You wonder if the photographer even can copyright the image. It's a computer answer to a query with specific criteria. Was the image created by the photographer, the software, or the AI bot?
Legislation or judges will have to clarify this question soon.
So I use AI apps pretty extensively in my work.
I'm a full-time professional advertising photographer, and using AI retouching tools has reduced my workload enormously and my reliance on external retouchers has changed dramatically.
-Retouch4Me is used almost every time I photograph people as a baseline for when I start skin retouching. This plug-in suite is what really opened my eyes to what AI can do for working professionals.
-DXO PureRaw 3 is indispensable for when I'm shooting architecture (for its corrections), or if I need aggressive noise reduction because I need to either push a file really hard, or was north of ISO 1600.
-Topaz Gigapixel and Sharpen AI are mainstays when I'm shooting in the studio and I'm running into diffraction. Both of those apps are TERRRIFIC for combating lens softness.
-Aftershoot AI, for the odd event that I shoot, or when I'm motordriving something, Aftershoot is actually a pretty good tool for initial culling. However it really only works when people are in the frame.
-Photoshop Beta's "remove" tool has changed the game for me when it comes to cloning and removing objects. What used to justify an email to one of my retouchers, I can often do myself now. It's saved me hundreds of dollars already. Same goes for the Object Selection tool (set to Cloud and Stable in preferences)
I for one, welcome our AI overlords. It's made my work better, given me the confidence to shoot in riskier ways than I normally would have before, and has proven to be an asset that helps me seperate myself from my competition because I can flex more on either time, budget, or capability in more situations than I could have just a year ago.
The best part, is all these apps play nice with images in and out of Capture One. Haven't opened Lightroom in probably 7 years, but I hear it's gotten better at alot of things. I just can't stand Adobe's color when I can look at images side-by-side.
So I use AI apps pretty extensively in my work.
Thanks for this. It shows that AI can be used as a tool simply. Some people forget that we all use it daily, e.g. when using a search engine. I actually find it easier to dictate messages than to swype or type. All that is needed is to keep mankind and our fellow brothers and sisters separated by a clear line from the world of AI machines. We use them, we discard them when they are useless. They are none of us.
AI images are not Photography. AI images are made. Photographs are taken.
There is a difference.
No argument on good or bad. Nothing like "digital vs film" or the like.
AI is put together from a storehouse of images and information.
Photographs are what is there at the time the shutter is tripped or the lens/pinhole/whatever lets in the light to the film/glass plate/paper - whatever.
AI images are not Photography. AI images are made. Photographs are taken.
I think it was Anselm Adams who said: "We do not take photographs, we make them." And that was long before the invention of Photoshop. They had to use sophisticated development just to get the exposure the way they wanted. Now, I guess I would say I do a makeover to each image I "take".
You take a photograph. You then make a print.
St. Ansel took many photographs and made prints from the negatives.
AI does not "take" any photographs - just takes the work of many others and tries to make an image from what it stole from others.
I am looking forward to a camera manufacturer implementing physics defying AI in their in-camera image creation workflow. Mobile phones with a much smaller sensor are already doing wonders with AI providing the experience of blurred background effect you can expect only from a 3k dollar, 2kg lens.
I will welcome the ability to 'choose' in camera, the AI simulation of the bokeh effect of a f/1.2 lens, while using a much lighter and less expensive f/4-5.6 zoom lens.
This will be a win-win case for both the purists who prefer the unadulterated results dictated only by the physics (and chemistry) of the lens/sensor combination, as well as the hobbyists, who don't want to lug around a 2-5 kg lens. The purist will simply choose not to use the AI, while the others can enjoy the benefits as per their preference.
The only thing keeping the camera manufacturers from implementing such an AI is the impression that somehow it is beneath a photographer's station to take benefit of such a convenient tool. Camera/lens manufacturers make a ton on money both by not spending on development of such AI as well as by selling the 2 kg behemoths for the creamy bokeh effect.
What say docs!
I think it is kind of like defining what is a fair use of an image as a derivative. For example Andy Warhol was sued for using a famous photo of Marilyn Monroe in his printmaking. He won because derivative use is permitted if the resulting art is different enough for the new work to stand as art in its own right.
A court decision that is still in question. Theft - justified by "I changed it" is still theft.
Using the images and art of others for inspiration is fine. Copying and trying to justify it by "I changed it" is still a derivitive work, not an original. You steal a Lexus automobile and do body work to add Tail Fins - it is still a Lexus.
It appears that for many theft is fine as long as it benefits them somehow. A lot of grays in what some of us see as a B&W question. Original creative work using inspiration and ideas from others compared to copying.
AI has a lot of potential for all kinds of uses. Many would never let their images be licensed for its type of banking to draw from for its use.
For now in the US the Copyright Office will not issue copyright for AI images.
@dakotah yeah, Warhol estate lost in the supreme court this week. The photographer that took the photo he used won. So good for the photographer. But it is very specific to circumstances when derivative use is fair use. Not at all theft in many cases. In my case I use my own photos for skies, so no problem there.
Obviously, this is a hot topic. We photographers tend to disregard it. I don't think we should be so snotty. After all, we all do post-processing and often to a point where the image is more a work of art than a realistic scene. The various AI enhanced editors on the market and the new generation of AI generating programs just lift that to another level. In my opinion, all that is requested is to mark heavily enhanced or AI generated images as such.
