Latest Photoshop goes further down the AI path [as usual, this thread has expanded into a more general discussion on Photographic Matters]

[barman58]

I am, like many a long term Photoshop user [I get Photoshop as part of my "Photographer" subscription that gets me my main application for my photography, Lightroom classic.

I have just installed the latest Beta of Photoshop and am impressed with the latest AI features included the following two images are a before/after shots of a quick edit [five to ten minutes], of one of my images ...







This uses some basic tidying and the sky replacement after a clean up of the un-needed items using the AI removal tool

 

[Ghot]

This uses some basic tidying and the sky replacement after a clean up of the un-needed items using the AI removal tool

Is that a Terminator I see in the lower left corner?





A.I. doesn't bother me just because it's AI. It bothers me cause there's idiots coding it. ^^

I worry that coders will have less than optimal priorities driving themselves. Priorities like financial gain or who will come up with something... first. I'd rather their priorities were planning ahead and attempting to foresee how their constructions might fail, and what disasters a failure might bring about.

If history is any indication, those that do consider the ramifications of their creations, will be few if any, and will be generally ignored.

 

[BrianInEngland]

AI is slowly (but still too quickly) replacing human creativity and thought.

 

[Dru2]

@barman58, thanks for the update.

I tried the new A.I. powered noise reduction system in Lightroom and have to say I was impressed. Usually when I de-noise, I have to add sharpening after. Here I added very little sharpening after using the A.I. powered system. This was the test image....



The ISO set for this image was 1250 on my Nikon D850. I typically try to stay below that setting but needed to extra sensitivity due to this being shot in natural light. Highly impressed with A.I. here.

 

[jvickers]

AI is slowly (but still too quickly) replacing human creativity and thought.

I've been reading texts on AI in education, and I humbly disagree with your statement. If anything, AI is freeing people up from repetitive and mundane tasks. This allows people to be even more creative and think more and envision things. You have to know how to leverage AI and what prompts to ask it in order to benefit from it.

For instance, from a teaching perspective, AI can create a lesson plan. This does not mean it's replacing the educator. The educator would still need to see if the lesson plan was exactly what they wanted to teach. It doesn't remove pedagogy, empathy, experience, and other human elements from the process. AI is simple completing a mundane task. Teachers are free to be creative with what the AI has produced.

I'm sure some will disagree with me. That's okay, though. We're all entitled to our opinion!

 

[Dru2]

I agree A.I. has its negatives, but do we really need to beat that to death here?

 

[BrianInEngland]

I've been reading texts on AI in education, and I humbly disagree with your statement. If anything, AI is freeing people up from repetitive and mundane tasks. This allows people to be even more creative and think more and envision things. You have to know how to leverage AI and what prompts to ask it in order to benefit from it.

For instance, from a teaching perspective, AI can create a lesson plan. This does not mean it's replacing the educator. The educator would still need to see if the lesson plan was exactly what they wanted to teach. It doesn't remove pedagogy, empathy, experience, and other human elements from the process. AI is simple completing a mundane task. Teachers are free to be creative with what the AI has produced.

I'm sure some will disagree with me. That's okay, though. We're all entitled to our opinion!

Yes it can be useful. I'm more concerned about it being used to create 'art' or music, as I've already seen somewhere. This is where it shouldn't be used - to replace the human element of creativity. I know the US TV/film writers are on strike as they're concerned about the use of AI in writing scripts now. AI is good if used properly.

 

[Ghot]

Things A.I. would never think of....

 

[barman58]

Adobe are generally not too "Flash" with the AI functions in their front line applications - with the image I posted I could have achieved the same or similar results using the manual techniques available in the software from a few years ago - the issue with that would be that it would have taken much longer to do - Hours not minutes

Adobe are in the beta stage of their AI image generation software "firefly" where you type a sentence or two describing a concept for an image or a process or modification to an existing image and it will create or modify to meet your needs. at present it is at an early Beta stage but works well - I have just been accepted for the official beta program after several months of waiting after applying to adobe.

