Today I was exploring the use of AI NEURAL FILTERS in Adobe Photoshop with my Digital II class. It lead to a great discussion about computational photography and truth in advertising. With AI we are able to achieve image believability that rivals the greatest trompe l’oeil paintings. There is no doubt that AI is stealing the efforts of every artist of the past. With a single click of my mouse I was able to transform a simple photo into a painting that I found extremely pleasing to look at. Of course it is presented only as pixels on a screen and lacks the depth of impasto painting. Perhaps I could use this technology to essentially teach myself to paint… kind of in the same way I did paint by numbers as a child.
I don’t pass extreme judgement on this new technology. I remain open and curious as to how I might use it to create something innovative. Not really.
The demonstration and subsequent discussion led me to look back on the truth in advertising laws from the 1960’s that are theoretically still in place but have numerous work arounds that allow photographers to push the boundaries of believability.
Yesterday I matted a darkroom print I made from a single frame of film. No AI magic involved in that image. I found it very pleasing too. I haven’t been making too many prints lately because the paper I ordered at Christmas was on backorder and just arrived last night.
It seems that the interest in analog film products has increased in reaction to the new computational AI photography. Somehow the imagined reality and the physical reality are coming to some sort of equilibrium and I suspect fears of one replacing the other are exaggerations… I hope.
