Using AI to critique your photos

[Alan Edward Klein]

I haven't tried this on my own shots. Has anyone else? What do you think of ChatGPT's critiques? Should we allow it in Photrrio?

Here's an analysis of someone using ChatGPT to critique their photos. What do you think about its ability?

https://www.techradar.com/cameras/photography/im-a-professional-photographer-and-asked-chatgpt-to-critique-my-photos-here-are-4-things-i-learned

 

[MurrayMinchin]

Egad. Is it following the same decision making path used to make those icons of the Fine Art World AI images?!!?

 

[djdister]

Why not ask ChatGPT to critique some of Ansel's photos? That would be interesting...

 

[Pieter12]

Why not ask ChatGPT what it thinks it is doing to the world?

 

[MattKing]

A friend of mine, Francois, is a fine photographer.
He also loves teaching, and he even writes a bit - including poetry.
He is also a computer nerd .
For fun, he decided to input into one of the available AI options a set of his photographs of Paris and other interesting places, along with some of his poetry which referenced, among other things, some of his associated travels.
The context was an instruction to create a dialogue referencing both sets of work. It was set up with the intention that the result appear to be a podcast.
The result is uncanny. You hear a male voice and a female voice, and they appear to be discussing my friend, his photographs and his poetry. They sound incredibly natural as they weave in and out of references that connect the two bodies of work, and my friend's background. The "podcast" is about 20 minutes long, and there are almost no clues to the fact that the entire thing is a creation of the AI tool that was used to bring it into being.
Francois told us that it was an AI creation, but I had an inkling because I happened to have another friend - Wallace, one of the members of our Darkroom Group - who had done something similar with the background to a third friend who is a fascinating resource in his own right, and for whom there is available a bunch of background information available on the internet. Both of my friends Francois and Wallace must have used the same AI tools, because the resulting podcasts used the same male and female voices!

 

[Cholentpot]

A friend of mine, Francois, is a fine photographer.
He also loves teaching, and he even writes a bit - including poetry.
He is also a computer nerd .
For fun, he decided to input into one of the available AI options a set of his photographs of Paris and other interesting places, along with some of his poetry which referenced, among other things, some of his associated travels.
The context was an instruction to create a dialogue referencing both sets of work. It was set up with the intention that the result appear to be a podcast.
The result is uncanny. You hear a male voice and a female voice, and they appear to be discussing my friend, his photographs and his poetry. They sound incredibly natural as they weave in and out of references that connect the two bodies of work, and my friend's background. The "podcast" is about 20 minutes long, and there are almost no clues to the fact that the entire thing is a creation of the AI tool that was used to bring it into being.
Francois told us that it was an AI creation, but I had an inkling because I happened to have another friend - Wallace, one of the members of our Darkroom Group - who had done something similar with the background to a third friend who is a fascinating resource in his own right, and for whom there is available a bunch of background information available on the internet. Both of my friends Francois and Wallace must have used the same AI tools, because the resulting podcasts used the same male and female voices!

This was done with some chatlogs with my family. There are red flags aside from the identical voices. The AI bot's don't understand humor at all, any subtly is lost on it and AI completely ignores anything it deems controversial. So if you have a few members of a chat that are stuck in a pre revolutionary war mindset for instance, the bot won't quote a single thing they talk about. Just erases them. The voices themselves glitch unnaturally every once in a while.

All that said, AI is really really good at summing up information.

 

[warden]

I haven't tried this on my own shots. Has anyone else? What do you think of ChatGPT's critiques? Should we allow it in Photrrio?

Here's an analysis of someone using ChatGPT to critique their photos. What do you think about its ability?

https://www.techradar.com/cameras/photography/im-a-professional-photographer-and-asked-chatgpt-to-critique-my-photos-here-are-4-things-i-learned

I wouldn’t think of using it for photography, which is my low stakes hobby, but I have used it for feedback on visual design, which for me is work. I have found the feedback on general design matters is about as valuable as feedback you might get from a mid-level employee, which is to say it’s quite valuable.

 

[Pieter12]

I wouldn’t think of using it for photography, which is my low stakes hobby, but I have used it for feedback on visual design, which for me is work. I have found the feedback on general design matters is about as valuable as feedback you might get from a mid-level employee, which is to say it’s quite valuable.

Like the boss asking for his secretary’s opinion.

 

[MattKing]

Like the boss asking for his secretary’s opinion.

