The Aardvark Is Ready

To All:

I would like to apologize for my first comment in this topic. I hold strong opinions about certain kinds of photo manipulation as already voiced. But's that's no excuse to insult other people. As to the person who wondered why I cared at all what other people do. I don't if it doesn't affect me. But as a person who makes a part of his living with photography from clients who are asking for photographs, not Ai creations, I should not have to compete in that arena.
If or when photography ever becomes obsolete and there's no such thing as a photograph anymore, I'm fine with that. When a client such as Outdoor Photographer Magazine starts calling itself Outdoor Image Magazine and requests Images instead of photos then I will try my hand at that.

Bill_de Loc: US

I wonder how a client would react if you provided a photograph and then also gave them an AI enhanced version of the same image. If they had a choice would they want one over the other ... or both?

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The Aardvark Is Ready

They might be fine with it as long as it's labeled as such. The stock agencies that have used a few of my images actually require that you label digital creations or Ai enhanced images as such. But it's been quite a few years since I've made any income from them and they may well have changed their requirements.

MrPhotog

I hear ya. And sympathize. After years as a news photographer I opened a studio. PR pictures and advertising images were whatever the client wanted, if I could do it. They were not news pictures, and there was no pretence about it.

Later I discovered a lucrative venture of copying and restoring old and damaged photos. Airbrush work took up a lot more time than the copy work, but backgrounds, and ex-husbands, could disappear—along with folds, creases, and tears.

What the clients got were photographs, and their original. But the photographs were copy shots of a work copy that I had reworked. They looked like photographs, they came from a photo studio. But the image was modified to improve on the version which they had brought in. And they had the original to compare it with.

It made them happy and kept my rent paid for another week.

Almost Every time I do even a small correction in photoshop I recall those years, and with absolutely no fondness! Digital editing is such a sweet improvement over the good ol’ days.

If I was doing such work today I would be delighted with an artificial enhancement that might draw in the pattern of lace on a wedding gown, where the print has a crack in the emulsion. It would be even better than the copy and stamp tools.

I see copy and restoration work as an area of professional photography—but not a journalism area. Different tools and different rules.

JimGray Loc: Albuquerque, New Mexico

Right on!

chasgroh Loc: Buena Park, CA

...hear here.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

Then there's the use of AI to enhance recovery tools.....

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

You quoted a question Aardvark asked me, so just to be clear, I am thrilled to be in at the beginning

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

And excited people convey excitement, but no information.
What is it.
Why would someone want such a thing??

D750

Gang --
The real question here is how much dodging, burning, content-aware fill-in, contrast adjustment, brightening, remove-tooling, cropping, straightening, AI, generative fill-in, blah, blah does it take before a photograph isn't "real" anymore?
Photography itself is a real (technical) art. And I admire perfect photos that come right out of the camera. But who among us hasn't had to do "a little something" (in post processing) to make a certain shot really spectacular?
Aardvark is on the right trail, but I think he misses the fact that even Hoggers like to experiment with new toys, even if they drift over the edge of "photographic morality."

chasgroh Loc: Buena Park, CA

...find the Kelby vid I posted at the beginning of the thread, watch and find out! I look at it as a tool. <shrug>

Bill_de Loc: US

That video was the first in a long time I watched end to end with only a short pause to refill my coffee cup.
It is really hard to discuss the topic without seeing what it is all about. Seeing is believing!

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jaredjacobson

What if real isn’t the point? I note that photography is taught out of the art department at most universities. While some art is about trying to make images of real things, much art is not.

I don’t think that Monet’s paintings were immoral; I don’t think editing photos into something unrecognizable is, either. The only time it becomes immoral is if someone claims it is as an unedited photograph of a real thing when it is not.

Even then, “unedited” is tricky, because, for example, with my camera I can boost saturation or turn the image monochrome or apply a pinhole effect or do a color wash in camera. Lenses distort: they can make things look closer or farther from each other. The very practice of taking something three dimensional and projecting it into a flat surface makes it unreal.

The Aardvark Is Ready

To All:

I would like the group's opinion as to whether these famous photos would still be considered such works of art if the photographers had used Ai generate parts or allof them. Such as Henri Cartier Bresson just typing in the Photoshop line "Man jumping puddle?"

William Loc: Mississippi

it's basically ripping off all
the masters we all viewed
future is our loss to find it