Is your camera documenting reality – or negotiating with it?

A Reddit user held a phone up to a deliberately blurry, pixelated image of the Moon on his computer. Happy to oblige, his phone snapped a nice clear picture, full of craters and shadows which didn't actually appear in the original photo. The reality is that AI will recognise the Moon and fill in details when the camera can't pick them up. It's called computational photography. Your phone goes far beyond collecting the light that hits your camera's sensors. It's guessing what the image would look like if the camera was better and then building it for you, he says. The next time you take a photo, ask yourself, is your camera documenting reality – or negotiating with it? -BBC

21 Articles about AI & Photography

Your phone edits all your photos with AI - is it changing your view of reality? – BBC

A.I. Loves Fake Images. But They’ve Been a Thing Since Photography Began. – New York Times

This guy’s obscure PhD project is the only thing standing between humanity and AI image chaos – Fast Company  

6 Best Gemini Photo Editing Prompts in 2026: How to Get Better AI Images – eWeek  

Fashion Photography’s AI Reckoning – Aperture

Student arrested for eating AI art in University of Alaska Fairbanks gallery protest – UAF Sun Star

How AI is disrupting the photography business – Axios

Shutterstock rebrands as it goes all-in on generative AI - Fast Company

Pedophiles Are Using AI To Turn Children’s Social Media Photos Into CSAM – Forbes

The AI Slop Presidency – 404Media

How AI is disrupting the photography business – Axios  

Want to take better photos? Google thinks AI is the answer. – Washington Post

As AI proliferates, outdoor photographers and editors struggle to sort out what’s real and what’s not – Montana Free Press

I Fixed My Bad Family Photos. Here’s How to Do It—and When to Stop.- Wall Street Journal

In the age of AI, photographs no longer express truth. That doesn’t make them any less meaningful.  – Washington Post

Scammers use AI photo of missing dog at emergency vet to steal nearly $2,000 – WTSP

League City police to review policies after giving theft suspect an AI mug makeover – ABC13

Trump's use of AI images further erodes public trust, experts say – PBS

Elon Musk’s A.I. Is Generating Sexualized Images of Real People, Fueling Outrage – New York Times

How to really spot AI-generated images, with Google’s help – PopSci

Google debuts 'Me Meme' feature letting users turn their own selfies into shareable memes – Mashable   

AI Definitions: Steganography

Steganography (pronounced STEG-an-ography, like the “Steg” in “stegasaurus”) - A method of tracking images by embedding an invisible code into the pixels that is invisible to humans but will travel along with the image during its lifetime. The marked images can be traced back to the original source with high level of accuracy because the code is embedded directly into the image’s pixels. Because the watermarks live directly in the visual part of the image itself, they are nearly impossible to remove, surviving common image-related manipulation such as aggressive cropping and taking screen shots of the image. If you’ve created an AI image recently, you’ve almost certainly used steganography without even knowing it. Most major AI image generation companies now use the tech. Companies are adding a poisoning application to these images. If someone should try to use them for deepfakes, the user will find them garbled and unusable.

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The Top 8 AI Image Creation Tools

Adobe Firefly

An all-in-one AI solution for video and photo production from the people who brought you. Easy to use, it can do AI video editing, 3D modeling, text-to-image and text-to-video generation, photo editing, AI-enhanced scene transitions, auto-resizing and color correction. Of course, it has a smooth integration with Adobe Creative Cloud. Because it was trained on Adobe Stock images, there are no copyright issues. All the generated images safe for commercial use. The downside: it doesn’t do well with complex queries and is not consistent when generating text within images. Free version provides 25 monthly generative credits or $4.99 a month.

Bing AI Image Creator

This feature in Microsoft’s search engine Bing is powered by OpenAI’s DALL-E. It allows users to generate realistic and creative images from text prompts. Free but with a limit of 25 images each day.

Canva

The graphic design platform has integrated generative AI into all its products including: image, and text creation, photos, audio, and video editing. Use Canvas drag-and-drop to create social media graphics, headers, slides, flyers, photo collages, posters, infographics, even mind maps for concepts. Share to social media straight from the app or download for posting. Limited editing tools so it’s more for beginners. Free. $12 a month gets you more options.

DALL-E

OpenAI’s tool that turns written text into images using AI. Named after painter Salvador Dali and Disney Pixar’s WALL-E. Understands long, complex queries. Includes a helpful edit feature. Select an area of a generated image and prompt it to change that part. However, not as reliable at generating accurate text than Ideogram or Flux. A limited number of images are free. $20 per month for ChatGPT Plus.

Ideogram

An excellent AI image and video generator. A paid account isn’t needed to get quality images, this one is easier to use for beginners than tools like Midjourney. It has a simple to use interface. Text in the images comes out more readable than most AI image creators, which is important for social media graphics, thumbnails, logos, etc. Ten credits a day free (about 5 images). Free users can only download a 70% quality JPEG image, not the full-resolution version. Images are public when using the free version. Paid accounts starts at $7 monthly for more images and quicker rendering than the free version along with advanced features like Canvas, which lets you modify images. Paid accounts can use negative prompts (what you don’t want in the image).

Microsoft Designer's Image Creator

One of the best image creators, it is powered by DALL-E 3. Accessible in the same place that you access Microsoft's AI chatbot Copilot. Free (though you must create a Microsoft account).

MidJourney

One of the best AI image generators, it uses machine learning to create high-quality pictures based on text. The interface has been improved since it first launched. There is a limited free version but paying the monthly cost will avoid annoying ads. You’ll find a good prompt book here and a guide to get started here.

Stability AI's DreamStudio

A more accessible version of Stable Diffusion, which requires some technical skills. Users can create images through AI with many customizations, such as telling it what to avoid. An account must be created sign in with Google or Discord accounts. $1 for 100 credits, one image costs two credits.

 

Others worth Considering 

Leonardo.AI

Originally meant to help folks create gaming assets, it produces impressive and clear images. Useful but limited editing tools. There’s no post-editing on the free plan and the privacy plan is weak. Free plan allows up to 150 images each day.

Flux AI

Use this AI image generation tool for free through HuggingFace or Freepik. It creates gorgeous images and doesn’t require any special prompting lingo.

Whisk

Google’s new AI tool Whisk uses image prompts instead of text. Input a collection of images without a prompt and choose a style to generate a new image. Unlike traditional AI image generators, which allow users to specify exactly what they want, Whisk enables users to experiment and draw inspiration without the constraints of text inputs. Users can tweak the final image. Intended as a fun AI feature, rather than a refined professional work tool.

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