The firefly app works on line currently but will eventually be ported into the existing applications like Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom etc

The current Firefly app is working well, I entered a phrase " black cat watching birds through a window" and the result was so realistic that my own cat started hissing at the screen image

Anyone with an Adobe account can access the current Beta apps from the Beta section in the Adobe Creative Cloud App - you get full usable versions any adobe apps that you hold a licence for or a 30 day trial for those that you do not

 

[Ghot]

Adobe are generally not too "Flash" with the AI functions

That... cracked me up. Yet another thing that AI would never come up with.
Proving once again... humans are safe (irreplaceable), for a few more decades.

 

[barman58]

Cats that stare at goats - Via Firefly

 

[Ghot]

Cats that stare at goats - Via Firefly

See.... it's not the same. They almost look like they're in love.


Whereas these two look like they're in a staring contest, which follows more closely with the movie: The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)... which, is what makes it funny.

 

[PerpetualCycle]

The best AI processing advancement to me is their RAW noise reduction (as well as other photography raw noise processing like DXO Photolab deep prime). The noise processing in RAW is pretty amazing with these advances. And you can use your graphics processor to do the noise reduction processing. And also the content aware fill has greatly improved.

I think the examples of replacing backgrounds etc. still look pretty obvious and don't impress me.

 

[Ghot]

@barman58

 

[jimbo45]

I am, like many a long term Photoshop user [I get Photoshop as part of my "Photographer" subscription that gets me my main application for my photography, Lightroom classic.

I have just installed the latest Beta of Photoshop and am impressed with the latest AI features included the following two images are a before/after shots of a quick edit [five to ten minutes], of one of my images ...

View attachment 60279



View attachment 60280

This uses some basic tidying and the sky replacement after a clean up of the un-needed items using the AI removal tool

I usually agree 100% with you on these sorts of things -- but from my experience with visiting the UK the sky etc is much more indicative of what it actually looks like in your ist pic -- of course if supplying pics for the Tourist bureau "for a commercial gig" -- no problem with that.

I find A.I really good for using things like "Unsharp mask", camera shake reduction if not using a tripod and sensible white balance to squeeze every bit of info out of the existing pixels rather than having pics of how "one would like it to be".

I don't have any problems with Photoshop removing tacky Street furniture, red eye, or poles appearing to come out of people's heads -- Urban photography in particular has to be done quickly and usually discreetly so getting the best vantage point isn't an option. Also people these days don't want the hassle (and expense) of pan and tilt lenses for straigtening up high buildings etc.

Nice challenge for budding "Mobile phone photographers here". -- Try going to the City of Norwich in the UK and getting a reasonably accurate close complete shot of Norwich Cathedral with a straight steeple using a a mobile phone. !!! - I visited Norwich before I caught the Harwich to Hoek van Holland ferry and trying to get a decent pro grade shot of that cathedral was all but nigh impossible in the time availlable I had and without using a whole slew of professional lenses and camera(s).

This is probably the best an amateur can do -- this pic on on the trip advisor site so public domain. For good pro pics to see the scale of the thing just google Norwich cathedral images.




Laws of physics mean that whatever the processing power smaller and smaller sensors will have more and more noise -- and noise reduction is based on "guess work". It does reasonably OK but I defy anybody with even the best quality mobile phone to produce a professional quality print on proper photo paper at A2 (almost cinema poster size - double A3 which itself is double the typical computer standard paper size of A4).

US readers who still are even more behind in non metric neasurements -- A4 is approx "Letter size" but who sends physical letters these days. But at least they never used rods poles and perches for measurement or used chains for cricket pitch lengths (I don't think they played cricket although Santa Monica in CA , on the beachfront not far from LA has a cricket club - populated mainly by ex pat Brits. Great to visit as it has the best beer around -- Budweser not welcome here abounds !!!.

Great though people still believe in genuine photography these days. Love it.