Interesting parallel to choose, given how many "bosses" will no longer be able to justify his/her need for a secretary, due to the growing prevalence of AI in the white collar work world.
Even as far back as 16 years ago when I left, the number of law firms that were heavily dependent on support staff was decreasing rapidly, due to computerization. From the information that comes my way now, AI is making even larger changes happen in that world.

 

[warden]

Like the boss asking for his secretary’s opinion.

Nope. More like a senior designer asking the opinion of a mid-level designer. Quite helpful.

 

[koraks]

That's an interesting question you raise, @Alan Edward Klein !
The example linked to is sort of promising, in the sense that AI is evidently capable of answering questions that boil down to some variant of:

• "Does this image adhere to the standard rules of composition"
• "Does an image adhere to a pattern that we know people generally like; i.e. how popular will it likely be"
• "What are the similarities and differences between image A and B"

In short, AI seems to already to a pretty good job at pattern matching, which is of course what it's designed to do at a very fundamental level. If that's what someone is after, it's evident that Ai can be a quick and easy way to gain some insights. It might well for the kind of work the photographer in that link is apparently doing; i.e. making imagery that appeals to the masses, that "does well on instagram" and that, basically sells for commercial purposes. That's a pretty solid use case.

My own interest would be more in the area of artistic critique. Recently @Arthurwg said something about the 'visceral response' (a slight paraphrase on my behalf). This is something AI is inherently incapable of understanding, lacking viscera, although the odds of this human visceral response adhering to some kind of pattern are pretty good. That would make an AI application interesting, as it might help us to better understand these patterns. I'm very interested to see where that might lead us. One particular area might be a better understanding of this still unwieldy construct/complex of "composition". Sure, we all know about the rule of 3rds and all that - and evidently, AI is already capable of working on such basic levels. But things get interesting once we start to unravel a bit more of why other, less straightforward compositional arrangements work.

Thanks for bringing it up; this definitely has potential, and a discussion of such experiments to use AI to better understand some aspect of photography would in my view be very suitable indeed for the forum.

 

[nikos79]

I have tried it many times, the results are quite impressive and funny at the same time.

I didn’t take them seriously although I was impressed.

And it was artistic critique similar to the “visceral” feeling as @koraks had pointed out.

The results were better when I guided it a bit in the form of photographers or art critics I like and to base its critique based on these standards. You can ask it for example “What would John Szarkowsky say about this photo or try to review it based on the principles of HCB or the F64 group or whatever you want”

What I would really like to do is what @koraks mentioned regarding its excellent ability to pattern matching to use it to self train a binary “interesting-not so interesting photo” conventional neural network.
But in order to do it I would need at least 10000 interesting and 10000 not so interesting photos to be able to train it. No data or time for that. But I would then have an “art-critique” tailored to my preferences or to whomever would label it as “interesting” or “not so interesting” with some pretty good accuracy (I guess)

 

[nikos79]

Give it the two photos from HCB and Walker Evans from Mississippi from HCB thread and ask it to choose

 

[koraks]

Give it the two photos from HCB and Walker Evans from Mississippi from HCB thread and ask it to choose

Go ahead and try it; it'd be interesting what it churns out if you feed it some questions along the lines of what was discussed in the thread!

 

[Pieter12]

Times change, aesthetics change, cultural mores vary. What does AI use to judge an image?

 

[nikos79]

Times change, aesthetics change, cultural mores vary. What does AI use to judge an image?

If you train it yourself on many photos it would eventually use your own judgement e.g. it will mimic your approach with a good accuracy.

If you use an LLM model like ChatGPT, then first of all it can understand some basic composition e.g. forms, geometry, light, contrast, etc.
then it can also describe the image and that is the trick: It can write words about the image. Then it can easily from that description associate it with art movements or schools or evoke some emotion and judge it. Try it and you will see

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Times change, aesthetics change, cultural mores vary. What does AI use to judge an image?

Great point. How would a sighted person explain to a person blind since birth what the color orange is? It can't be done. A computer and AI is like a blind person. Its never experienced what beauty is in its mind (which it doesn't have). Like the blind person, it also can't understand what we're getting at. Nor can we explain it to them.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

If you train it yourself on many photos it would eventually use your own judgement e.g. it will mimic your approach with a good accuracy.

If you use an LLM model like ChatGPT, then first of all it can understand some basic composition e.g. forms, geometry, light, contrast, etc.
then it can also describe the image and that is the trick: It can write words about the image. Then it can easily from that description associate it with art movements or schools or evoke some emotion and judge it. Try it and you will see

It's mimicry. It's Photoshop without the sliders.

