When do you cross the line with AI or PS editing?

[Comet Hunter]

So for future reference, I posted some images today where I used a phone editing tool to remove people as it was so crowded, almost all pics were photo bombed. Am I cheating?

After I get home in a couple weeks, I will have 100's of photos to process and post, but I want people to also know they are also legit!

Example, yesterday I took a picture of a canon leading to petra, I removed the people, then for fun, or to see what Ai could do, and told it to add a raging stream which it did, and on my phone it looked ss real as could be. That kind of image i would never post, But........

When do you cross the line with image alterations?

All comments welcome!

 

[AlanLichty]

I don't have any qualms about using it to remove things from a capture (like people, highways, and branches) but I have never used it to add stuff to an image. I have been removing distractions from captures for decades before AI showed up on the scene so AI was just another tool for that in my book.

 

[Jeffrey]

A very popular topic.

Everyone has to first define their own line and then decide if they will cross it. I commonly remove distractions and do minor repairs to save worthy images. I create images that I see in my mind. That often involves removing errant branches that may be in front of a bird I like. I keep these decisions to myself!

 

[JimFox]

Hey Ed,

As Jeffrey said, I think it's something we all have to decide for ourselves what's too much.

I think the biggest thing is to just be upfront. So you had people removed, then it's best just to say that you cleaned up the image and removed some people that were in it. Most of us here I think would be fine with that.

It's the adding things that weren't in the image that is most problematic, and would cause a problem for most photographers. So I would stay away from that.

The reason I had asked about ChatGPT before was that in Astrophotography, especially with all of the Smart Telescopes, I have seen in those groups on FaceBook, where lot's of people who get the Smart Telescopes, and have no photography or astrophotography background will want their photos to look as good as everyone elses but don't want to spend the money for software, so they use ChatGPT to process their astro image. With that ChatGPT will replace their astro image with a new image that someone else captured but is processed correctly. The new user has no clue in most cases. This to me, and every astrophotographer I know is wrong.

So when I saw the AI Generated on the bottom of some of your images, I wasn't sure if you were using ChatGPT and it was replacing your image with another and you didn't realize it.

Especially for us Landscape photographers who generally don't like people in our photos. Most of us have used the Clone tool, etc to manually remove people, and we have done it for years. So if you or anyone used an AI tool to now remove the person, it's no different then what we have been doing already.

Our general rule here is if you use AI to edit an image, just state that you used it and why. I think that's totally acceptable.

Thanks for starting a thread on this, as AI seems to be taking over our world, and it's good to bring it up once in a while as photographers so we can discuss it and decide what's acceptable or not.

 

[Kyle Jones]

The "is this a photo or is it digital art" discussions have been taking place for years (decades?). The "is this AI?" version is a new wrinkle to it. My personal line has always been something like "I didn't add anything and nobody can tell what I did". That excludes things like blending an image of the moon shot at 100mm into a 24mm landscape (anyone who knows what they are looking for can tell). It has included moving a moon from a single image a little further down to improve the composition. Removing stray branches and grass? Sure. Stretching mountains to look taller? No. Again, these are my lines and when I go outside them I am open about it - like when I blending an aurora from my deck in Montana into a scene from Norway.

I think the AI discussion is a little tougher. I am expecting a backlash to AI generated images as people grow weary of trying to figure out if a place is real. At the top level, it is pretty easy to declare that something generated from a prompt is fundamentally different that something generated from a shutter click. Does using an AI sharpening or noise reduction tool change that? Sometimes I think it does as details and structures can appear that never existed in the original frame (the terraces created in one of Jim's night images comes to mind). Is using an AI remove tool fundamentally different than cloning? Can I still say "not AI" if I used it?

Realistically I can say anything I want. Just like Peter Lik can claim he doesn't composite while displaying a sunset image with a full moon high in the sky. Whether or not it should, my credibility matters to me.

 

[Jeffrey]

Good job Kyle!

 

[Comet Hunter]

Outstanding comments and advice. Thank you all.

In a few weeks, I will have hundreds of images to process, and your thoughts are great guidelines to go by.

The 6 day Nile River cruise starts today, plus the balloon ride later this week. It's over Luxor, not Giza, my mistake, but it should still be memorable all the same

 

[BlackRockArt]

................

I think the biggest thing is to just be upfront. So you had people removed, then it's best just to say that you cleaned up the image and removed some people that were in it. Most of us here I think would be fine with that.

It's the adding things that weren't in the image that is most problematic, and would cause a problem for most photographers. So I would stay away from that.

....................

I concur.

I have seen so many good photos ruined by the added objects, the lighting, scale, geometry, .... at best it's clumsy, more often it's a silly attempt.

Oliver