One of the best ways for budding photographers at any level of skill in improving their photography is to use a cheap piece of equipent called "A Tripod". Next is a bit of patience and 3rd is to walk around the site if you have time and try and mentally compose the shot. Just snapping away because your phone card has the capacity for zillions of pics won't make you a better photographer, I accept there are times when a phone shot is the only anser -- really quick snaps, war zones,car accident evidence for court or police etc so I'm not "Anti mobile phone stuff" in the right places.

BTW lightroom is a great app. !!!

Cheers
jimbo

 

[barman58]

@jimbo45

I take most of my landscape images in Wales, and as Max Boyce said when describing the colours of Wales, "They Call it Rhonda Grey" In real terms the skys can often "burn out" to achieve a natural look in the landscape itself or with my wildlife shots the skies will also not capture realistically as they are not the main subject of the image, modern cameras have huge exposure latitude compared with the cameras I started with back in the last century, but they are still quite limited compared to the human eye.

When I use a sky replacement I try to use an option that replaces the limitations of the camera with a realistic image to match what my eye saw.

Do I ever "Gild the Lilly" ? ... yes when I think it will add to the artistic value of an image

I always shoot in RAW so due to the nature of the medium I process all of my images to some extent but try to show the image I saw

 

[TechnoMage2021]

Barman, you're so WAY above my own level of pictorial expertise, it's not even funny.

My own pic editing needs are so simple, that Photo Shop would be gross overkill for me.
The expense and learning curve just would not be worth it for me.
So, I use a little (FREE) program from France, called "Photo Filtre", an older ver., going back Years.

I take a lot of pic's with my cheap little Chinese digital pocket camera. They all need some editing, before I can send them via email, or even just save them to my own "My Pictures" folder.
"Photo Filtre" allows me to resize, crop, and even add contrast to pic's that come out 'Weak' and maybe a little too light.
I know it will do a lot more, but I'm a rank amateur photographer, so I don't really get the most out of 'Photo Filtre'. I call it my "Poor Man's Photo Shop".

Carry on Mate! You're doing great!
TM
PS: There have been many updates to Photo Filtre since I got my own copy, years ago, but for me, more is not better. This is definitely a "Poor man's Photo Shop".

 

[barman58]

There are a range of applications available for processing images from digital cameras My photography plan that includes Lightroom and Photoshop plus a selection of other applications costs me around $10 per month and is always up to date. I have other applications but find the plan from Adobe covers all my and probably most other users needs.

There are a number of Open Source Pixel editors available such as Gimp and Pant.net that has a good range of functions at a great price of $0

I think one of the better Budget editors that is a one off purchase is Affinity Photo it has a full range of features and is well priced, and often heavily discounted, for PC, MAC [and Ipad at less than $20].

I actually own the full suite of three apps Affinity Paint, Affinity Designer, [Vector editor], and Affinity Publisher [Page designer] as I was offered the lot for a stupid price when I needed a Vector editor

Update, the whole Affinity Suite has just been updated to version 2.1, with a huge list of improvements, I've been a part of their Beta program for a few years now and my test version is quite some way more advanced than the new release

Beta programs are common in graphics applications and can be a good free way to edit images, although there is always a risk of losing work, so care is needed

 

[TraderGary]

@barman58, I too am an Adobe Photography Plan subscriber. I first started with Adobe Photoshop well over 20 years ago. I too am an ardent amateur photographer and shoot in RAW. Today I mostly use Adobe Lightroom Classic for my photo processing. I like what Adobe is doing with AI in photo processing.

 

[barman58]

I started using the photography plan for lightroom, which is also my primary editor. with my basic background in IT I do suffer from a tendency to buy new graphics editing software, even when it's not really a necessity at the time. There was a time when the market seemed to be leaving Adobe behind with new technology like AI but they have now caught up and are again one of the leaders.

I intend to cut back on buying for the sake of it as the adobe plan gives me everything I need I have developed my own processing system where every image is stored in Lightroom and fully annotated and managed there. all basic processing is done within the lightroom develop module, and anything that Lightroom cannot do is achieved with an Edit-In ... session in an external editor, which is getting to be almost entirely Photoshop