A photo design smart assistant system for reducing similar photos for display and product design includes a similarity distance computation module that can calculate hash values of images and to calculate similarity distances between the images using at least the hash values, a burst grouping module that can automatically group the images into a burst based at least in part on the similarity distances of the images, wherein at least one image is automatically selected from the burst of images, an intelligent design creation engine that can automatically create a photo product design using the selected image from the burst, and a printing and finishing facility that can automatically make a physical photo product based on the photo product design.