen in the background.Every long-time resident of Leichlingen will have been familiar with Kohls Bakery, which has supplied the town with delicious baked goods for over 50 years. The bakery has now changed hands: Christian Schirmer, a former journeyman, is now a master baker himself, has taken over the bakery, and continues to run the business.

And as with any good business, a proper website is a must! So I was very pleased with his request and also that he gave me a lot of creative freedom with the site.

In the beginning there were only 50 products...

Of course, all the baked goods had to be displayed on the side, so the tried-and-tested ilumi care tool was used again. The products also needed to be professionally photographed – it was a good thing I was a trained commercial photographer and could help!

According to initial estimates, there were approximately 50 products that needed to be photographed...

The first light tests are successful.The image shows a photo studio with a wooden table in the center. The table is surrounded by reflectors and mirrors. Two light stands are positioned to the left and right of the table. The stands are black and have a tripod base. In the background, various studio accessories are scattered around the room.

The 50 eventually turned into a good 150 products, which were photographed over a period of about 14 days. During that time, I was able to delight the neighborhood with plenty of delicious baked goods, since we couldn't possibly eat all of the photographed products ourselves.

There were also sandwiches.The image shows a sandwich on a white plate. It consists of a rye roll and is filled with various ingredients. On top of the roll is a layer of lettuce, cucumber slices, tomatoes, and cheese. The lettuce is bright green and appears fresh and healthy. The cheese is creamy white and thinly sliced. The plate is placed on a wooden table.

Christian then added very good descriptions to the products, thus rounding off the product presentation.

Artificial intelligence has saved a lot of work

For all the categories like bread, rolls, pastries, etc., elaborate arrangements would have been required. Especially for bread and rolls, I had elaborate ideas with flour dust in the background. However, due to the triple effort involved in product photography, a cost-effective solution was needed. In retrospect, this was the best thing that could have happened, because the results we achieved with artificial intelligence would have been impossible with conventional photography due to the enormous time and cost involved.

How can you imagine this? What did we do?

It's early 2023—I'm writing this because I expect developments in this area to progress rapidly and the explanations will soon be clear to everyone. But right now, it's still something special.

Explaining the technical background would go far beyond the scope of this article. Essentially, you give a program a textual description of the image you'd like to have, and the program then creates that image—more or less.

There's still a lot of trial and error to be done here, and many things aren't yet possible, but for the baked goods sector, the results are quite convincing.

Pastry arrangement created by an AIThe image shows a collection of pastries and muffins on a silver cake stand. There are six muffins in total, including a chocolate muffin with pink icing and a strawberry on top. The muffins are arranged in a circle on the stand, with some overlapping. On the right side of the image are several round, golden-brown donuts, and on the left side is a single strawberry. The background is a plain gray wall.

The right approach at any time

For Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day, and a few other celebrations, the company wants to welcome visitors to its website appropriately. To this end, a system has been installed that automatically redecorates the site for these occasions and addresses visitors with appropriate text.

For example, it's possible to assign any number of texts and images to an event like "Easter." The images and text are then updated daily, ensuring there's always new content on the page.

Using the maintenance tool, Christian can also set the appropriate season so that Christmas cookies are only offered at Christmas.

Screenshot SchirmerThe image shows a screenshot of the Schirmer Bakery website. The website is designed in green and white and features the company logo on the left. The logo depicts a chef with a tray and a loaf of bread. On the right side of the image, a freshly baked loaf of bread is visible on a pile of flour. The bread appears freshly baked and has a golden brown crust. Below the logo are two buttons—"Baked Goods" and "About Us"—which presumably serve to navigate the website. At the top of the page is a navigation bar with links to various sections of the website, such as "Mittelstraße 24, 42799 Leichlingen," "Jobs," "Contact," and "Brötchen & Brot total...". The website design is simple and modern, with a clean, professional appearance.

Now you should just take a look at the site yourself, here is the link:

bäckerei-schirmer.de

The team is waiting for you!The image shows a group of nine people standing in front of a display case in a bakery. They are all wearing green jackets and smiling at the camera. Behind them are shelves full of various types of bread and pastries. On the left of the image is a man with a beard and mustache, and on the right is a woman with blonde hair. In the middle of the group appears another man with short hair and a beard. Behind the group is a counter with various baked goods, including rolls, pastries, and cakes. The atmosphere in the bakery is overall bright and friendly.