In any case, I like to request a subforum for AI processing, just to keep ourselves sharp on the subject. We cannot simply close our eyes.
Very interesting and yes, a good result. I've said this before: where do we draw the line? I think you have to view photography as either documentary photography or photographic art. If you're producing an image that is supposed to represent reality, like a landscape, or a street scene, is that documentary? Or taking the same images and embellishing them with any number of image tools, including AI plugins like Topaz or DxO or On1, simply to improve the image quality, is that documentary? Or is it now art? Somewhere along the way, when you alter a photograph to a certain point, it is no longer a photograph but rather a work of art using photography as the medium.
Whatever it is, I do agree, that if you are a photographer, be it a documentary photographer or a photographic artist, then take photographs. To use an AI program to completely create an image from scratch is not photography—it's something else: graphic art? Illustration? It's not your photograph, it's your use of AI, nothing more. Back in the old old days, illustrators used airbrush to embellish photographs for publication. Amazing stuff, but not photography. Graphic art. To see more of that kind of work, find a copy of Communication Arts. The same kind of work is now done in Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, using whatever tools available.
I wholeheartedly agree, AI should be a separate forum, if an image is wholly created using AI. Maybe another forum for "Photographic Art" that includes using original photographs altered by the photographer to achieve a work of art. And, of course, the usual forums for photography that hasn't been altered other than edited for exposure and cropping and so on. But, again, where do you draw the line?
"Anything is art, once it's pointed out to you."—Carasco
Yes, many images in Public Domain and in low cost licensing with "unlimited use" permission.
AI gives us no option to know how the source images were used.
Did not mean to blame one particular individual - if I were going to do that I would name a few real thieves - like Jeff Koons. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-jeff-koons-8-puppies-lawsuit-changed-artists-copy
Blatanly stealing the original work done by Art Rodgers - just one of many who do this type of thing.
With AI you have no idea whose images are taken to make your finished work.
If you use your own experience and reference material you create a new piece, given you aren't doing a copy and making it bigger - See Warhol. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/05/18/supreme-court-andy-warhol-foundation-copyright-case/10984721002/
Or Prince. https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/18/politics/supreme-court-prince-andy-warhol/index.html
Your expirience and influences may show in your images. But copying is for classes while trying to learn how the masters did it. In art classes we paint to learn technique and more but do not try to pass off our copy of Nighthawks or American Gothis as our original work.
As Photogarphers we face a different set of problems. Have seen fights among photographers at "favorite view" spots. Arches, Snake River Overlook, and many other famous views open to everyone. Not many angles to shoot the sunrise through the arch and so easy to see a "COPY" when one is relegated to one or two specific accessible location for their tripod.
Still an original image - but it "has been done before". Does not mean you can't shoot it or print and call it your own. It IS your own. Even if you never saw what Ansel or David Muench or Ray McSavany shot at that location and yours is within inches and mm of focal length of what they did - it is yours.
But, AI takes those and now makes them into something you might show. Not creativity, selective theft..., but still theft.
Dear all, I came back to photography during the pandemic. My previous forays wer during the days of film... Thanks to everyone at PL I was able to soak a fantastic amount of knowledge and guidance.
But I also discovered the world of post processing, completely foreign to my previous experiences.
I decided that I would use my camera, a D500, and limited set of lens, to obtain the best results as captured. For now I have stuck to that rule, except for a few rare cases of croping, for which I feel guilty!
This make me an old fart or a purist? Or both!
So I am looking at this AI issue from a completely different angle. This has been covered by other posts but where does reality end when you use PP and where does fantasy begin. Do any of the PP tools use AI? if the answer is yes then if you use said tool you are depending on AI.
I fully support the PL policy to remain AI free and I apreciate the polite and civilised way everyone communicates on these forums, well done.
Lots has been said already, and lots more will come no doubt, especially as AI becomes more seamless and hard to detect. I think the big problem is not in AI itself, but in how easily it can be used deceptively. I'm with the folks here on saying that, at least as long as possible, the best way to handle it in a photographic site is to let it happen somewhere else.
People keep bringing up Ansel Adams and his quote about making rather than taking a photograph, and about his extensive darkroom work. That's all true, as it is true that a photograph is not "real," but it's also true that a photograph, in the traditional sense at least, is a representation of some reality that was in front of a camera. Ansel Adams did not use the intelligence of a machine or even of another person to decide what to shoot, or how to make the pictures he shot represent the reality he felt. There is a reason that AI consists of two words, one of which remains "artificial."
I'm all for AI at times. It can be interesting, picturesque, and often very funny (think Johnny Cash singing "Barbie Girl," and Donald Trump dancing in a tutu). It enables us to picture things that don't exist, or that we lack the skill to illustrate.
Whether there's a place for AI here, I doubt, but if it does occur, I think the most important part of it should be that whenever and however it is used, it should be explicitly acknowledged. If it's all right to use AI then it should be all right to say you did.
I think the big problem is not in AI itself, but in how easily it can be used deceptively.
I think it is quite hard to say that the problem is not with AI, because it's hard to separate the tool from the action if the action is essentially inevitable. Unlike some tools such as hammers, which can be safely regulated with laws to (most of the time) prevent people from using them, AI is a tool that can hardly be regulated.