A I in photography is certainly a hot topic. There seems to be all sorts of different responses to this rapidly emerging technology, from fear and mistrust to excitement and enthusiasm.
In this feature we will take a look at the ways AI technology is currently being used in photographic image editing so that you can decide just how far you want to take it.
Make things better
AI can offer technical enhancements to images that were not possible before. AI can convincingly remove high ISO image noise while improving details, upsize images and improve the detail rendition in raw images over the original file. This is all achieved with AI deep learning software which can, essentially, work out what’s in the image and add to it, replace it or enhance it ‘intelligently’. We look at some of these tools in this first section.
Enhance and exaggerate
In the second section we’ll look at AI time-savers, such as AI masking tools, Lightroom’s Adaptive Presets and AI sky replacement. Photographers have long used editing software to change and enhance parts of a photograph, and AI tools now make this a whole lot simpler.
Change the world
This is where the AI controversy starts to bite. There are AI image generators like DALL-E which can create entire images from text prompts, but for photographers Adobe’s new Generative Fill and Generative Expand tools are probably more relevant, as ways to add new objects, backgrounds or surroundings
