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Where is the line gonna be drawn? How much of a difference is there between low strength img2img and a "smart" Photoshop filter. Maybe "photography" contests s

Where is the line gonna be drawn? How much of a difference is there between low strength img2img and a "smart" Photoshop filter. Maybe "photography" contests should be more strict, with only specific processing filters allowed.

ghaff 4y ago
A lot of this predates generative AI. I know someone who used to be really into photography competitions and the like and he basically got discouraged because the photos he really worked on to get perfect right out of the camera were suddenly starting to lose to digital photos that had been enhanced in Photoshop in various ways. Photos used for editorial purposes in newspapers and magazines at least historically had pretty strict rules about manipulation generally--including the removal of distracting elements that had nothing really to do with the core "truth" of the photo. I suppose the thinking was that manipulation can quickly become a slippery slope.
- Kye 4y ago
  What wins photography competitions breaks assumptions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcxcGBbLIwk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcxcGBbLIwk You're basically putting photos in front of people who've seen it all. They're not impressed by technical perfection or what gets 90+ on 500px. edit: It's more likely your friend was losing out to people who could take more photos and be more experimental due to not being limited by the the cost of film or delay of development. Film can't touch digital's feedback loop.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Probably true of a lot of things. Food, theatre, art generally... Well-executed versions of something they've seen a million times before just isn't all that interesting.
Pelayu 4y ago
I've entered photography contests before, and the ones I entered requested the raw file from the camera as well as your final .jpg/.png as a way of proving it was you at that took the image.
- Der_Einzige 4y ago
  Generating camera raws is only going to be a few papers away.
  - Pelayu 4y ago
    In regards to research I'm struggling to imagine useful applications of being able to create such raw files. Also, as it's a general term for a file containing raw sensor data, it would be different across sensors. In any case, perhaps some kind of hardware-signed cryptography scheme on the files from the camera could be used in lieu of this development in the future.
    - brucethemoose2 4y ago
      Synthetic dataset creation for training data? "Editable" artificial images? I'll admit those are stretches. Anyway, in addition to a digital signing scheme, these competitions are gonna need more editing restrictions if they want to exclude the use of diffusion models.
    - tecleandor 4y ago
      The most obvious application would be faking criminal exhibits. Fake photos prrofing something RAW files generated "backwards" do already exist. For this, police and forensics have been using special cameras with hardware signatures for raw files for around 15 years, but Canon's and Nikon's system was broken by Elcomsoft like 12 years ago. Sony is trying something similar in their A7 IV, but I don't know how serious it is, and I think it's not as oriented to forensics as Canon and Nikon was. https://www.elcomsoft.com/news/428.html https://www.elcomsoft.com/news/428.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/elcomsoft-claims-to-have-discovered-vulnerability-in-nikons-image-authentication-system-120858039.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/elcomsoft-claims-to... https://m.dpreview.com/news/5658217744/sony-a7-iv-gets-anti-forgery-crypto-signature-technology-for-commercial-purposes https://m.dpreview.com/news/5658217744/sony-a7-iv-gets-anti-...
dahfizz 4y ago
At a minimum, a photography contest should only allow photos - the output of a physical camera. There is a big distance between filters which tweak an existing image and generating an image from nothing.
- brucethemoose2 4y ago
  Not at all... Stable Diffusion can do extremely subtle alterations. Simple things like hiding ISO noise in an image, or in a single spot. And its literally a continuum from "leave the image 99.9% unchanged" to "change 99.9% of the image"
melagonster 4y ago
I trust in this part we have obvious line, picture should be a true picture.
- retrac 4y ago
  What's a "true picture"? Even in traditional film photography, you can easily get "untrue" pictures. Film is sensitive to UV and near infrared, so filters can create very unreal imagery. And multiple exposure can do all sorts of tricks. The averaging of many faces together, creating a sort of uncanny valley result, was first done in the analog, stacking aligned photos with multiple exposure. This is generally still considered photography. Art photography, if it's any good. One could say the key element is the artist combining actual scenes that were exposed to film or a sensor. Perhaps massaged a bit in the dark room or digitally. But the core material is exposed images from actual scenes. It's photography while that element remains dominant. But then again ... isn't that sort of what these generative AIs also do? It's all originally derived from actual photographs.
  - melagonster 4y ago
    the thing in pictures should happened in real world. I sure this is the difference between pictures and painting. AI is famous in generate unreal pictures.
nextaccountic 4y ago
> How much of a difference is there between low strength img2img and a "smart" Photoshop filter. Trouble is, his work wasn't img2img, there was no initial image as input

