p.2 #2 · Ai and Photoshop's Generative Fill (a discussion please)
AmbientMike wrote:
One big problem is image theft, could they even make any money if they paid photographers vs just going online and grabbing images? The AI in the Northrup's video generated watermarks!!! And how can you let people copyright images containing stolen material off the internet?
In music it is common to perform intellectual property theft via sampling. I don't see partial image theft being any different.
p.2 #3 · Ai and Photoshop's Generative Fill (a discussion please)
I saw a photographer complaining that using generative fill to remove a small lens flare was flagged as AI. I do think it's fair to complain that a photo with a small edit like this is labeled the same as one where it's completely AI-generated. Perhaps they can make this distinction somehow. But in the coming age of social media, it's going to be very important to identify what's AI and what's not. People are not ready for how deepfakes and AI-generated voice is going to destabilize social media when it comes to politics and celebrities.
Jun 01, 2024 at 04:08 PM
Magnum PI Offline • • [X]
p.2 #4 · Ai and Photoshop's Generative Fill (a discussion please)
chez wrote:
Losing battle my friend unless you want to live in a cave. Even posting online you are entering the world of AI as big brother is listening and watching you. Run…hide, don’t let them win.
Well, I restored 5 VHS recorders last year. I don't stream ANY content from any services. All my movies, TV shows and music is on my own servers, within my own - in house - 10 G network. I do not use any cloud services. It's all my content only, all under my control.
I removed all GSM, WiFi and BT modules from all of my vehicles. None of my TVs etc. are hooked up to the internet. Nothing in my house is "smart" anymore.
All my modern computers are heavily modified, don't auto update and sit behind a massive CISCO hardware firewall. All ports closed by default.
When I go out, its usually for the local beach and my daily 2 to 3 hour swim in the ocean. All I carry is one of my Swiss made automatic dive watches, like a Tudor Pelagos or a SINN U1. No cell phone, no Bluetooth speaker, no GPS navigation. At best I would bring one of my restored Aiwa or Sony Cassette Walkman's.
A fun night for me is playing a couple games on my 42 year old C64, loaded from floppy disks and not a modded sdcard reader, followed by watching a movie on VHS.
I don't feed ANY social media platforms, don't have any accounts, only post on a handful of forums when needed, and even that is very limited.
On the side I'm a wildlife rehabber. I'm in daily contact with local animals in need.
You get the idea.
Walking away from being connected 24/7, all the politically biased media outlets, and most modern tech is the best thing I have ever done. I'm finally in charge again. Every day is a true adventure - the way it used to be. I spend most of my time in nature, and my stress level is close to zero. Much healthier lifestyle too.
This is not living in a cave, you are living with a bunch of chains wrapped around your ankle, you just don't want to see it that way. How much time do you spend in-front of the computer or smart phone?
Have a look at your total Post count of 25191. That's crazy. Do you understand how much time of your valuable life you have wasted while sitting on your butt?
Talking about it, I'm heading out now to my beach. If you ever come down to FL, I invite you for a swim, and a new perspective.
--
This is not AI generated, this is my backyard, and not by accident...
p.2 #5 · Ai and Photoshop's Generative Fill (a discussion please)
Some people have been cheating in their photos forever, often to support their other lies. Like the staged kiss of Doisneau, and Stalin era people removals. The train is nearing the end of the line now, but the slope has been headiing steadily downhill for many decades. Content Aware Fill was introduced in PS in CS5. To my surprise, several here admitted to dropping in replacement skies recently, something I would never do.
There are no red lines to this business and the separation from reasonable cleaning up (the clone tool for dust and regular colour/contrast/exposure in post) and the content wholesale replacements is itself murky. If something looks fake, it probably is. High end fake work is not easy nor is it quick to perform. I actually assume most 'glossy' images are heavily manipulated but you know the funny thing:
People with discernment and an appreciation of 'real' art (not the money laundering stuff) will actually abandon mass market imagery in large part. Their interests will recede to personal work and those of known trustworthy actors.
