Should AI edited photos be labelled?

[andybarton]

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With the example shown on the previous page, I'd have just cropped out the offending woman.

[LocalHero1953]

23 minutes ago, andybarton said:

With the example shown on the previous page, I'd have just cropped out the offending woman.

Indeed. "if it's not good enough, it's not close enough". The benefit of getting closer for any photo (cropping is the quick and dirty way of getting loser) is that you can lose surrounding distractions without adding fake bookshelves.

[jaapv]

15 hours ago, andybarton said:

With the example shown on the previous page, I'd have just cropped out the offending woman.

I wouldn’t have had an example then. 🤔

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Everybody,

This discussion reads very similarly to discussions a person might hear if they were listening to museum restorers discussing what has been done, or what should be done, to a painting, porcelain, or clock, etc.

The first rule is:

Do no harm to the original.

Then, the repairs, cleaning & restorations, etc. are done & are listed & explained.

There are a wide variety of perspectives utilized by different people at different times & within different parameters as to what, how, etc., should be done.

1 of the subjects discussed is:

What is the point where the original has been so replaced/compromised/etc. by repair, restoration, etc., that it is no longer what it was before?

If a person thinks of the photographer taking the original photo as the artist. And if a person thinks of the same photorapher using Artificial Intelligence, along with various printing techniques, as the restorer:

There are a number of similarities between what I have written above & what is being discssed in this Thread.

Best Regards,

Michael

[lykaman]

Maybe we should have an AI Catagory List:- 1) Sky replaced. 2) various items removed. 3) original colors replaced. 4) Somehow I don’t recognize this image 🫣.. 🕺

[frame-it]

On 9/21/2025 at 10:13 PM, LocalHero1953 said:

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,

well, some people did it the old school way and never explicitly declared anything

 

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Edited September 23 by frame-it

[LocalHero1953]

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That looks like fairly simple adjustment of tone and contrast, or are you pointing out the equivalent of cloning, removal of elements or adding elements?

If that's manipulation then, yes, it's been around since photography began, but I don't think that's what the debate is about.

[SrMi]

36 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

That looks like fairly simple adjustment of tone and contrast, or are you pointing out the equivalent of cloning, removal of elements or adding elements?

If that's manipulation then, yes, it's been around since photography began, but I don't think that's what the debate is about.

What about using AI for masking?

[LocalHero1953]

1 minute ago, SrMi said:

What about using AI for masking?

What about it?

[SrMi]

13 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

What about it?

What we saw in Ansel's processing could be achieved with AI masking, i.e., it could involve AI instead of manual dodging and burning. My point is that using AI by itself does not automatically "disqualify" an image. It matters what you do with AI (or manually).

[LocalHero1953]

Just now, SrMi said:

What we saw in Ansel's processing could be achieved with AI masking, i.e., it could involve AI instead of manual dodging and burning. My point is that using AI by itself does not automatically "disqualify" an image. It matters what you do with AI (or manually).

I agree

[jaapv]

52 minutes ago, SrMi said:

What we saw in Ansel's processing could be achieved with AI masking, i.e., it could involve AI instead of manual dodging and burning. My point is that using AI by itself does not automatically "disqualify" an image. It matters what you do with AI (or manually).

But then - removing or adding elements, blending images with foreign elements etc. can be done with conventional darkroom techniques as well. 

Jo Torres is an example:

https://www.jotorresphoto.com/portfolio-collections/my-portfolio

[LocalHero1953]

1 hour ago, jaapv said:

But then - removing or adding elements, blending images with foreign elements etc. can be done with conventional darkroom techniques as well. 

Jo Torres is an example:

https://www.jotorresphoto.com/portfolio-collections/my-portfolio

Sure - composites and fake photos have also been around since photography started.

Perhaps the thread should have been titled: 'should we tag photos in which elements have been added or removed'?

You don't have to tell me about fake photos - they're in my blood . My great grandfather was the Edward Gardner taken in by the Cottingley Fairy photos, who took them to Arthur Conan Doyle. (You could argue that the photos were genuine, though not the fairies).

A scan of one of the prints I inherited from him. Not taken with a Leica!

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

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[jaapv]

That would indeed have been a better title. I have been arguing against blaming AI ( which AI?) all the time 😉 But then:  Where to draw the line?  A blade of grass? A non-permanent object? A person? Or a whole building? And does it matter whether it was replaced by a extrapolation of the image or from another image or by AI? Is the replacement neutral or does it alter the intent of the image?  Etc. 
 

I always loved those fairy photos. Great that you are preserving them! 

[LocalHero1953]

13 minutes ago, jaapv said:

That would indeed have been a better title. I have been arguing against blaming AI ( which AI?) all the time 😉 But then:  Where to draw the line?  A blade of grass? A non-permanent object? A person? Or a whole building? And does it matter whether it was replaced by a extrapolation of the image or from another image or by AI? Is the replacement neutral or does it alter the intent of the image?  Etc. 
 

I always loved those fairy photos. Great that you are preserving them! 

