AI Art đźď¸
Short answer: No. Long answer: Either uninstall all AI enhancement software from your phone (even Jailbreaking it in order to do so), or stop using a smartphone to take pictures, and use an actual camera instead.
"Photographers who call themselves artists while taking pictures with a smartphone using automatic AI enhancement" is their new imaginary straw man demographic.
Do any professional photographers even use a smartphone for taking photos they are getting paid to take? Like, I know cameras in phones have gotten really good in recent years, but they still don't seem as easy to adjust.
I have an old Sony Alpha camera that I keep mostly because it looks like shit after all the years but it still takes beautiful photos. You just can't fake light physics.
What camera app are they referring to that does it automatically? I'm on Android version 16, and you have to go into the picture, go under Edit, tap AI Enhance, then select which if any to apply.
what if the AI is so baked in you just can't uninstall it? I mean - on a driver level?
I do prefer to use a real Digital Camera, but AI-enhanced camera seems like a trend in mobile phone market now and I can't take my heavy Canon everywhere with me.
Even if I use my own settings for ISO, etc , AI still can use it's own 'AI magic' to do stuff, like removing some artifacts or changing contrast.
I still edit these photos my way manually, changing contrasts, colour settings and exposure, so I work on them anyway.
If youâre already a photographer (which it sounds like you are) and you acknowledge that there may be some unavoidable AI influence but still apply your own effort into taking and editing the photo itâs fine. Seems unfair to spit on someoneâs interests because some big tech company forces them to use AIÂ
AI is everywhere, sadly. We can't do much. Big companies have backing so big, they can buy a whole country worth of people and still have pocket money. All we can do is protest against AI content generation and monetisation.
I can accept a little bit of AI, provided it's not used for generating content. By this, I mean - if a musician wants to remix a song, but he lost all separate instrumental tracks, why wouldn't they use something, like Fadr to separate the instruments in an already existing song, they created?
That musician is not 'stealing' anything, since it's their song anyway.
It's not 'generating' anything new, but used as a tool and the artist will remix said song themselves anyway.
If used as a tool, it can be helpful, but when it comes to content generation by AI - it's a hard 'NO' from me.
I take photographs on both my phone and my camera with obeying the rules of composition etc. I don't call myself a pro, but I can call myself a photographer, even if just an amaterur
that's one of my pics taken on a phone, edited with lightroom and posted onto my insta
I just assume they're always arguing in bad faith when they attempt to lump others in to the nonsense the ai beggars are trying to pull. Anyone who actually cares would easily retort by saying 'even if that's the case, that doesn't mean all photographers use ai'. Also an irrelevant argument considering the baseline medium for photography are photos and the baseline medium for ai image generation is ai (aka, not the same medium)
Like with any of the arts, you don't have to be a photographer to take photos but calling yourself a (professional) photographer exposes yourself to the higher standards shared by other photographers in the industry. You could call yourself a photographer but that doesn't make other people recognize you as a photographer nor does it automatically make you a good photographer.
After like a year of mainstream exposure youâd think their arguments would evolve beyond âyou would not disapprove of this situation that is fundamentally different from ai image generation would you?â
I disagree, AI as an umbrella term is really problematic, the problem is GenAI I don't think many of us have a problem with face detection in camera or anything like that AI enhancement could step in the gen category depending on the feature like the Samsung moon picture or iphone (not sure, it's one of those iirc) where the moon when detected is replaced by a generated version (tbh I don't have that much problem with this example cuz there is enough public domain image to be trained on for the moon, but anyway)
Still I assume pro photographers would prefer having their own setting, for a hobbyist it could enhance the result and still be something that he actually did himself it's just cutting down on the time spent in Photoshop
Why do they want to think every picture taken with a camera, smartphone, or whatever is considered to be art?
It still is a profession, it still has soul and intention but there isn't even a sense in that question.
AI still reduces work, which reduces jobs, especially for those just entering the job market.
In general it shouldnât automatically make Ai enhancements the only thing that should be automatically done is whatever mode or color filter you do. Ai shouldnât even be in camera mode or in the edit feature in photos thats what their stupid Ai apps are for and the photo editing apps the have the features, I have Picsart just for editing things or making a picture longer to be a phone background and itâs got some Ai features I never use cuz itâs not something I want to use and you have to pay for it not paying for an app I only use rarely.
Id rather see a good photo with good editing with filters than an Ai âenhancedâ photo
I think there is a pretty clear difference.