ghaff 4y ago

A lot of this predates generative AI. I know someone who used to be really into photography competitions and the like and he basically got discouraged because the photos he really worked on to get perfect right out of the camera were suddenly starting to lose to digital photos that had been enhanced in Photoshop in various ways. Photos used for editorial purposes in newspapers and magazines at least historically had pretty strict rules about manipulation generally--including the removal of distracting elements that had nothing really to do with the core "truth" of the photo. I suppose the thinking was that manipulation can quickly become a slippery slope.

Kye 4y ago
What wins photography competitions breaks assumptions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcxcGBbLIwk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcxcGBbLIwk You're basically putting photos in front of people who've seen it all. They're not impressed by technical perfection or what gets 90+ on 500px. edit: It's more likely your friend was losing out to people who could take more photos and be more experimental due to not being limited by the the cost of film or delay of development. Film can't touch digital's feedback loop.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Probably true of a lot of things. Food, theatre, art generally... Well-executed versions of something they've seen a million times before just isn't all that interesting.

Pelayu 4y ago

I've entered photography contests before, and the ones I entered requested the raw file from the camera as well as your final .jpg/.png as a way of proving it was you at that took the image.

Der_Einzige 4y ago
Generating camera raws is only going to be a few papers away.
- Pelayu 4y ago
  In regards to research I'm struggling to imagine useful applications of being able to create such raw files. Also, as it's a general term for a file containing raw sensor data, it would be different across sensors. In any case, perhaps some kind of hardware-signed cryptography scheme on the files from the camera could be used in lieu of this development in the future.
  - brucethemoose2 4y ago
    Synthetic dataset creation for training data? "Editable" artificial images? I'll admit those are stretches. Anyway, in addition to a digital signing scheme, these competitions are gonna need more editing restrictions if they want to exclude the use of diffusion models.
  - tecleandor 4y ago
    The most obvious application would be faking criminal exhibits. Fake photos prrofing something RAW files generated "backwards" do already exist. For this, police and forensics have been using special cameras with hardware signatures for raw files for around 15 years, but Canon's and Nikon's system was broken by Elcomsoft like 12 years ago. Sony is trying something similar in their A7 IV, but I don't know how serious it is, and I think it's not as oriented to forensics as Canon and Nikon was. https://www.elcomsoft.com/news/428.html https://www.elcomsoft.com/news/428.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/elcomsoft-claims-to-have-discovered-vulnerability-in-nikons-image-authentication-system-120858039.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/elcomsoft-claims-to... https://m.dpreview.com/news/5658217744/sony-a7-iv-gets-anti-forgery-crypto-signature-technology-for-commercial-purposes https://m.dpreview.com/news/5658217744/sony-a7-iv-gets-anti-...

dahfizz 4y ago

At a minimum, a photography contest should only allow photos - the output of a physical camera. There is a big distance between filters which tweak an existing image and generating an image from nothing.

brucethemoose2 4y ago
Not at all... Stable Diffusion can do extremely subtle alterations. Simple things like hiding ISO noise in an image, or in a single spot. And its literally a continuum from "leave the image 99.9% unchanged" to "change 99.9% of the image"

melagonster 4y ago

I trust in this part we have obvious line, picture should be a true picture.

retrac 4y ago
What's a "true picture"? Even in traditional film photography, you can easily get "untrue" pictures. Film is sensitive to UV and near infrared, so filters can create very unreal imagery. And multiple exposure can do all sorts of tricks. The averaging of many faces together, creating a sort of uncanny valley result, was first done in the analog, stacking aligned photos with multiple exposure. This is generally still considered photography. Art photography, if it's any good. One could say the key element is the artist combining actual scenes that were exposed to film or a sensor. Perhaps massaged a bit in the dark room or digitally. But the core material is exposed images from actual scenes. It's photography while that element remains dominant. But then again ... isn't that sort of what these generative AIs also do? It's all originally derived from actual photographs.
- melagonster 4y ago
  the thing in pictures should happened in real world. I sure this is the difference between pictures and painting. AI is famous in generate unreal pictures.

nextaccountic 4y ago

> How much of a difference is there between low strength img2img and a "smart" Photoshop filter. Trouble is, his work wasn't img2img, there was no initial image as input