It's a small pool, and quite distinct from the fast food visuals you see in the media and modern cinema. So it will be self-defeating for the perps. Good people hate being lied to - unless they are told it is a lie, putting the image in an entirely different category - that of fake images, composites and the like.
p.2 #6 · Ai and Photoshop's Generative Fill (a discussion please)
I used generative AI to remove strangers in the background, usually in photo of my friends that they posted in social media but that's about it. Sometimes it worked very nicely. Sometimes you get strange and surprising result. One time I removed a car in the background and AI decided to just replace that car with a different type of car which I thought was very funny.
Have not used generative AI in any photo I posted here. However, I rather like AI driven masking that photoshop has in ACR. I think that is very convenient.
Some people will cheat whenever they can, some people may disclose and some people may never cheat.
I think you just to make peace with the fact that not everyone is playing fairly and enjoy what you do and
don't care so much about what others are doing.
PS exercising common sense is becoming more and more important as it is much more common now that what you see
is not what actually is. A picture does not always worth a thousand words anymore.
p.2 #8 · Ai and Photoshop's Generative Fill (a discussion please)
I think we can get too caught up in purity sometimes. A *completely* AI generated photo is probably not acceptable for getting "likes" or for entry in competitions etc unless they state that it is a completely AI generated photo. However, removal of something distracting in the background which is not important to the subject I think in most cases is ok. I mean, we remove noise, boost shadows, pull down highlights, crop etc to improve a photo that is strictly not how the photo was taken. Is not flash and reflectors etc altering the scene before you take the photo? Is that so different from boosting shadows after the fact? What about sharpening, boosting colour, WB etc? In the strictest terms should they not be adjusted? Removing a piece of paper from the ground post process because you didn't notice it when taking the photo because you were too concerned with getting that fleeting moment. Is that so different from removing it before you took the photo if you had the opportunity? Removing a twig off a branch so you have a clear shot of a bird is more detrimental (to the environment) than removing it post process - I would rather do it post process than harm the environment!
Photography has never really been solely reportage as there has always been some manipulation pre or post photo, you just have to decide what is acceptable. Let's not get all religious and sanctimonious about this, it is an *art form* after all and thus must have a degree of artistic license allowed. There are just some things that can never be controlled whilst getting the photo and so, to some degree, post processing to get an image that removes a distraction is not necessarily a sin, IMO. I have used AI in Photoshop to remove distracting elements in some of my photos of birds etc, just because there is no way to control the environment no matter how, when or where I go to get the shot. It used to be cloning which took lots of time, but now all AI does for me is speeds up that process for the same result and I have less time these days to be cloning out distractions. At the end of the day, as long as the subject is real and the situation is real, I have no problems with a bit of manipulation to the photo to remove distractions to get a more appealing photo.
p.2 #9 · Ai and Photoshop's Generative Fill (a discussion please)
> However, removal of something distracting in the background which is not important in to the subject I think in most cases is ok.
That depends. Are you taking a picture of a bird and removing a distracting branch / leaf that disturbs the continuity of an otherwise OOF the background that is totally blurred out? Are you just trying to seek homogeneity in a totally irrelevant background for a bird photo? Or are you taking a person or some other significant object out of the photograph because they aren't important to the subject and/or don't agree with your vision for the environment? I don't mind reflectors and lightboxes to improve the lighting of a scene and then capturing the scene as it existed with the supplemental lighting. That's real. But boosting colors is cheating, dropping in new skies is serious cheating and removing people is a definite no-go.
Bird photography and reportage are two entirely different endeavors. I wouldn't object to removing distracting backgrounds in a bird photo where the environment is deemphasized, I can see how you consider it a necessary evil -- but I would certainly object to removing people or other significant objects from any kind of documentary, reportage or portrait photograph. That's beyond impurity, that's dishonest imagery. Of course there's a line that has to be drawn somewhere. Where? That's the hard part.