Sadly, I only have some. There was a BBC documentary on the photos in the late 60s, and the presenter persuaded my grandfather to hand over quite a lot of the materials, and never returned them. What I inherited directly from Edward Gardner (who lived to 100, and I remember him with affection) was his magnificent microscope, accessories and slides. He was an amateur scientist (the worst kind of scientist - they love the tools of scientific research, but are selective in the evidence they extract).

Edited September 23 by LocalHero1953

[01maciel]

vor 57 Minuten schrieb LocalHero1953:

Perhaps the thread should have been titled: 'should we tag photos in which elements have been added or removed'?

That would be one possibility, but at the same time it would limit AI tools to only two scenarios: added and removed elements. I hope my initial question was correct when I asked whether a short text would indicate whether a photo had been edited using AI tools or not. I would answer the question with a simple ‘yes’ because I think it's fair. The use of AI tools is OK and may sometimes be useful compared to normal photo editing. There's nothing wrong with that. But it should be briefly indicated.

[SrMi]

13 minutes ago, 01maciel said:

That would be one possibility, but at the same time it would limit AI tools to only two scenarios: added and removed elements. I hope my initial question was correct when I asked whether a short text would indicate whether a photo had been edited using AI tools or not. I would answer the question with a simple ‘yes’ because I think it's fair. The use of AI tools is OK and may sometimes be useful compared to normal photo editing. There's nothing wrong with that. But it should be briefly indicated.

Why single out AI use when the same effect can be accomplished manually?

[jaapv]

46 minutes ago, 01maciel said:

That would be one possibility, but at the same time it would limit AI tools to only two scenarios: added and removed elements. I hope my initial question was correct when I asked whether a short text would indicate whether a photo had been edited using AI tools or not. I would answer the question with a simple ‘yes’ because I think it's fair. The use of AI tools is OK and may sometimes be useful compared to normal photo editing. There's nothing wrong with that. But it should be briefly indicated.

And my answer would be: it does not matter which type of tool was used. And for non-documentary use, only if the intent of the image was significantly altered and it is not self-evident.  Mentioning irrelevant AI used in routine editing ( which can be taken as a given) only muddies the water by triggering discussions such as this, when we should be considering the photograph.
 

Gursky’s image “Rhine II” is normally displayed without any mention that a couple of factory buildings were cloned out. 

There are grey areas too. Photographing a building on a tripod with a long shutter time to remove people in front, should that be mentioned? Is it essentially different from removing them in Photoshop? 

Edit: The dog in the Nightwatch by Rembrandt was copied from a painting by Adriaan van de Venne by one of Rembrandt’s pupils, I just learnt. I am sure he would have used AI these days. And he did not tell…

[Coppereye]

On 9/17/2025 at 9:14 AM, 01maciel said:

That is a different matter; political discussions are out of place here. So please, don't and stop it.

I agree political discussions are not related to the initial question ie should AI images should be labelled as such.  
 

There has been quite a wide ranging discussion on this ( the article from Serenade is well worth looking at ).

I work with film and digital images.  The use of  Photoshop, Lightroom, DXO etc to make changes are only, in the main, digital versions of traditional darkroom practice.  The standard techniques of dodge and burn, merging images with different exposures ( sky and land, sky and sea ) have been around for decades. Digital software packages have been doing this for decades, all that’s happening is that it is getting faster and easier.

I do a little website work for a friend who is mainly into film but also produces art photography.  Hes used a couple of bits of software to completely generate images that are not born from any photography he has done but his text description is used to create an image.  
 

to give an example I used this text on a site called artist.io 

A man is on a beach, facing away and is in the distance there are lime stone cliffs to his left and the sea is hitting rocks near the shoreline creating some spray.  He is dressed all in black and has a black hat on his head.  The beach is mainly small stones and larger rocks.  The sky has black thunderous clouds that threaten rain later

I used the text twice and got 2 similar images 
 

image 1

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Image 2

 

Now this use of AI should be labelled

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[jaapv]

42 minutes ago, Coppereye said:

I agree political discussions are not related to the initial question ie should AI images should be labelled as such.  
 

There has been quite a wide ranging discussion on this ( the article from Serenade is well worth looking at ).

I work with film and digital images.  The use of  Photoshop, Lightroom, DXO etc to make changes are only, in the main, digital versions of traditional darkroom practice.  The standard techniques of dodge and burn, merging images with different exposures ( sky and land, sky and sea ) have been around for decades. Digital software packages have been doing this for decades, all that’s happening is that it is getting faster and easier.

I do a little website work for a friend who is mainly into film but also produces art photography.  Hes used a couple of bits of software to completely generate images that are not born from any photography he has done but his text description is used to create an image.  
 

to give an example I used this text on a site called artist.io 

A man is on a beach, facing away and is in the distance there are lime stone cliffs to his left and the sea is hitting rocks near the shoreline creating some spray.  He is dressed all in black and has a black hat on his head.  The beach is mainly small stones and larger rocks.  The sky has black thunderous clouds that threaten rain later

I used the text twice and got 2 similar images 
 

image 1

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Image 2

 

Now this use of AI should be labelled

But then , this is not a photograph but a technograph and no Leica  gear was used…