Excerpted from the December 2, 2024 edition of Sree's Sunday Note.
Is your camera smarter than you are? We certainly hope not, but with a little assistance from artificial intelligence, even egregious errors, like getting your finger in front of the camera lens, can be corrected and make you look like legendary photographer Ansel Adams.
AI-enhanced features are deeply embedded into many of today’s photo apps and some are on by default, thus almost taking the user, er, out of the picture. However, when it comes to the routine use of AI in photography, the message from professional photographers is consistent: It’s a tool, not a replacement for your creativity.
“We did not build our tools to replace someone’s job,” said Terry White, principal worldwide design and photography evangelist at Adobe, maker of Lightroom and Photoshop, two key photo-editing products widely used by professional photographers. White showed off some of his favorite Lightroom and Photoshop features during Adobe’s recent Photography Create Now event in New York.
White said that while Adobe continues to improve its generative AI features, which can create and insert completely new elements into a photo, like a reflective rain puddle or birds in the sky, such features are meant to enhance a photographer’s creativity, not replace it.
In a YouTube video, White showed how Photoshop was able to remove numerous power and telephone lines from a photo of the famous “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign and patch the sign and the sky so the areas where the lines were removed weren’t noticeable.
In another example, when he tried to remove distractions in the background from a photo of himself, Photoshop’s AI not only recognized the people to the side of him, but detected people far in the distance he had not noticed and gave the option of which people to actually remove. White noted that Adobe’s generative AI is trained on content it owns, not on customer content.
One exhibitor at Adobe Photography Create, 100cameras, a program which uses photography to encourage young students to express themselves, was a good example of how human creativity can win out over AI. The organization showed off copies of “A Worldwide Lens: Perspectives from Youth,” its 2020 book which showcases the talents of young photographers from around the world, many of whom created stunning images with outdated cameras or AI-free smartphones.
100cameras offers young students a curriculum which “utilizes photography as a dynamic tool for self-expression,” but also promotes “active listening to the thoughts, feelings, and life experiences of their peers through constructive discussions and group activities.”
Trashhand, a photographer who said he spends 90 percent his photo-editing time in Lightroom, urged photographers at the Adobe event to be honest with their photography and editing and not to artificially inject moods into scenes that aren’t there.
“Don’t catch feelings,” said Trashhand, who doesn’t publicize his real name. “Catch photos.”
Additional Adobe Photography Create events are scheduled for Salt Lake City Dec. 3 and New Orleans on Dec. 5.
My tech tips appear regularly in Sree's Sunday Note.
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