RodeoMan Loc: St Joseph, Missouri

We're both up too late.

rcarol

For sure.

ELNikkor

Not "over-thinking" this, but at 7 pages, maybe we're over talking, this! Love the image you, + AI created. Agree, much easier to imagine it, enter criteria, & watch it happen, tweak until just right, rather than go to London, find a run-down alley, make/buy a costume, hire a model, wait for foggy conditions at night or early morning etc., just to call it a "real" photo. Without the AI imaging possibilities, this haunting image may never have happened.

williejoha

To each its own. I have no problem with AI generated pictures. I take pictures for my own enjoyment and really don’t care what others think, which is also the reason I don’t post any of my pictures. To me it has to have a challenge element to it to take a great picture. Usually a lot of prep goes into the shot but it is vey satisfying for me.
WJH

MrBob Loc: lookout Mtn. NE Alabama

MAN invented camera. MAN invented AI. CAMERA and AI advance the process of processing images. WHAT is all the griping about. ? Get over it folks and do something constructive like hand cranking your car...

JimGray Loc: Albuquerque, New Mexico

neillaubenthal

I’m just fine with sky replacement or HDR or cloning out trash or anything else any photographer wants to do with 2 exceptions…journalistic photos and contests with rules…and whether one chooses to disclose their sky replacement or PP or trash removal or whatever is…outside those exceptions…nobody’s business but themselves.

TBH…things like sky replacement need to be done carefully so the lighting in the final doesn’t make it look like we have 2 suns or one that emits different colors of light simultaneously…but that’s an attention to detail thing, not a criticism.

And also TBH…I’ve never understood the “No PP” contest rule…every photo taken with Amy digital camera gets s9me sort of PP…either from the RAW developer or the jpg algorithms in the camera body…it’s like the rule makers don’t understand how these cameras work. I can see disallowing sky replacement or trash cloning specifically if you’re making the rules for the contest…but the blanket No PP thing makes zero sense.

neillaubenthal

I’m like that too…but the problem is that the day you were able to go to the lighthouse might have been a boring cloudless sky day…and you want to put the print on your wall or sell it with some clouds in the sky…and they were there yesterday so adding them is NBD for me. Same with trash or sign cloning away…or the perfect pose of the bird landing but the tip of the young one’s beak is intruding vs the less perfect pose without the distraction. And…I’m just not good enough or available enough or tall enough or up on the cliff side to get it right in camera…and for my purposes I want pictures I like to look at and put in the blog…

Nothing wrong with perfect in camera aspirations…but not even Ansel Adams did that.

neillaubenthal

But what’s the definition of “manipulated”…because every photograph is manipulated by the RAW editor, jpg algorithms, LR or whatever…and where to draw the line between manipulated and post processing will be different for every photographer artistic image creator…so there’s no more reason to label a sky replacement or trash clone away than there is to label bringing up the shadows or adding a vignette.

neillaubenthal

AI is a nebulous term…just like organic produce…and software has been changing images for a long time now. Back in the PS 2 or 3 days there was Auto Tone and Auto levels where the software decided based on its algorithms what to do…and what is hyped as AI today is just more sophisticated versions of that. The only real AI IMO is when we can construct self aware androids…but then I’m not swayed by organic produce either…because all produce is by definition organic. It’s mostly a bunch of clickbait marketing hype.

alphonso49uk

Nothing particularly was going on in my mind. I just thought about what was the type of photograph I like to take or look at...something that says something....thats what I came up with

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

So photography is never what it was thought and claimed to be. Neither is audio recording, or movies or video. Certainly Michelangelo never actually saw David to enable any sort of claim of even representative accuracy. What about the four guys up on the side of Mount Rushmore?

What about sky replacement? Replacing a sky with one made in the same place and looking the same direction on a different day might be one end of a spectrum. Replacing an eastern desert sky with a western seacoast sky might be somewhere close to the other end of that spectrum.

Certainly there are adjustments to be made, if for no reason other than that film and CMOS (and especially CCD) sensors see differently from the human eye. Hey...one pair of human eyes sees differently from the next pair of human eyes.

So there's a spectrum. Most of my images don't get any pist processing right now. Thise that do, don't get much. It's the nature of what I'm doing most of the time. But every shot results from a carefully adjusted camera...matched white balance, a little extra saturation, proper contrast, and a few other parameters, followed by proper focus and exposure, in that order. The purpose and intent is to generate authentic photogeaphs that will reproduce properly where they are to be used.

When I am photographing railroad subjects, accurate color capture of locomotives is the most important thing. The critical step to achieve that is white balance. The choice is usually between direct sun and "open shade" because I sometimes can't be on the correct side of the train. Later correction is rarely needed. Overcast days, on the other hand, lead to more work later, because overcasts are not all the same. Nor is the effect when the sun goes behind a cloud. BUT...I would never change anything in a railroad photograph that would mislead a viewer around location or time of day or season.

My point here is that all photography can be art...even train photos. But a level of appropriateness of adjustment and change exists for all photography. I don't care what you do to a train photograph that you are going to display among your Christmas decorations. I also don't care anything about that picture, especially if it's been edited into some sort of fantasy view. Nor would I ever have any interest in creating such an image.

If anyone takes a second to read my signature line, they will see that I don't care how they do things. But I also have no interest in their telling me how I need to be doing things.

alphadog

Looks magical to me and appreciate your honesty... AI for me is just a new TECH CATEGORY. We can't stop progress... Ansel kept improving his prints over the years via the darkroom...

Old Dutch

Agreed; It is basically CGI , a not particularly satisfying medium. But to each their own. I would, however, like to see the original image to see what was created by the AI, and what was captured by the photographer.

Beenthere

I don't care what you've done to this image.., all I know is that no matter what , it is a powerful, thought provoking effort AND I like it!