Digital Photography 2.0
The Emergence of AI
Saturday, February 4, 2023
Open AI Addresses ChatGPT Cheating Problem
Friday, February 3, 2023
On 1 Announces Alternate Sky Swap Method
Thursday, February 2, 2023
A Look Ahead, A Look Back
Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to have posted this on New Year's Day, but better late than never in addressing the future direction of this blog as well as a quick look back to see where it has been since I resurrected it in March of last year. (Prior to that, up to its discontinuance in 2019, the blog had been devoted to reporting on cultural events in New York City.)
It seems now I was more prophetic than I could have imagined when I subtitled the blog "The Emergence of AI." At the time I had not yet heard of AI imaging apps such as DALL-E 2 and Stable Diffusion and was thinking primarily of the implementation of AI features into existing photo editing apps that I felt had been pervasive enough to justify the title "Digital Photography 2.0."
Once I did learn of the existence of said AI imaging apps I became far more interested in the possibilities they offered than in any advances in digital photography. In fact, I came to see AI imaging as a form of digital photography in which the camera itself was no longer necessary and which was limited only by the extent of an individual creator's imagination.
In the second half of 2022 I immersed myself in creating AI images using the above mentioned apps and am currently in the final stages of completing a novel to be titled And What If that will be one of the first, if not the very first, to be fully illustrated with AI imagery.
Ever since the 1960's I have been fascinated by the Aldous Huxley quote (from which the music group The Doors took their name): "There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception." It really seems AI imaging is fulfilling the promise of that quote by swinging the doors wide open. Accordingly, I intend going forward to devote as much of this blog's reporting to AI imaging and related matters as to digital photography.
The above AI image was generated by Stable Diffusion in response to a one-word prompt - "Neuromancer" after the visionary classic novel by William Gibson.
Wednesday, February 1, 2023
Problem with Clever Photographer Landscape Overlays Bundle
Monday, January 30, 2023
Adobe Stock Guidelines for AI Imagery
"If the generative AI content was not based on a real person, but it visually appears to resemble a person, then you must submit a property release confirming that you have all the property rights in the content."
Saturday, January 28, 2023
The Times Issues Warning on AI
"With superhuman AI there is a particular risk that is of a different sort of class, which is... it could kill everyone."
Friday, January 27, 2023
Shutterstock AI Imaging
Shutterstock had in the past prohibited creators from uploading AI generated images to its platform. Whether or not that still holds true, the stock agency has partnered with Open AI, developer of DALL-E 2, to introduce its own AI image generator that will allow anyone with an account to generate images and submit them for licensing without ever leaving the site.
I have actually never submitted any of my stock photos to Shutterstock, though I do have an account, preferring to limit my submissions to Adobe Stock if only for convenience sake. Although I have sold some images from the Adobe site there is actually so little money in stock photography - and yes, I've read those accounts of photographers who earn six-digit incomes from it but have never been able to figure out how they manage it unless they work at it night and day without ever sleeping - that it never seemed worth my while to make an all out effort and begin submitting to multiple venues. Given my interest in AI imaging, however, the opportunity to make use of Shutterstock's own generator seems too good an opportunity to pass up; and I most likely will start using it in the near future once I finish working on my current project (a novel fully illustrated with AI imagery) and then license the images I derive therefrom on Shutterstock. I don't think there's much to lose, though I will first certainly read the fine print to determine exactly what rights I'm signing over to Shutterstock by so doing.