Will images created with AI replace photography as we know it?

[Chris Summers]

This is a big topic with a lot of opinions but I figured I would start a thread here in the Open Talk Forum. Recently I got accepted by Adobe to be in their beta testing for Adobe Firefly which is their version of "text to image" AI generation. For those that have somehow missed out, you type a detailed prompt of what you want and the software creates an image or in this case 4 images for you to look at. Since it is beta testing I have the option to express my approval or disapproval and even more specifically what I liked or didn't. As a beta tester I get to try it for free but Adobe will probably sell it later on, perhaps it will be part of one of their plans and be available with Lightroom and Photoshop or as a separately priced plan.

Here is the way I view AI. It's coming whether we like it or not. In fact it has been a part of most editing programs to some extent for a long time. Ever use the Auto button in Lightroom? That's AI that moves all the sliders. Or use a program like Topaz Photo AI and it analyzes the image and suggests corrections for noise and sharpening as well as allowing you to multiply the pixels for a higher resolution image. A while back Photoshop added Neural Filters where AI is used to colorize B&W image, shift focus in existing shots and other things. And now you can lift cheekbones, change a frown to a smile and the color of hair on a model. It's all AI.

Way back at the dawn of photography most artists such as painters, sculptors, etc. said photography was not art but a process, they said it took no talent. Over time that was proved wrong. I can remember when a lot of film photographers said digital was not real photography. And a lot of folks still think an image straight out of their camera is better than one edited in post processing. Which is funny because if you shoot Jpeg images the camera makes adjustments using AI to create the image you see. There is also a whole other argument over copyright infringement when AI copies a famous photographers style. Adobe Firefly by the way only uses its own stock library as the source for what is created so at least that solves that problem. If this kind of AI creation gets better I see it being used more in advertising or by ad agencies as they create storyboards or layouts to present to clients, in the past they hired illustrators, now they will just become the illustrator through the computer. 20-30 years ago the abundance of stock photography images did cut into many photographers work because it was cheaper and faster to just pay for a stock image then pay for a photographer to go to a location and take pictures. But it didn't replace photography.

So I won't argue on the ethics or artistic merit as it is a controversial subject. But I will tell you what I have learned. For the most part these AI text to image generators are not really that good at making pictures yet. More like photo illustrations. They seem to be very good at creating images that have a Sci-fi futuristic look like a city on a planet with moons floating overhead. They are good overall at faces. I think that is because faces often are common in stock libraries. Appendages like hands, fingers, legs, etc are pretty bad a lot of the time. You often get an image of a person where the face it not bad but the hand has 7 fingers or a horse has 6 legs.

Silly or odd prompts seem to do well, probably because they are creating an image we would never see in real life. Here are a few from the last week or so. The prompt I gave is the title of the image I created. I think you can do up to 200 words but mine were pretty simple. Don't ask me why I thought of Jesus on a cell phone!

 

[dmanthree]

No. I guess I'm old-fashioned and prefer photos of real things and people. Journalism, portraits, events, sports, etc. Ai can't touch those. I really have no use for any Ai generated images.

 

[MikeZ]

Don't be so sure about how good AI is, or will be. You have heard of deep fakes - AI created videos that you can't discern from reality. There was one of President Obama floating around the web a couple of years ago. It was clearly him and his voice, though the content was just as clearly not something that he would have said publicly as president. How soon will we see similarly created videos of sports, journalism , human events, etc.

After 40 years in IT and technology I personally don't like what AI is bringing us, and see parallels to HAL from "2001 a Space Odyssey" which makes me leary of this tech. It can and will be used for good, but it has the ability to be morphed into something else. Pretty soon, seeing will NOT be believing.

 

[Only RF]

Don't be so sure about how good AI is, or will be. You have heard of deep fakes - AI created videos that you can't discern from reality. There was one of President Obama floating around the web a couple of years ago. It was clearly him and his voice, though the content was just as clearly not something that he would have said publicly as president. How soon will we see similarly created videos of sports, journalism , human events, etc.

After 40 years in IT and technology I personally don't like what AI is bringing us, and see parallels to HAL from "2001 a Space Odyssey" which makes me leary of this tech. It can and will be used for good, but it has the ability to be morphed into something else. Pretty soon, seeing will NOT be believing.

