Photoshop Beta: AI Generative Fill
re: AI
There is no I in AI. There is no thinking involved and there is no thinking technology at all, nor any in the foreseeable future. AI is really “mimic patterns and make shit up”. Still, in certain “silos” of information processing, nothing yet has been this powerful, particularly when it comes to ferreting-out patterns within information domains.
The real world is incredibly beautiful—thus the increased emphasis on avoiding it what with virtual reality and fantasy imagery. I marvel at how few people ever experience the wonders out there, never straying far from pavement, and restrict the experience to a visual one. I suspect that the appeal of virtual reality and fantasy imagery relate inversely to real experience.
Authenticity
Will we will soon be flooded with a godawful barrage of fakeness? Will real photography become more valuable, or be pushed out?
Already, much of “real” photography is over-the-top hyper-processed stuff even without AI. Just look at some of Leica’s examples from the Leica Q3, like the sunset scene at the beach—a misrepresentation of reality. Where on the spectrum of processing does “reality” end?
There needs to be some rigorous new form for an artists’s statement about what was done to create an image, perhaps with various levels of assertion ranging from Unaltered (itself a complicated definition) to Fantasy. Cryptographically signed and legally binding, with penalties for false claims when gain is involved.
* See Leica Q3 DNG files examples starting with pm-95546....DNG (seashore at sunset).
Adobe Photoshop: AI Generative Fill
AI tools are here to stay, and it’s only natural and appropriate that Adobe implement such tools, because they are going to be everywhere and in everything.
AI “prompts” as they are known, are actually a programming language taking considerable skill to learn and master. The are definitely NOT “simple language”, nothing could be more misleading. An AI prompt does not follow any formal grammar BNF, but it absolutely has a structure required for optimal results.
While I’ve been a programmer (BASIC, FORTRAN, Pascal, C, C++, Java, assembly language) for 40 years, I nonetheless have zero skill at AI prompts. So don’t consider this example demonstrative of potential.
Considering that all I entered was "duplicate yellow star at left", it's impressive that a yellow star appeared at all, and one that was definitely generated, not replicated. Hence “generative” AI.
Albeit the wrong size, the wrong number of points, the wrong color and all with a smeared detail-free rendition. Any human would instantly know that the result is nothing like I had intended.
Below, good video. Who will be able to see what is photography any more? IMO, anything involving image detail other than spotting out dust is image manipulation, and should be called-out. But of course that will never happen with people having no interest in being honest about it—only about clicks/sales.
