Whose Photo Is It?

A few years ago, DW bought me a photo-editing app that incorporated a lot of AI into it. There were pre-set filters that could tremendously enhance a photograph to create whatever results you wanted in a fraction of the time that it would take you to make those changes, yourself, using standard editing features with the program.

It could also add elements to a photograph to improve the overall image. Don't like the bland, washed-out sky? Add some clouds. Want to add other elements? How about some birds, or lightning, or fireworks? Why not slot a moon in?

Don't like the colour of someone's eyes? Change them. Heck, change anything you want about that person. They don't need to look like themselves.

For a couple of years, I had fun with Luminar AI but I still liked using PaintShop Pro for most of my photo editing. I'd been using PSP for more than a decade and was used to the interface, liked certain settings that defined the look I was going for in my images.

At the time that I started using Luminar AI, I questioned whether the photo that I enhanced was still my own work. If I added clouds or used a filter that would make the overall shot look like it was captured at a different time of day (for instance, at sunset, rather than midday), was it still my photo?

Ultimately, the answer was 'yes,' though whenever I shared such an edited photo with the public, I'd make sure that I indicated it as an enhanced photo.

I haven't used my Luminar AI photo editor in several years. Over time, I just lost interest in dramatically changing my photos. I wanted to just touch up an image from how I shot it. I wanted to be happy with an image the way I shot it.

But a couple of weeks ago, as DW and I were on a walk on one of Ottawa's many NCC trails, we stumbled upon something that inspired me for a photo, but that I couldn't create at the time. At first, I told myself that I'd have to come back another time but then I thought that I'd have to get to this spot when the weather conditions were just right, and would possibly have to return several times.

The trail, just off Corkstown Road, near Kanata, is less than half an hour away from my house and another 15 minutes or so to reach along the trail. Not exactly the most convenient to get to, so my timing for this imagined shot would be tricky.

At one point on this NCC trail, you start following a railway line that runs from north of Kanata, into Bells Corners. Going further northward, it passes through Carp and runs into Arnprior: going in the opposite direction, it cuts through Nepean and crosses the Rideau River by Pigeon Bridge.

I don't even know if the railway line is still used, though the tracks looked as though they were usable and their tops had a shine that had no apparent rust. So DW and I assumed they were still in use, even there was nothing to keep us off of them—in fact, some old railway ties were fitted together for a pedestrian bridge off of the trail that we were on, so we walked onto the tracks.

Looking both ways, and carrying one of my Nikon D-SLRs, I had an idea for a specific shot. Unfortunately, it was late morning and the sun was high in the sky.

Nothing like I had imagined.

I crouched low and took the shot anyway, thinking that the image might come to nothing but at least it might inspire me to return. Here's the photo (I took several, from both directions, but this is the shot that gave me the inspiration):

It was several days later that I even took a look at the photos that I shot on that hike. When I finally did, last week, I turned to this photo and edited it as much as I could in PSP (it had been so long since I had even thought of Luminar AI that I totally forgot I had the program on my computer).

So, I first ran the RAW image through a feature in PSP that does highlight recovery. The sky was blown out and I knew there were clouds in there, somewhere, though there was nothing I could do to bring them back in this case. I then upped the colour saturation, added contrast and fill light, adjusted the white balance, and that was it.

As you can see, the photo above is pretty boring. But I wasn't looking at this image as an end result: it was a template on which I would work, should the time and weather cooperate enough for me to return to the spot.

Because I've been playing with AI a lot while working on my murder mysteries, Dark Water and The Watcher, I had an idea: what if I uploaded my photo into Perplexity and gave it some parameters for altering my photo?

So I did just that. I asked the AI tool to modify the provided photo but to only make the following changes:

• change the time of day to pre-sunrise
• give the image a sense of a dark mood by providing a bit of fog over the tracks
• give the trees an autumn look

I had the tool keep all other aspects of the photo the same and to make this enhanced image still look like a photograph. Here's what it did:

It was almost perfect, pretty much what I had imagined. But I thought the generated image was a bit too dark for my liking.

I was about to ask Perplexity to lighten the overall image a bit but then I told myself that this was still my photo. I still wanted some control.

So I loaded this new image into PSP and added more fill light and a hint more vibrancy. And this is the end result:

Thoughts?

The question is, whose photo is it? Is it still mine? Is it all an AI rendering, with me adding a few final modifications that weren't controlled by AI?

When I used Luminar AI in the past to make enhancements to my photos, I still considered the images as mine. I composed and captured the image with my camera and I had performed many manual edits to the image. I certainly didn't give Luminar AI credit for the end result, though I always tagged the photo as an enhanced image.

I also composed and captured this new image, knowing full well that it wasn't going to be the end picture. I still manually edited the photo but then let an AI tool, under my direction, create what I had imagined. And I then took that generated image and performed more manual edits.

It's definitely an enhanced image but it's still my photo. I could wait for the right conditions and return to the spot, hoping to capture the same thing. And perhaps I will do that.

But this is the look I wanted to create and I have it now. I'm keeping it.

It's mine.

Happy Friday!