Thursday, March 9, 2023

Fun with AI in Photography

bouquet of flowers in a blue vase

 AI (Artificial Intelligence) has been in the news a lot lately. It is surrounded with controversary, but it can also be a lot of fun.  In this article I will discuss the fun ways to use AI both with your own photographs as a starting point and with descriptive words to create an image.  The image above was created by typing descriptive words into an AI generator.  This then produced several images.  

I am not an expert on this type of AI intelligence, but over the last several weeks I have explored several different sites where you can use AI to create images and to enhance photographs that you have taken.  In this post I will show you images I have created using 5 different websites.


Dream by Wombo

This site was introduced to me by a fellow photographer who loves to use it to create images.  I first tried it by typing in descriptive words such as "red bird in the snow" and "bluebirds in the yard" and seeing the different images it produced.  I needed a photo for a book review I was writing and none of my own photos seemed to fit so I entered a description of what I wanted.  I entered "girl with red hair looking out over the bay".  Here are two of the results I got.  I ended up using the last one for my review.  I found this to be a great tool to produce images for my reviews.
woman looking out a window at the ocean
woman in a garden outside open windows facing the ocean




After a bit of playing around, I found there was a place I could upload my own photographs and then select different styles to apply to my photos.  Here are some of the results when I uploaded a photo of a Cardinal in the snow in my backyard. There are many filters to choose from and I used the expressionist filter for these photos.


red male cardinal snow scenered male cardinal with white building in the background
Dream by Wombo

This is a free website that I used to create these images.


Starry.ai

The next ai art generator that I tried was https://dream.ai/create .  This was also a free generator that allowed me to use my own photo as a basis.  I typed a prompt of "crocus in the snow" , chose the fantasy style, and then uploaded a photo of crocus in my yard.  This produced four different styles as shown below.
yellow crocus in the snow

yellow crocus buds in the snow

blooming crocus in the snow

crocus in the snow

Night Cafe

Night cafe can be found at https://creator.nightcafe.studio/studio .  It is one where you can type in a prompt and then it will create images for you.  I entered the prompt "Rocky mountainside with a lake at the base and a moose drinking water."  Here are my results.
moose by a lake collage

It seems like there is a lot more features on the site, so it is one I will explore a bit more.

PicFinder

This site is the easiest I found to use, but from what I can find it only creates images through the use of a prompt you type.  I created several vases of flowers on this site including the one at the beginning of this review.  Here is one I created by typing in "Daisies on a vase".


daisies in a vase

Dream Studio

This site is in the beta version right now.  It does ask you to set up an account with your email and password (it is the only one that had me do that).  It has several features that the other sites did not feature(at least not in the free versions).  There were sliders on the right hand panel to allow you to choose various features such as size and how close you want the finished product to represent your prompt.  I can see this being a site I will return to as they refine their website.  Here is an image I got when I entered the prompt " couple walking on the beach on a moonlit night".
couple holding hands and walking on the beach

I hope you have enjoyed my adventures in AI images and perhaps you will want to experiment with one or more of the sites.  All of the ones that are listed in this article are free versions, although several have the option of upgrading to a "premium" version.

If you would like to learn more here is a book you can get from Amazon.


For more photography reviews go to



Note: The author may receive a commission from purchases made using links found in this article. “As an Amazon Associate, Ebay (EPN) and/or Esty (Awin) Affiliate, I (we) earn from qualifying purchases.”


10 comments:

  1. AI is certainly coming into its own nowadays. Amazing what you can do with simply a few words and/or a photo. Thanks for showing us all these AI photography sites and what you can do with them, Mary Beth.

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  2. I have been reading about these controversial new uses of AI in the news and have been wanting to learn more. Thanks so much for sharing your fascinating personal experiences with five free apps/websites!

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  3. How very cool! Your review makes me want to stop everything else I am doing and start playing around with these AI websites. I can certainly see how they will be very beneficial to all of us when we write reviews. Sometimes, finding the right intro photo is the hardest part of writing a review. Thank you so much for taking the time to investigate, experiment, review and recommend these very useful tool websites.

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  4. Very interesting review of AI photography! It is fascinating what it can do now. Its been in the news here recently and your review has made it much clearer what it is capable of doing. Thank you for all your research and examples. Certainly something to watch and an excellent review!

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  5. Wow!! How absolutely amazing this is. I typed in a couple of phrases and what beautiful photos it returned. Thanks so much for reviewing this,what a huge help this will be for intro photos.

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  6. Great intro to various AI sites, thank you! I've utilized NightCafe.studio for a while now but hadn't ventured to others. Now you have me thinking of some picture playing!

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  7. These are awesome! I didn't know there were sites like this, I can hardly wait to experiment! I love this site because it is always bringing cool stuff to my attention. Thank you so much!!!

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  8. Fantastic Mary Beth, maybe this is something I can use to get my mind back into it's groove. Thank you for sharing all the possibilities with these AI sites. I guess I will start by playing!

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  9. This is a nice list of the different generators out there - thank you for that, this will come in handy. Whether people are for or against AI, I think we can safely say that this shipped has sailed and it's going to be a part of this world no matter what. Canva has a text to image generator built in as well - I've used it a few times - but as you pointed out, the detailed text description you give makes a difference with what the program will return. I love the photo of the daisies. :)

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  10. This sounds like it would be a fun tool to use. Your book recommendation would be handy, too, for someone learning the program.

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