Should AI edited photos be labelled?

[LocalHero1953]

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6 minutes ago, jaapv said:

I disagree, they are do not alter the content of the image in any relevant way, nor does the photograph pretend to be other than a casual snapshot, not evidence in court. Should I have used old-fashioned cloning techniques to remove the lady (for instance using another photograph from the same series), should I have declared it then? 

NB I extended my previous response after you posted.

So, you disagree. That's why I wrote 'by my standards' and 'YMMV'. What would I have done? Left the woman in, and cursed myself for not composing the image to exclude her.

If it's a 'casual snapshot' then it's not important enough to use generative AI on, IMO. But without such a declaration, I will be looking at all your photos and wondering what you have removed to make it look better.

Edited September 21 by LocalHero1953

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[jaapv]

If you had been working on an easel with brushes and oils, would you have painted her in? Or something non-distracting?

 

4 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

If it's a 'casual snapshot' then it's not important enough to use generative AI on

Those thirty seconds to make my wife happier? Important to me.

[LocalHero1953]

33 minutes ago, jaapv said:

If you had been working on an easel with brushes and oils, would you have painted her in? Or something non-distracting?

Neither. For a casual snapshot I'd have left it. If it is a painting, as a viewer, I have no expectation that any of what I am looking at is real.

Edited September 21 by LocalHero1953

[jaapv]

Nor have I with a photograph. 

[LocalHero1953]

NB I may have extended my #61 after you read it.

[LocalHero1953]

Just now, jaapv said:

Nor have I with a photograph. 

Including your wildlife photos?
We differ. I have an expectation that a photograph is substantially founded in reality. You may say that your snapshot is. But how do we know, if you treat your snapshots like a painting?
 

[jaapv]

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What would your opinion be had I used non-AI methods to get at the same result? As I said, “nobody” would have disclosed in the past. And what about removing a blade of grass in front of an animal in a wildlife photograph? Not in a competition where it is against the rules, but outside that common practice and not frowned upon. 

[LocalHero1953]

9 minutes ago, jaapv said:

Those thirty seconds to make my wife happier? Important to me.

That's fine. You're making a painting for her. But a public forum is a different audience - they may have different expectations.

[LocalHero1953]

17 minutes ago, jaapv said:

What would your opinion had I used non-AI methods to get at the same result? 

The same. It just becomes an undeclared composite. If I made a composite, I would declare it.

I'm not intending to make a moral judgement. But if I know that you often make such changes without declaring them, I would look at all your photos differently.

Full declaration: I have previously removed water bottles, light switches, exit signs, fire extinguishers etc from photos posted here. If my memory is correct, I have once removed a full human being by AI - but since it was substituted by a cat, I declared it because the result was funny. My views on this have evolved as the power of AI has become so much more accessible in the last year or so, and I would now be much more explicit about such changes,

Edited September 21 by LocalHero1953

[jaapv]

11 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

Including your wildlife photos?
We differ. I have an expectation that a photograph is substantially founded in reality. You may say that your snapshot is. But how do we know, if you treat your snapshots like a painting?
 

My wildlife photographs are not meant to be mere illustrations I hope. I try to convey the feeling of the encounter. 
Edit: Maybe sidetracking, but do you really think that the action you see in wildlife documentaries was not edited to present it in its essence instead of being a true recording? 

[jaapv]

3 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

The same.

There I agree, AI has nothing to do with it. It is about altering content to give a false impression in photographs intended to be purely documentary.

[LocalHero1953]

3 minutes ago, jaapv said:

My wildlife photographs are not meant to be mere illustrations I hope. I try to convey the feeling of the encounter. 

OK. But do you remove objects and replace them with things that weren't there?

If you're making these edits to put on your wall, it wouldn't be an issue for me, but if you put them in the public domain where people may well respond with admiration for your skills, then (IMO) they deserve to know where those skills lie.

FWIW Most organisations that set criteria for wildlife photography forbid generative AI or the use of non-AI editing to make significant changes. The Royal Photographic Society forbids composites, cloning or techniques that add or remove significant elements.

