AI in photographs ??

[SunriseAvenue2 1]

I don't think I've noticed a lot of AI images that wouldn't be obvious AI if that makes sense. Surely you can't really distinguish between pictures edited by Chat GPT or Deepseek and photos edited via programs that have AI-powered tools like Photoworks, however, fully generated images are still recognizable. How long would it last though, that is the question.

 

[AlanKlein129 1]

I;'ve noticed on YouTube that there are now blogs showing videos of famous people making them like Warren Buffett and Elon Musk. However, these all appear to be AI-produced with voice dubbing that sounds like the original people and videos of the people that seem real. I was fooled for a while. These blog people are giving their opinions about important matters that the real people never said. I didn't think something like this would even be legal.

 

[TJMcG165 48]

Can you tell which part of this real photograph is AI Generated ??

View attachment 292462

This is a totally pointless conversation. AI Generated images are now so good that it would take a very well trained eye to spot AI imagery.

All digital photographs are edited multiple times before you get to Photoshop. The camera decides loads of things like colour and contrast before you even view it on the camera. If you import a RAW file into any editor the editor has a huge effect on what you eventually get to edit ( Demosaicing, also called debayering) and there is a huge difference between editors just in this single process. Compare Photoshop and DXO Photolab and you will see the difference.

Viewers vary wildly. Look at an image JPG or RAW in 2 different viewers they interpret in different ways.

If I add or subtract anything from a photo is it still a photo?

If I change a the colour of a wall, is it still a photo?

Great conversation but pointless.

CHEERS
JBO

I just frankly cannot understand why there is disagreement on this.

I may have a "well-trained eye," or maybe I am just observant, but in this image, for instance, there are many tubes that begin out of nowhere, or just stop for no apparent reason. AI has poor attention to detail, can't usually form letters that are not gibberish, and forms objects based on pattern recognition and not real life; so if you tell it to create a specific model car, it may be partly accurate, but there will always be telltale errors.

I cannot agree that because the camera produces a preview from a raw file, it is the same as an AI-generated image. I do concur that the image you see is technically "edited," but it follows faithfully the data gathered by the sensor. It does not replace a cloudless sky with a cloudy one, or add people. The camera decides color and contrast based on the settings that you choose to put in, and doesn't do it on its own. I cannot agree that editing an image in Photoshop means that it is no longer a photo; it is just a photo that has been edited, and that makes a difference. If I add or subtract from a photo, yes, it is still a photo, albeit an altered one. Just because I alter a photo to suit a vision or particular mood, doesn't mean that it is not still my photo, but if I take an idea to a neighbor who is an artist and say "Paint the picture for me," I have not created the painting, it was all done for me and I don't even know what it will look like until it's finished.

 

[4073709]

I just frankly cannot understand why there is disagreement on this.

I may have a "well-trained eye," or maybe I am just observant, but in this image, for instance, there are many tubes that begin out of nowhere, or just stop for no apparent reason. AI has poor attention to detail, can't usually form letters that are not gibberish, and forms objects based on pattern recognition and not real life; so if you tell it to create a specific model car, it may be partly accurate, but there will always be telltale errors.

I cannot agree that because the camera produces a preview from a raw file, it is the same as an AI-generated image. I do concur that the image you see is technically "edited," but it follows faithfully the data gathered by the sensor. It does not replace a cloudless sky with a cloudy one, or add people. The camera decides color and contrast based on the settings that you choose to put in, and doesn't do it on its own. I cannot agree that editing an image in Photoshop means that it is no longer a photo; it is just a photo that has been edited, and that makes a difference. If I add or subtract from a photo, yes, it is still a photo, albeit an altered one. Just because I alter a photo to suit a vision or particular mood, doesn't mean that it is not still my photo, but if I take an idea to a neighbor who is an artist and say "Paint the picture for me," I have not created the painting, it was all done for me and I don't even know what it will look like until it's finished.

I have always had the attitude that any image is just an image. Photographs are no different. There are a thousand shades of Gray between the "any photo editing is sacrilege" brigade and the "who cares" crowd and every one of those shades is fine by me.

AI is just the latest way of editing a photo.

BTW that photo was just of a hospital bed and Nano Banana added the rest.

CHEERS
JBO

 

[4073709]

I don't think I've noticed a lot of AI images that wouldn't be obvious AI if that makes sense. Surely you can't really distinguish between pictures edited by Chat GPT or Deepseek and photos edited via programs that have AI-powered tools like Photoworks, however, fully generated images are still recognizable. How long would it last though, that is the question.

Really........

Watch this:

 

[Hertz van Rental]

If I add or subtract anything from a photo is it still a photo?

