AI created images vs. Photoshop fabrications. Is there a difference?

[bjorke]

First off pictures have not always lied.

Niépce's photographic experiments were first aimed at copying other artworks without needing an artist. (I said "photos" specifically, btw).

Can't really get more "first" than that?

(But I know people have some sort of emotional fear, and I'm reminded of Jonathan Swift's line: "You cannot reason someone out of something he or she was not reasoned into.")

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Well, back in that era most of the photographs made were snapshots of stuff like Aunt Clara and Uncle Fred standing in front of Niagara Falls. Yep, that Clara and Fred on their trip to Buffalo.

However, I find that those old photos reveal a different truth when compared to the snapshots of today and that is that back in the 20th century people were thinner. Taking the same photos today from the same position requires a wide angle lens.

Well people today are fatter. The camera never lies.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Niépce's photographic experiments were first aimed at copying other artworks without needing an artist. (I said "photos" specifically, btw)


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Your drawing conclusions about photography in general based on what 1/10 of 1% of specialized photographer artists were doing. That doesn't make a general situation or prove you're point.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Well people today are fatter. The camera never lies.

"Your photographs captured the real me." A regular comment from people that bought reprints of wedding photos which I printed with a tilted easel to elongate the bodies.

 

[CMoore]

I am a VERY Low-Tech person.
So pardon my ignorance, but what is the purpose of AI art.?

I am assuming it is for commercial, advertising enterprise.?
Would people pay money for this like they would with work from a painter or photographer in an art gallery.?

 

[DREW WILEY]

I stopped going to movie when they became mostly teenage blockbuster digital content rather than real pro cinematography, and suspended my subscription to National Geogoofic magazine when they started printing digital comps and trendy tricks in it (labeled as such, but why there anyway - what's that have to do with real geography?). I also got sick of NG's trend toward politically correct articles and editorial content. Even though I might agree with much of their position, I get outright sick of hearing and reading about it everywhere. I liked reading and hearing about other places in the world for their own sake, not in relation to what's going on in Washington DC at the moment. Then they started printing on matte paper, resembling blaah inkjet digital even more. Overboard HDR, all the usual novelty tricks. I never subscribed to NG due to any artistic value of their images. That just isn't their cup of tea; and every time they try to get artsy, it's something kitchy or passe; and they just make fools out of themselves.

This is just an example. It's the same reason I rarely visit galleries or museums anymore. Why don't they just attach a pair of eyeballs to a robotized floor vacuum sweeper instead. Artificial images deserve artificial viewers with artificial intelligence, apples to apples. We real humans belong somewhere else. Photography and Fauxtography should get a divorce before it's too late.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Sirius, in your images people are fatter because you had to compress the vertical image into a square! If you had bought a rectangular format camera instead, you wouldn't need to tilt the enlarger easel. Or just use Rubbermaid brand film.

 

[BMbikerider]

I anyone tries to get into the lamp house of my enlarger and change it to create artificial pictures by DI they will be in serious risk of loosing there legs!

What could the do. try to mix up and reverse the filtration dials or even alter the click stops on my enlarger lens . Extremely difficult as it is not connected to a 'phone line or modem.

 

[Pieter12]

I am a VERY Low-Tech person.
So pardon my ignorance, but what is the purpose of AI art.?

I am assuming it is for commercial, advertising enterprise.?
Would people pay money for this like they would with work from a painter or photographer in an art gallery.?

It offers the ability to create images from prompts, therefore scenes that might not either exist or could be difficult to photograph. There has always been a market for surrealist and fantasy art. The big menace is people tend to put faith in what they see in a photographic image and AI can easily produce images of events or situations that never happened. So news or other informative images are becoming doubtful as to their veracity. Right now, any new image I see online makes me think, was that generated by AI?

As far as using AI for commercial purposes, ad imagery has almost always been retouched in some manner. As long as it is a truthful representation of the product, anything else is fair game. Even exaggerated, obviously impossibly over-the-top situations, since the viewer/consumer should be able to tell it is an exaggeration for shock value, extravagance or humor.

 

[CMoore]

It offers the ability to create images from prompts, therefore scenes that might not either exist or could be difficult to photograph. There has always been a market for surrealist and fantasy art. The big menace is people tend to put faith in what they see in a photographic image and AI can easily produce images of events or situations that never happened. So news or other informative images are becoming doubtful as to their veracity. Right now, any new image I see online makes me think, was that generated by AI?

