Capturing the Future: How AI is Revolutionizing the Photography Industry

Brace yourselves, the robots are taking over the world…possibly.

There have been tremendous advancements in Artificial Intelligence recently and its uses and effectiveness in photography have become a hot topic of debate. AI has entered into most aspects of photography now from image capture to composition, editing, storage and distribution. So is this all a good thing for the industry?

AI image that fooled competition judges.

Earlier this year an image was entered into and one a competition held by DigiDirect. It’s a beautiful drone image of the surf at sunset. The trouble is that it was entirely AI generated and was entered as a stunt by Sydney company Absolutely AI.

This example shows a couple of things, Firstly - the power of AI tools in creating, manipulating and enhancing images. Secondly, the risk that the job of photographer (along with countless other industries) could soon be redundant as the machines take over.

Technological Advances.

There is no doubt that the advancements in AI in both hardware and software are revolutionising the photographic industry. Whether or not this will create as seismic a shift as the migration to digital imagery over the past 20 years is unknown as yet but theres no doubting that the changes going on now will have a lasting effect.

Firstly, todays cameras are much more advanced than top of the range cameras were even 5 years ago. Even mid range modern mirrorless cameras have significantly advanced features over professional models from just 5 years ago. Sophisticated auto focussing which can focus on an eye on a fast moving subject, amazing low light shooting capabilities, 8k video and so much more.

And then there are the advancements in Software. A few weeks ago Photoshop released its latest Beta version and in that was an astonishing new tool called ‘Generative Fill’. Basically this allows users to add, amend, subtract and manipulate elements of images entirely using AI generation. It’s incredible, I’ve already used it on a number of edits to do things such as extending backgrounds, changing clothing, removing reflections, and lots more, and that’s just in headshot photography. Bear in mind that this is the first version of this that Adobe have released, it will only get better. I’ve attached a video from photoshop expert Aaron Nace from Phlearn to show you a bit about what it can do.

Of course there are other AI software options too, there are some extremely powerful editing plugins for Photoshop and plenty of apps for your mobile devices that do an extraordinary job.

Furthermore images can be created from scratch through AI sites such as ChatGPT, Dream Studio,and others even Google are developing their own Google Imagen. Through these you can just type in what you want and they will create the whole image for you. See ridiculous example below (courtesy: Google Imagen)

So here’s a real world example of enhancing an image in Photoshop using a bit of AI. The image on the left is one I took on a trip a few weeks ago. I was there to see the waterfalls but unfortunately it hadnt rained for a while so the image was pretty barren. Also it was a very sunny day with lots of shadows and a lack of interest in the sky meaning that I was not able to get a very good shot at all. So I went into photoshop - added a bit more life into the waterfalls, added a bit of interest in the sky, removed some of the foreground distractions.. and the result is something far more pleasing to the eye. Obviously there’s the moral ambiguity of passing this off as my own image, but I wont be putting this in for any awards or anything.

Before

After

Where is this heading

So just how worried should I be as a photographer? Well, the answer for what I do is not really. Things change and it’s how we cope with that change and adapt with it that helps us to thrive. The technology advances in cameras means that I am able to do my job quicker, more efficiently and with greater accuracy than ever before. It allows me to spend more time with my clients and getting the right picture whilst worrying about less of the technical aspects of the job at hand.

The advances in software mean that editing time will be significantly reduced - this can only be a good thing. We will still need good original images to work with and thats where a good professional photographer will always come in. Once we have those images then of course we can use AI if necessary to make adjustments but the AI itself cannot create your specific images.

Areas that will change are in the realm of stock photography were you do not need specific people or locations. I’ll also admit that AI technology can do a good job of replace the virtual headshot service that we successfully launched during the pandemic. There are apps that can do this cheaper and quicker than our manual editing process and we do not have the AI capabilities to compete at this stage.

One of our selling points at Corporate Imagery however has always been about the experience of the photography session. We take the time to get to know our clients to work with them to get the right poses, expressions and even frames of mind. This is what gets us the great results that we get. AI cannot replicate that and a such we’re not worried about the machines taking over… yet.

While AI technology offers numerous advantages to professional photographers, it is important to note that creativity, artistic vision, and human expertise will always play a crucial role in the field. AI should be seen as a tool to assist and enhance the work of photographers rather than replace their skills and creativity.

(and that last paragraph was written by AI)