It's coming and fast. Within 2 years there will be videos of politicians, celebrities, etc saying whatever they want and you won't know if it really them or not.

 

[Only RF]

No. I guess I'm old-fashioned and prefer photos of real things and people. Journalism, portraits, events, sports, etc. Ai can't touch those. I really have no use for any Ai generated images.

Me neither but AI is already writing poetry, music. etc. I worked in print media and in the early 80's the 4 colour strippers in the pre press department said they would never be replaced. One day Photoshop showed up at the door.

 

[StevenAunan]

I, too, worked in print media before Adobe PageMaker and Photoshop took over, and I don't see a return to vacuum enlargers, hot wax machines, and proportion wheels. But there's already movement toward things that are old, tried, and true. Vinyl albums, vintage clothing and pyrex, for instance, are hot items among a certain younger crowd. I also think there will always be a market for art that is known to be created by humans. AI might even accelerate the thirst for truth in a world where grifting influencers tell us, with a straight face, that their forgeries are real.

 

[Only RF]

I, too, worked in print media before Adobe PageMaker and Photoshop took over, and I don't see a return to vacuum enlargers, hot wax machines, and proportion wheels. But there's already movement toward things that are old, tried, and true. Vinyl albums, vintage clothing and pyrex, for instance, are hot items among a certain younger crowd. I also think there will always be a market for art that is known to be created by humans. AI might even accelerate the thirst for truth in a world where grifting influencers tell us, with a straight face, that their forgeries are real.

Yes I have read about that with the younger crowd. I’d like to be a fly on the wall watching them sitting around a dial phone trying to figure out how it works.

What really blows me away is we watched huge industry rise and fall in our lifetime. I still remember the first movie I popped into my brand new VCR and how awesome that was. Road Warrior. Later it was the bi-weekly trip to Block Buster, eventually going DVD and one day it was gone.

I have all my CD’s and DVD’s to charity and I have no devices to play them anyway. We only one 3 movies via Prime. The extended Lord of the Rings series. Around every new year my wife and I watch them.

 

[Only RF]

I, too, worked in print media before Adobe PageMaker and Photoshop took over, and I don't see a return to vacuum enlargers, hot wax machines, and proportion wheels. But there's already movement toward things that are old, tried, and true. Vinyl albums, vintage clothing and pyrex, for instance, are hot items among a certain younger crowd. I also think there will always be a market for art that is known to be created by humans. AI might even accelerate the thirst for truth in a world where grifting influencers tell us, with a straight face, that their forgeries are real.

I just remembered. Until a few years ago when we sold our house I had a ½ dozen lead bars left over from the typography era in the garage. They used to be handy weights in the trunk of my rear drive vehicles in the winter.

 

[Myles Baker]

AI will change things more for proffesional photographers, but less so for enthusiasts for whom the act of capturing the image is as important and rewarding as the image itself (at least for me). My biggest concern with it is deepfakes and how that affects news & disinformation as opposed to how it affects my photography.

 

[Only RF]

AI will change things more for proffesional photographers, but less so for enthusiasts for whom the act of capturing the image is as important and rewarding as the image itself (at least for me). My biggest concern with it is deepfakes and how that affects news & disinformation as opposed to how it affects my photography.

That is a very good point. I personally will never replace a sky but that is me. It is what it is when I took it. The only AI I take advantage of is NR and some sharpening. I will use Topaz Sharpen AI if I really need to. I pre-cull using Canon's DPP so most OOF files don't make it LrC. Even the ones that do don't often get used.

I will use masking to fine tune the subject and background exposures a bit but I try not to. I use masking a lot for my B&W conversions. I may not replace the sky but I there are any clouds I'll contrast it, etc to death.

Here Jan culled 18,00 files (wow) and had 3,000 left. Then he really plays around to bring the colours out. Not AI but just edging examples. There are strait out of camera enthusiasts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa4oFkqpba8

This shows Topaz Photo AI which I removed from my OS since Adobe Denoise was released. Like I said I kept Sharpen AI around. I have thing for Spitfires. I got to this model airplane show just as it was finishing so I was a hurry to set up.