As far as using AI for commercial purposes, ad imagery has almost always been retouched in some manner. As long as it is a truthful representation of the product, anything else is fair game. Even exaggerated, obviously impossibly over-the-top situations, since the viewer/consumer should be able to tell it is an exaggeration for shock value, extravagance or humor.

Thank You
Sort of what i thought

While i am a "purist" in my own photo hobby, i see nothing out of bounds with what others do.
As you say, the "truth" in photography has always been manipulated.

In the early 1960s, Tony Armstrong Jones was nailing male models shoes to the floor and suspending female models, from ropes above them.
That simple trick creates a very realistic effect of of physics defying advertisements.

 

[awty]

I'm not hearing anyone talk about what they want to achieve with their pictures.

Photos have always lied. Get over it. When they tell the truth, what is that truth?

What are you actually afraid of? To what do you aspire? Social media noise?

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From what I gather people here are trying to achieve a form of photography purity, not sure what that is or if they know what it is, but I prefer the impure, they have better parties.

Thats an interesting picture, I might employ aspects of it on a picture Ive been working on. To be honest I finding a lot of AI pictures more interesting and imaginative than no ai pictures.

 

[DREW WILEY]

But that picture also looks as fake and stiff as it really is. No matter what your photographic philosophy is, a good magician or illusionist should never show his hand. A lab owner friend of mine once showed me an Uelsmann print he had collected, and commented how he had been stuyding that print for years trying to find some evident flaw in it. Yes, it was a totally whimsical mythical scene created using multiple enlargers. Everyone know that fact about Uelsmann. But he did it so well that one couldn't ever catch his trick unless he explained it to you.

Not so today, with everyone doing the same kind of thing clumsily, even given the billions of dollars which have gone into the underlying computerized R&D. Maybe AI will gain the ability to fool us. But the mere fact that much of that imagery will get attached to political ads or propaganda or other deceptive purposes will be a dead giveaway regardless. People willing to be fooled in that manner have long been fooled by far less, and often seemingly willing.

Otherwise, I consider such artificial photography equivalent to visual fast-food or junk food. It doesn't even smell right. Call it something else - not photography, because it isn't.

 

[MattKing]

From my point of view, I'm just waiting for the AI app that is dedicated to quickly and automatically cleaning away the dust and imperfections on my film scans.
When the technology reaches that pinnacle, it will all be worthwhile!

 

[Sirius Glass]

Sirius, in your images people are fatter because you had to compress the vertical image into a square! If you had bought a rectangular format camera instead, you wouldn't need to tilt the enlarger easel. Or just use Rubbermaid brand film.

I was using a used Minolta SR7 at that time which is and was a rectangular format camera. Must be a real slow day for you since you are slumming for a posting.

 

[Sirius Glass]

It offers the ability to create images from prompts, therefore scenes that might not either exist or could be difficult to photograph. There has always been a market for surrealist and fantasy art. The big menace is people tend to put faith in what they see in a photographic image and AI can easily produce images of events or situations that never happened. So news or other informative images are becoming doubtful as to their veracity. Right now, any new image I see online makes me think, was that generated by AI?

As far as using AI for commercial purposes, ad imagery has almost always been retouched in some manner. As long as it is a truthful representation of the product, anything else is fair game. Even exaggerated, obviously impossibly over-the-top situations, since the viewer/consumer should be able to tell it is an exaggeration for shock value, extravagance or humor.

Painters have been doing that for many centuries and using their brains to do that.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Thank You
Sort of what i thought

While i am a "purist" in my own photo hobby, i see nothing out of bounds with what others do.
As you say, the "truth" in photography has always been manipulated.

In the early 1960s, Tony Armstrong Jones was nailing male models shoes to the floor and suspending female models, from ropes above them.
That simple trick creates a very realistic effect of of physics defying advertisements.

View attachment 339797

Ah, but he was using his brain and a computer algorithm.

 

[Sirius Glass]

But that picture also looks as fake and stiff as it really is. No matter what your photographic philosophy is, a good magician or illusionist should never show his hand. A lab owner friend of mine once showed me an Uelsmann print he had collected, and commented how he had been stuyding that print for years trying to find some evident flaw in it. Yes, it was a totally whimsical mythical scene created using multiple enlargers. Everyone know that fact about Uelsmann. But he did it so well that one couldn't ever catch his trick unless he explained it to you.