[luetz]

This has become a "circular argument"  as "AI" and editing software advances make "alterations" to "SOOC" images almost obsolete.  For me,  the submitted image stands on it's own merit, unless we are claiming a prize.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[SrMi]

Why do we need to differentiate between image content that was changed with AI and that which was changed manually? Yes, AI is quicker, but the result can be the same.

[jaapv]

2 hours ago, LocalHero1953 said:

OK. But do you remove objects and replace them with things that weren't there?

If you're making these edits to put on your wall, it wouldn't be an issue for me, but if you put them in the public domain where people may well respond with admiration for your skills, then (IMO) they deserve to know where those skills lie.

FWIW Most organisations that set criteria for wildlife photography forbid generative AI or the use of non-AI editing to make significant changes. The Royal Photographic Society forbids composites, cloning or techniques that add or remove significant elements.

You must have noticed that I excluded rules for competitions etc. explicitly. Normally they will ask for an accompanying raw to check. 

[jaapv]

42 minutes ago, luetz said:

This has become a "circular argument"  as "AI" and editing software advances make "alterations" to "SOOC" images almost obsolete.  For me,  the submitted image stands on it's own merit, unless we are claiming a prize.

 

Exactly. Is a photograph an expression of the vision of a photographer or a carbon copy? 

[LocalHero1953]

By a strange coincidence, this evening I've been watching the rehearsal of the play 'A Mirror', by Sam Holcroft. It concerns a playwright with the ability to remember verbatim the conversations he hears or takes part in, and his plays are simple transcriptions of them. This gets him into trouble with the totalitarian regime he lives in, which would rather he wrote beautiful, uplifting, inspiring stories to serve the regime and keep the populace quiet.

The title of the play originates from a quote by Bertolt Brecht: 'art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it'. Holcroft is essentially making an opposite argument: that without seeing or hearing reality, we can be shaped by fiction without realising it (a line in the play is 'a painting is not a mirror').

I agree that whether a photograph is altered by AI or more traditional tools is irrelevant - although we are having this debate now because AI has placed the tools for turning a photograph into a convincing work of fiction into the hands of anyone with a subscription to the right software. Arguments here will not change anything, but, personally, I would like to know how much of a work of fiction a photograph posted here is.

Edited September 21 by LocalHero1953

[LocalHero1953]

48 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

Arguments here will not change anything, but, personally, I would like to know how much of a work of fiction a photograph posted here is.

Perhaps I should have written: 'these days I really really want to know how much of what I am shown or told is a work of fiction.'
That is a bit political, but I think it is what Sam Holcroft was on about.

Edited September 21 by LocalHero1953

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[costa43]

It’s the same for me as it was before AI. There is a line and it is still there. AI just makes the editing process easier. Just like photoshop made it easier for digital when it was introduced. I’m not a fan of the fake blur and adding things into photos personally, I enjoy the craft of photography and composition too much to reduce it down to such a cut and paste process. My editing is extremely minimal, it tends to be just light sliders and some colour correction to taste but if I had a vision and was looking at producing a piece of art, then I would use any tool I could to deliver the end product. 

Edited September 22 by costa43

[250swb]

Isn't the problem with Ai and photography simply that all other forms of art have always been accepted as personal representations of reality while photography is still seen as reality, as in 'the camera never lies'? From cave paintings to the Sistine Chapel, or literature, novels, even history books, or movies, each one is a personal take on what somebody imagines or has seen. And throughout history people have known to question if one too many woolly mammoths have been added to the cave wall or if the plotline of 'Back to the Future' is flawed.

But while the Pictorial movement in photography was in fully swing Mr Eastman was plotting to turn memory and imagination into reality, where every flawed photograph was as real as a perfectly composed photograph, and camera owners could relive the exact moment the image was made. This is where the idea of 'reality' in photography began, with mass consumerism which overwhelmed the artful use of photography. Imagine if everybody wrote novels, or took up the paint brush or danced ballet in the same way they took up photography? And without any artistic or imaginative content at least the family snapshot could be taken as reality, the family really were all on the beach together. But I'm sure somebody has been cropped off the end of a wedding photo, or somebody's photo hasn't been added to the family album as if they never existed, so why the problem with cropping a distracting figure or asking Ai to remove all the lamp posts? And didn't Holbein leave out the odd wart or scab and maybe add an inch in height?