“How I see things, it’s important to me, often it’s a struggle to communicate that.” – Ed Lehming

On a recent trip to California’s Central Coast, we stayed a night in Avila Beach, a small and quiet beach community. It’s very picturesque and has an interesting history, which I may touch on in a future post.

The purpose of this post, is to share how I have been using AI tools, for several years now, to assist me creatively. A recent example of my use of editing tools is the two images above. The top image is a shot from my camera, carefully composed to include the elements that I saw and what first drew me to this scene. I wanted to show the rugged coastline, the beach, and the pier, with a splash of colour for the wildflowers in the foreground. It was a fairly pleasing image but I was also faced with a bit of dull cloud cover and the image did not do justice to what I saw.

Further, as I edited the original image, the “feel” of what I saw never materialized. If I pushed the colour settings, light, and vibrance, it began to look artificial. Yes, it was brighter and more colourful, but it did not feel true to what I saw. What I often do with images like this, rather than discard them, is to use a Photoshop Plug-In Called Topaz Impressions (now Topaz Studio 2), which offers me a series of “looks”. My prefered filters are the Impressionist brushes. This tool allows me to enhance my photo by overlaying AI driven brush effects. I use this tool unabashedly, because in my mind, it’s simply modifying an existing photo till the outcome is closer to what I envisioned when I made the photo.

There may be many traditionalists out there that will disagree, and that is fine by me. I have chosen to create art rather than simply documenting a scene. It’s pleasing to me, and produces something that I am proud to hang on my wall and enjoy. If I could paint well, I would use my images to inform my paintings, but I’m not quite there yet, and may never be. So, I get the outcome that I want, something that I can enjoy, and something that I can produce without spending hours agonizing over. It’s kind of like talking to an artist and telling them that what they painted is not what it looked like, unless the are photo-realists. Be patient, I’m talking in generalities here.

Paintings, from my experience, are all about what the artist sees, or imagines, communicated in the way that is pleasing to them. It’s the same for me, except I’m using a computer rather than a brush. I’m sure the same conversation happened when photography was developed. It became easy for the average person to create an image, simply by pushing a button.

iPhone 14 Pro Max back triple camera 24mm
1/13699 sec, f/1.78, ISO 80, f/1.78, ISO 80