Not so today, with everyone doing the same kind of thing clumsily, even given the billions of dollars which have gone into the underlying computerized R&D. Maybe AI will gain the ability to fool us. But the mere fact that much of that imagery will get attached to political ads or propaganda or other deceptive purposes will be a dead giveaway regardless. People willing to be fooled in that manner have long been fooled by far less, and often seemingly willing.

Otherwise, I consider such artificial photography equivalent to visual fast-food or junk food. It doesn't even smell right. Call it something else - not photography, because it isn't.

OMG! We agree on something! Quick someone pour a drink for me!

 

[Pieter12]

Painters have been doing that for many centuries and using their brains to do that.

But people know it is a painting. It is when you can create something realistic and believable as a photograph that can be upsetting and dishonest.

 

[Sirius Glass]

But people know it is a painting. It is when you can create something realistic and believable as a photograph that can be upsetting and dishonest.

View attachment 339804

So we agree.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Why not become a real painter instead? - maybe because it takes actual skill, and people are so obsessed with electronics toys these days, they can't think for themselves, or even see for themselves. The outcome is not only faux photography, but faux painting. It's like make-believe Monopoly board game money - not my kind of exchange rate.

Trying to contradict photographic integrithy by giving the example of Niepce copying a painting is absurd. He was pioneering a very slow medium and needed something stationary and recognizable. Nobody in their right mind would think it was a real painting itself. Apparently, however, right minds are currently fewer then ever.

 

[warden]

Why not become a real painter instead? - maybe because it takes actual skill,…

Or maybe because not everyone wants to be a painter. Do you want to be a painter?

If you want to learn about painting you can. You can also learn about photoshop and AI. There are lots of paths to follow, and all require skill.

 

[BMbikerider]

But that picture also looks as fake and stiff as it really is. No matter what your photographic philosophy is, a good magician or illusionist should never show his hand. A lab owner friend of mine once showed me an Uelsmann print he had collected, and commented how he had been stuyding that print for years trying to find some evident flaw in it. Yes, it was a totally whimsical mythical scene created using multiple enlargers. Everyone know that fact about Uelsmann. But he did it so well that one couldn't ever catch his trick unless he explained it to you.

Not so today, with everyone doing the same kind of thing clumsily, even given the billions of dollars which have gone into the underlying computerized R&D. Maybe AI will gain the ability to fool us. But the mere fact that much of that imagery will get attached to political ads or propaganda or other deceptive purposes will be a dead giveaway regardless. People willing to be fooled in that manner have long been fooled by far less, and often seemingly willing.

Otherwise, I consider such artificial photography equivalent to visual fast-food or junk food. It doesn't even smell right. Call it something else - not photography, because it isn't.

I go along with this 100%. It is false. using PS to change images is very very different to AI. A human makes the changes from his own perception of a scene. Importing something which is created using AI is making use of a creation that is, or could be claimed is just convenient and will take less skill to do. Laziness and lack of true creativity comes to mind.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Everyone's going to have these very fancy, expertly created photos made by Photoshop AI which happen to all look the same. The thrill will end quickly, and boredom will set in. It may force more people back to film. It may popularize 8x10 chromes that are mounted on back lit frames showing the "truth" of an actual photograph shot by a real camera. The museums will have a section for these set off with signs like "This Way to See Real Photographs".

 

[koraks]

Everyone's going to have these very fancy, expertly created photos made by Photoshop AI which happen to all look the same.

You think Instagram is currently all that different? Or the neatly framed prints you buy at Ikea et al.?

Of course AI is not going to ever be a threat to photography as such, even though it will replace some of it.

There will be AI-imagery for the masses, replacing the muzak-equivalent of 'art' that adorns low-grade hotel rooms. There will be AI that is used by artists as just another tool to express themselves. And there's going to be photography, painting, sculpting, drawing and all those other ways of expression existing right next to it, and sometimes synergistically so.

I don't get the angst. There's no need for it.

 

[VinceInMT]

I don't get the angst. There's no need for it.

Exactly. While I certainly understand that AI is impacting some areas of work and education, I can’t see how, IN ANY WAY, it impacts my own photography, drawing, painting, sculpting, or mosaics.