The End Result
"AI is neither good nor evil. It's a tool. It's a technology for us to use."
Oren Etzioni
Oh dear, Artificial Intelligence, talk about a challenge! I've been playing with Photoshop's version of AI since its beta release. I've not done anything sophisticated with it (like creating an image from scratch) and always admit if I've used it to any significant extent. In my view it's a bit like a next-generation editing tool that simplifies making changes. With the exception of total image creation, there are very few things one couldn't already do using Photoshop's other tools. So today I've taken a somewhat humorous approach, sharing some of the crazy results I've had using AI before arriving at an acceptable image.
The opening capture above is a final result which includes only one thing that came from my camera, the bird. The rest was created using Photoshop AI. For comparison, here is my original image, which honestly I'd normally have thrown away. It looks to me like the poor bird is beating its head against a tree (another thing the use of AI can make you do!).
Original Image
"Some people worry that artificial intelligence will make us feel inferior, but then, anybody in his right mind should have an inferiority complex every time he looks at a flower."
Alan Kay
I've included images that resulted from the prompts I used to generate AI images. The actual prompts are included below each image as titles. The goofy results are a combination of my lack of skill and AI's limited understanding and/or capability. I do not profess to be very schooled in AI, have used Photoshop's AI product very rarely and have no experience with other AI products.
"Add One Very Small Egret Chick On The Left Side Of The Water"
"Failing is an important part of any process. You learn so much from getting things wrong."
Nanna Heitman
Clearly AI doesn't grasp quantities (or size) very well. That would have been one prolific bird if it had birthed that many chicks! Or perhaps it was a teacher bird giving all of the chicks swimming lessons 😊. I added the words "very small" because AI kept giving me huge chicks compared to the adult bird.
Beyond AI's shortcomings, my own are equally obvious. For example, it took me more than one attempt to figure out I should have asked for "small" fish to generate my opening image. Imagine the poor bird trying to swallow these big boys!
"Add A Fish In The Bird's Beak"
"Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks."
Stephen Hawking
Enough about the bird! Using a different subject, the image that follows is an unedited image of a monarch butterfly that I captured recently on a local plant. I was most interested in getting the butterfly in focus without worrying about the environment. Once captured it became a good subject for some AI experimentation.
Butterfly Original
"Artificial Intelligence, deep learning, machine learning ...if you don't understand it, learn it. Otherwise you're going to be a dinosaur within 3 years.."
Mark Cuban
My first attempt at creating a better image using the butterfly was fairly unsuccessful. I wanted it within a lovely environment but the result is nearly as boring as the original. Also, note that from this point forward the poor butterfly has lost its antennae.
"Replace Background with Lake and Trees"
"Generative AI has the potential to change the world in ways that we can't even imagine."
Bill Gates
It was apparent to me (although not to the AI software) that the butterfly was much too large. I tried a second time to use the same phrase after moving the butterfly to a different position in the image and decreasing its size a bit. Here is what resulted from the same instruction. (As an aside I liked that AI included a reflection in the pond.)
"Replace Background with Lake and Trees - Second Attempt"
"I do believe in AI's transformative potential and I'm encouraged to see Trust become as central to the AI conversation as the technology itself."
Paula Goldman
I felt the butterfly was still too large in the images above and couldn't get AI to downsize it although I'm sure there's a way. Instead I used a standard P/S tool to resize the butterfly and then re-ran the prompt. I actually preferred the new forest over the previous images, but lost the pond with this final result. At some point between the previous image and this one I also added sunlight into the AI request. As a self-criticism I'd have preferred the butterfly lower on the tree but by this time I'd spent more than enough time and energy on this one!
Replace Background With Lake and Trees - Final
"AI isn't as easy as just turning it on. Delivering great AI experiences requires time, expertise and data."
Ahyoung An
Last but not least I asked Adobe's Photoshop Beta software to create an image from scratch. I'll admit to having spent VERY little time with it but it did come up with some reasonable choices. Here's the one I selected but I'll admit I liked my own AI-enhanced version better. No matter how many times I tried I couldn't get AI to generate an image with a realistic-looking butterfly.
"Forest with stream and butterfly" - Fully AI-generated"
"The world will continue to evolve and it's your responsibility to evolve with it."
Nicky Verd
As quoted above, we cannot stop the world from evolving, but we can evolve responsibly along with it. Personally, I expect there will one day soon be a separate category of "AI Art". It will perhaps offer a new artistic alternative to painting and/or photography or other forms of art. I also believe that with capability comes responsibility. Some of AI's strengths involve time-saving ways to edit while others involve creation. Each of us will need to decide where we draw the line in our own use. In my personal view, if the integrity of an image is truly altered by AI, or even more-so, created fully by AI, artistic honesty requires that it be identified.
Sincere thanks to John for his thought-provoking post. We hope you'll join us with your own thoughts on this controversial subject. If you've used AI and have examples to share please do! If not, choose any of your favorite images and if you like, tell us if you edited them. Most importantly, either way please let us know your thoughts on AI as well. Remember to link your post to John's original here, and to use the Lens-Artists Tag to help us find you. Thanks also to Sofia and to all those who responded to last week's beautiful Floral challenge. It was an incredible week of enjoying nature's finest gifts. Finally, we hope you'll join us next week when Donna leads us once again on her Wind Kisses blog. Until then as always please stay safe, be kind and enjoy the journey.
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