Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
If you’re a Luminar Neo user, I’m sure you know that Skylum has been launching extensions since July this year. Four out of seven are already out, and now the fifth one in the row is here: Focus Stacking.
As with most of Luminar Neo’s tools, the Focus Stacking extension is also AI-based. It lets you focus-stack up to 100 source images and create super-sharp macro photos, portraits, landscapes… Or anything else you want.
I believe you’ve seen AI-generated portraits of people who don’t exist. But artificial intelligence can do more, and actually make us tear up when seeing its creations – it can generate people who once were. It can create portraits of people who are no longer with us and show us what they would look like if they were still alive.
This is exactly what Alper Yesiltas used it for. With help of AI, he reimagined some of the biggest music icons such as Jimi Hendrix, Freddie Mercury, Janis Joplin and others. All of them abandoned us way too young, and Alper’s emotional project shows what they might look like if they were still here.
If you’ve ever received unwanted nude photos on Instagram (ladies will know what I’m talking about), you might soon be able to filter them out. Mobile developer and reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi recently discovered that Instagram is working on nudity protection for direct messages. While nudity is already not allowed in posts (with some exceptions), this could be now moved to messaging as well to increase safety on the platform.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has sent back its first image of Neptune and it’s remarkable in more than one aspect. First of all, it’s the clearest view of the ice giant in more than 30 years. And second, Webb’s image managed to reveal the distant planet’s delicate rings, something that’s definitely not an everyday sight.
One of the main symptoms of COVID-19 is low levels of oxygen in a person’s blood, even when they feel fine. So when the pandemic started spreading, doctors would always measure your blood oxygen levels with a pulse oximeter: a special clip attached to your finger or ear.
But soon, you will be able to do it at home with the same accuracy. All you’ll need is the device you use for taking selfies or mindlessly scrolling through Instagram in bed. That’s right – your phone.
Getty Images, one of the biggest stock image platforms, has banned AI-generated images. If you want to upload and sell work you created through DALL-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, or any other text-to-image tool, you won’t be able to do it there.
The reason? Potential copyright issues. Getty is concerned about the legality of such content, so they want to protect the site’s customers from unwanted copyright claims.
It’s that time of the year again: some of my favorite photography contests are announcing the winners. The Comedy Pet Photo Awards is one of them, and the 2022 winners have just been revealed.
This year’s winner is Kenichi Morinaga with his photo of two cats sitting on a fence cheek to cheek… or better to say neck to neck. Of course, there are category winners as well, and we’re sharing all of them with you today.
It takes tremendous skill to immortalize the iron-willed defiance of a protester, a mother’s tender touch, or the resilience on the face of a refugee. This type of powerful imagery strikes a delicate balance between documenting real-life and inspiring social change. It is commonly referred to as social documentary photography. As we discuss this specialty, you will notice that its applications often bleed into other related specialties, such as humanitarian photography and brand narrative.
Several major text-to-image generators have been launched so far, such as Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, or DALL-E. As you probably know, billions of photos, paintings, and illustrations are used to train these programs so they could render your text into an image with better accuracy.
Have you ever wondered if your photos were used for this purpose? If you have, there’s now a way to check it.
Back in the 1980s, fans weren’t allowed to bring their cameras to concerts, but a Depeche Mode fan had an idea. He threw a roll of film on stage during the band’s concert with his name and address attached to it and a plea to the band to take photos.
It wasn’t only the idea that was cool, it was the band’s reaction, too. They picked up the film, took some photos, and later mailed them back to the fan. His widow recently shared them online and the story made my heart melt.
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