I was looking for a photo to post to this thread, but unfortunately I could not find it. It was a pre-presidential satire photograph of Donald Trump stepping out of the Trump helicopter. Someone had photoshopped a sleeping homeless person onto the tarmac, so that it looked like a ruthless billionaire was deliberately stepping over a homeless person as he walked out of his helo to get into his limousine. I thought it was damned funny. Of course back then it was so obviously photoshopped and that we all knew it was faked -- but today how would we know if it's real or not? AI could make that kind of photo so realistic as to be unrecognizable as a fake.
There are plenty of people who hold such a dim view of him (and other politicians) that they would probably believe a convincing AI generated photo. The great danger that comes along when dishonest people use AI to manipulate society to further their political agenda by promoting lies and propaganda. We seriously need to recognize that kind of fakery and try to stop it.
p.2 #10 · Ai and Photoshop's Generative Fill (a discussion please)
coralnut wrote:
> However, removal of something distracting in the background which is not important in to the subject I think in most cases is ok.
That depends. Are you taking a picture of a bird and removing a distracting branch / leaf that disturbs the continuity of an otherwise OOF the background that is totally blurred out? Are you just trying to seek homogeneity in a totally irrelevant background for a bird photo? Or are you taking a person or some other significant object out of the photograph because they aren't important to the subject and/or don't agree with your vision for the environment? I don't mind reflectors and lightboxes to improve the lighting of a scene and then capturing the scene as it existed with the supplemental lighting. That's real. But boosting colors is cheating, dropping in new skies is serious cheating and removing people is a definite no-go.
Bird photography and reportage are two entirely different endeavors. I wouldn't object to removing distracting backgrounds in a bird photo where the environment is deemphasized, I can see how you consider it a necessary evil -- but I would certainly object to removing people or other significant objects from any kind of documentary, reportage or portrait photograph. That's beyond impurity, that's dishonest imagery. Of course there's a line that has to be drawn somewhere. Where? That's the hard part.
I was looking for a photo to post to this thread, but unfortunately I could not find it. It was a pre-presidential satire photograph of Donald Trump stepping out of the Trump helicopter. Someone had photoshopped a sleeping homeless person onto the tarmac, so that it looked like a ruthless billionaire was deliberately stepping over a homeless person as he walked out of his helo to get into his limousine. I thought it was damned funny. Of course back then it was so obviously photoshopped and that we all knew it was faked -- but today how would we know if it's real or not? AI could make that kind of photo so realistic as to be unrecognizable as a fake.
There are plenty of people who hold such a dim view of him (and other politicians) that they would probably believe a convincing AI generated photo. The great danger that comes along when dishonest people use AI to manipulate society to further their political agenda by promoting lies and propaganda. We seriously need to recognize that kind of fakery and try to stop it....Show more →
I completely agree about reportage photography and that is why I stated: "Photography has never really been solely reportage as there has always been some manipulation pre or post photo, you just have to decide what is acceptable." In other words, I was stating that reportage is exactly that, reportage and should never be manipulated. There is no room in reportage for fakery on any level.
p.2 #12 · Ai and Photoshop's Generative Fill (a discussion please)
No one has even brought up the Content Credentials initiative…because most here are clearly way behind the 8 ball on the current state of the market. A good primer.
p.2 #13 · Ai and Photoshop's Generative Fill (a discussion please)
RoamingScott wrote:
No one has even brought up the Content Credentials initiative…because most here are clearly way behind the 8 ball on the current state of the market. A good primer.
He stated that Nikon is releasing a Z9 with Content Credentials built in. Hmm. Is that a new Z9 that he knows about? Or is it just a FW update?
Lance B wrote:
He stated that Nikon is releasing a Z9 with Content Credentials built in. Hmm. Is that a new Z9 that he knows about? Or is it just a FW update?
p.2 #16 · Ai and Photoshop's Generative Fill (a discussion please)
RoamingScott wrote:
No one has even brought up the Content Credentials initiative…because most here are clearly way behind the 8 ball on the current state of the market. A good primer.
Some are more behind that others:
Will you tell me if a picture is fake?