If I change a the colour of a wall, is it still a photo?

First of all you need to define exactly what a photograph is.
If you remove anything from a photo at what point does it stop being 're-touching' and become image manipulation? And if you add anything to a photograph it immediately becomes image manipulation. What it is then showing you is something that wasn't there originally, or it is hiding something that was there.
You could argue that a 'true' photograph is one which accurately re-presents 'reality'. But then, we don't accurately see 'reality' - our brains interpret the information our eyes give it and our brains are easily fooled.
The whole issue is rather complex and to my knowledge no one has ever successfully addressed it, though quite a few have tried.

 

[AlanKlein129 1]

First of all you need to define exactly what a photograph is.
If you remove anything from a photo at what point does it stop being 're-touching' and become image manipulation? And if you add anything to a photograph it immediately becomes image manipulation. What it is then showing you is something that wasn't there originally, or it is hiding something that was there.
You could argue that a 'true' photograph is one which accurately re-presents 'reality'. But then, we don't accurately see 'reality' - our brains interpret the information our eyes give it and our brains are easily fooled.
The whole issue is rather complex and to my knowledge no one has ever successfully addressed it, though quite a few have tried.

Judges in trials have no trouble determining what's fake and what's real and throwing out any photos as evidence that are fake. We're now at a point where no one can trust any photos as real because of AI.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

'Judges in trials have no trouble determining what's fake and what's real'

More accurate to say 'some judges'.
I have seen quite a few competition winners where the images have obviously been Photoshopped - or is it only 'AI' that can make a fake image?
We have never been able to trust any photo as 'real'. Believing any photo is 'real' comes from 'the camera never lies' argument.
Whilst the camera itself is incapable of lying, it still does what it is told by the person using it - and people lie all the time. It's like saying 'the typewriter never lies'. The typewriter does it's job and people write lies on it.
Although we don't really lie - we just manipulate truth.
So too with the camera. There are many ways to manipulate the 'truth' of an image. Even simple choices like 'film or digital' or 'should I move ten paces to the left to take this picture' or 'colour or black & white' are all forms of manipulation, albeit at a basic level.
If you print an image and do a bit of cropping you have manipulated the image.
And at the absolute base level, when we take a picture we are converting a 4 Dimensional scene into a 2 Dimensional one. We remove depth and time from the equation. That is pretty serious manipulation - re-presenting 'reality' in an altered form.
I could go on but I'm sure you get my point.
All we have done with 'AI' is to delegate the task of lying - sorry, manipulating reality - to some software.

On a side note, people miss-use the term 'AI'. What we call Artificial Intelligence is nothing of the sort. AI is just a bunch of learning algorhythms that mimic intelligent behaviour - but not very well. They don't mimic very well because they are programs written by people who are attempting to get a machine to copy intelligent behaviour and the machine does not actually understand what it is doing. And sometimes I think the people writing the software don't understand what they are doing either.
But then, I suppose, a lot of 'intelligent' people do things without understanding what they are doing. Just because you own and drive a car doesn't mean you understand physics.
True Artificial Intelligence is when the machine not only understands what it is doing but can re-write it's own programming. That is, it tells itself what to do and won't need to rely on us. Then it won't just be our cameras that become redundant.

 

[Shambrough]

Can you tell which part of this real photograph is AI Generated ??

View attachment 292462

This is a totally pointless conversation. AI Generated images are now so good that it would take a very well trained eye to spot AI imagery.

All digital photographs are edited multiple times before you get to Photoshop. The camera decides loads of things like colour and contrast before you even view it on the camera. If you import a RAW file into any editor the editor has a huge effect on what you eventually get to edit ( Demosaicing, also called debayering) and there is a huge difference between editors just in this single process. Compare Photoshop and DXO Photolab and you will see the difference.

Viewers vary wildly. Look at an image JPG or RAW in 2 different viewers they interpret in different ways.

If I add or subtract anything from a photo is it still a photo?

If I change a the colour of a wall, is it still a photo? Generation and editing tools have become so powerful that distinguishing details with the naked eye is nearly impossible, and debates over what constitutes a "real" photo are truly losing their relevance. What matters most is the emotion and the idea conveyed by the final image. To stay up to date on how developers are creating new neural networks and the general direction of the field, I frequently read news at https://llmnews.ai/anthropic, which regularly publishes useful analyses. It is always a pleasure to find interesting insights into the evolution of artificial intelligence and its impact on creativity on such modern platforms.

Great conversation but pointless.

CHEERS
JBO

Do you use any image generators yourself for fun, or do you prefer only traditional photography?