 

[Pieter12]

It's mimicry. It's Photoshop without the sliders.

How so?

If you train it yourself on many photos it would eventually use your own judgement e.g. it will mimic your approach with a good accuracy.

I already know what I like. I would be more interested in critical judgement from someone I respect.

 

[nikos79]

How so?


I already know what I like. I would be more interested in critical judgement from someone I respect.

Then try this prompt:
“You are an art critic very much influenced by John Szarkowsky, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Weston writings. Please provide constructive and genuine criticism in the following photo of mine” and go on and upload a photo of yours. I would be very interested to see the outcome

 

[Pieter12]

Then try this prompt:
“You are an art critic very much influenced by John Szarkowsky, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Weston writings. Please provide constructive and genuine criticism in the following photo of mine” and go on and upload a photo of yours. I would be very interested to see the outcome

I would, too. But I'm not going to.

 

[nikos79]

I would, too. But I'm not going to.

I would also do it but I am out of quota at the moment

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I'll try it with one of mine. “You are an art critic very much influenced by John Szarkowsky, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Weston writings. Please provide constructive and genuine criticism in the following photo of mine”

What is the link to the AI site to do this?

 

[nikos79]

I'll try it with one of mine. “You are an art critic very much influenced by John Szarkowsky, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Weston writings. Please provide constructive and genuine criticism in the following photo of mine”

What is the link to the AI site to do this?

https://chatgpt.com/

Choose “stay logged out” if you don’t have an account yet

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Here's my picture and AI critique from https://aichatonline.org/gpts-2OToA6qRx3-Photo-Critic
What do you think of their critique?

“You are an art critic very much influenced by John Szarkowsky, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Weston writings. Please provide constructive and genuine criticism in the following photo of mine”
2026-01-01 16:54:56
Photo Critic
This photograph has a quiet, meditative quality that feels timeless, evocative of the kind of work admired by the photographers you mentioned—Szarkowsky, Stieglitz, and Weston. The weathered structure, the dilapidated fence, and the vast open field suggest a narrative of impermanence and solitude, which is compelling in its own right.

Strengths:​

1. Composition and Form: The structure itself—both in terms of geometry and texture—holds a powerful presence. The lines of the fence guide the viewer’s eye into the frame, creating a sense of movement, and echoing the themes of both enclosure and separation. There’s a pleasing contrast between the organic lines of the fence and the angular, manmade geometry of the house.
2. Light and Color: The dramatic sky at sunset with its rich hues of purple, orange, and pink provides a striking backdrop to the otherwise muted tones of the house and field. This interplay of natural light elevates the image, giving it a sense of quiet contemplation. The lighting accentuates the texture of the building, which seems to almost breathe with age.
3. Atmosphere: Much like Weston’s desert landscapes or Stieglitz's focus on the inherent qualities of nature and architecture, this image presents a sense of place that goes beyond mere representation. The emptiness of the landscape and the looming presence of the structure create an atmosphere that feels almost haunted or nostalgic, imbuing the scene with emotional depth.

Areas for Improvement:​

1. Focus on the Fence: The fence in the foreground could be used more deliberately to add a sense of framing or to further emphasize the isolation of the building. While it does direct the viewer's gaze toward the house, the irregular angle and somewhat distracted nature of the fence could be more cohesive, creating a stronger visual anchor.
2. Depth and Layering: Although the image is effective at drawing the eye from the foreground to the background, the space could use more depth in the sense of layering. Perhaps introducing more contrast between the foreground (the fence and grass) and background (the building and sky) would help create a more pronounced sense of dimensionality. The image feels somewhat flat as is, and could benefit from greater tonal separation.
3. Structural Disruption: The building itself, while rustic and textured, might be improved with a more direct interaction with the surroundings. A more dynamic perspective—perhaps slightly off-center or introducing the play of shadows across the building’s façade—could create more visual tension and add interest to the structure. The current view, while stable and quiet, can feel slightly static as a result.

Final Thoughts:​

This photograph is a solid foundation of a piece that speaks to themes of impermanence, nostalgia, and nature’s relationship to human-made structures. By focusing on more deliberate framing in the foreground, enhancing the tonal depth, and exploring more dynamic angles, it could elevate the story and texture in a way that recalls the attention to form and detail found in the works of Stieglitz, Szarkowsky, and Weston. Your use of light is evocative, and a bit more attention to the formal balance could bring out its true potential.