No – the CAI does not make judgements about the content of an image, so we will not label content as fake or inauthentic. Instead, the standard enables creators to transparently share the details of how they created an image. This way, an end user can access context around who, what, and how the picture was changed — then judge for themselves how authentic that image is.
Scrolling down to the bottom of the page, it appears that all the major players in photography and the Trusted Computing Initiative have signed on.
As @snapsy noted, there's not any real intent to determine whether an image was modified using AI. Instead the intent is to identify the person who took the picture, and any subsequent people who modified it, to create a chain of custody for who has modified the image. (That could put an end to anonymous photography.)
It appears that the incentive is not to identify AI images, but to uniquely identify who creates an image.
That might be OK for people who are professionals who want to be associated with their work product, but it's not so good for the average guy with a camera who likes to be anonymous and doesn't want his identify information embedded in every image, and cross referenced with the databases that are maintained by the Big Tech companies like Adobe Analytics, who use invisible embedded scripting on web pages to track user behavior across their entire browsing history and resell that personal behavior information to other data brokers.
I don't want the metadata information in my camera to be shared with these companies, and if you use an Adobe product it's possible that they already process relevant metadata from your images when you edit a photo using their software. Personally, I don't want these companies to glean my camera's serial number, my name, address and phone number from the metadata, put it in a dossier, and associate it with my online browsing behavior. Adobe Analytics specializes in doing that. Now Big Tech has the ability to log and categorize all of my photographic activity. That's a privacy concern for me.
It's not hard to see that in it's most benign form this 'credentialing' is surveillance for marketing purposes, where your identity is confirmed and what kind of photos you take will be correlated with your online browsing behavior and included in your personal dossier. In a more malignant form this could just be the expanding surveillance state being given a more benign face. We've already seen how the behavior of Big Tech companies is manipulated and controlled by an outside entity. We've got web browsers that track our online history, smart phones that do the same, and now our cameras will be spying on us too. Of course, as soon as you register your camera for warranty, your registration information will be shared with business partners, and every photo that you take will identify you as it's creator.
The amount of information that is being collected about us is mind-blowing. We're reaching the point that everything that we do with a modern electronic device becomes part of our dossier, and if anyone ever wants to mine the data to take a close look at us, they'll know more about us than we know ourselves, because every day of our life is capable of being recorded, analyzed and profiled.
Some of us may like that. Others may not. Others will just make some wisecrack about conspiracy theories.
p.2 #18 · Ai and Photoshop's Generative Fill (a discussion please)
I am personally not a fan of IGs made with AI implementation. Made with AI makes it sound like the image was generated with AI not edited with an AI tool. In my opinion just cause you used AI tool to remove a spot in a photo does not mean suddenly you should not trust an image because it was edited with AI. Someone can be making much more noticeable changes to a photo using content aware fill and no one would ever know.
Also on the technical side, it sounds like IG is just using meta data to determine made with AI, which can be completely side stepped with a simple screenshoot. So basically anyone that wants to deceive people will have no problem doing so.
I think we are going to need to focus more on how to prove real images are real than trying to prove what images are made with AI.
p.2 #19 · Ai and Photoshop's Generative Fill (a discussion please)
We’ve accepted cgi in movies…many of the great movies contain heavy cgi. We accept machine built pottery…just back from Mexico where there are markets full of “authentic” Mexican pottery that is not hand made. We accept rugs that are not hand woven. One day we’ll accept photos generated by computers.
It will be up to the photographer to sell customers on authentic prints…just like it’s up to the craftsman to sell their pottery is handmade.
p.2 #20 · Ai and Photoshop's Generative Fill (a discussion please)
As long as there are people obsessed with the idea of recording moments of their life in images, photography will never die. People have hailed the death of photography for over a century, since the brownie camera came out, but somehow it keeps puttering on as an art form, hobby, philosophy of life etc.
When printed, photos become artifacts of our brief existence on the earth. AI images are kind of like those magic eye "3d" images. Once you figure out the trick, they lack meaning, because the effect is cognitive not emotional.