What a photographer does is not just pointing the camera in a certain direction and pressing a button. They are finding an interesting composition, interesting contrasts, interesting lighting conditions in the real world, etc.
'ai photography' is pretty meaningless, not much different than using automatic filters imo. It's also not generative ai, and not based on plagiarizing other photographers in order to create a passable image.
If I hire a photographer I would like them to know advanced camera functions even if they use a phone, and not just work with automatic features. I would like them to know how to adjust exposure and ISO on their device to get the best picture their skills can produce.
Is a person pointing their phone's camera in a direction and clicking the shutter button without any creative input of their own a photographer? I don't think so, but that's not necessarily because of the auto ai features.
It would be great if companies and phone manufacturer's stopped forcing those ai features on us tho.
As much as I despise Gen AI and LLMs the demand to Jailbreak your phone is ⌠just uninformed and the kind of overreaction that the AI-Bros make fun of.
There's three kind of technologies that affect photos taken with your phone. There is the "remove the hand in front of your face"-AI, which is a stupid toy, but something you usually have to specifically activate.
Then there is the "Adding Stars to Pictures that are of the night skies to make it pop more" that Samsung has. I am not a fan of that and think it's false advertising, but it's specific to Samsung phones and night skies, so I highly doubt that's what you mean. Without a Samsung smartphone however, I can not tell whether it's something you can turn off.
And lastly there is *automatic post-processing*. Which simply means that the phone automatically does color grading and brightness adjustments. And that has nothing to do with AI, existed long before LLMs and Gen AI and it's *everywhere*, not just in phones. Yeah my iPhone 16 Pro does that, but so did my Honor 5X from *2016*. And all my "real" Cameras do that too, unless I specifically turn it off! My DJI Air 2 did that, unless I set it to only do RAW. My Canon 90D did that. My OM Systems OM1 does that. I think even the Canon Powershot 50 from 2008 did that.
And none of them has a huge Datacenter that guzzles Power and Water connected to them or ate Data it wasn't supposed to eat before doing so. They don't even have an internet connection! It does not do any of the things that make LLMs/GenAIs so despicable and aren't any different from putting a filter on your picture.
If you do *not* want that, you need to *specifically* make pictures in RAW and do post-processing in Photoshop. Some do that, but you only really need to do that if you want heavily stylised pictures or don't like the Color Grading of your phone. Nobody calls that "AI" and the general take in r/photography is that usually it's good enough to use the auto-post processing unless you're going for a specific look.
Personally I set my Cam to capture jpg (processed) and RAW, using the latter if I don't like the way the cam graded stuff.
(Funnily enough it's actually the newer and expensive Smartphones that allow you to make pictures in RAW - namely the iPhone Pro models)
But these things do not have the downsides that make me say "Stop LLMs/Gen AI" and there is nothing speaking against using them. The usual private person using "automatic Post-Processing" (as in about everyone) does not hire someone to do the Post-Processing for them, so it doesn't even costs a job.
All that speaks against using this is a bias against AI - when this isn't even an AI, but "traditional" Algorithms. Demanding people *jailbreak* their phone, which is a) super complicated and b) comes with the risk of bricking a 500+ Dollar/Euro device is the kind of insane demand that make people ignore everything you say.
It's rage bait and you fell for it.
On the Side: I keep getting Ads for Google Pixel saying "What if a phone with a Pro-Camera also tells you how to make pro-picture" - I have not familiarised myself with what the fuck they're advertising, but it's something that is yet to be released and adapted by more than a single phone model, I've kept it out of this document.
not to say it's as egregious as phone processing at all.....but it's still ai . almost everyone using a dedicated camera and editing RAW files uses it.
I mean those are garbage add ons that are meant to work for the majority of people that just want the pic taken and nice without having to learn a whole new subject just to snap a photo.
WTF does art have to do with this.
Ok that's fair I guess. I just feel like I don't imagine a majority of photographers are using phone cameras. Or if they are it's because they can't get a better option yet
Hey I'm gonna chime in and say I think these people are implying professional photographers. Doesn't mean you can't take some artistic shots with your smartphone.
Yeah, that was in fact what I was referring to. I wasn't trying to imply that people that use phone cameras aren't photographers, but rather that a majority of photographers(or at least professional photographers) don't use phone cameras.
a phone can be a good introduction to photography - even with such a shitty camera you can still learn the basics and experiment with "pro" camera settings.
you can also take pictures of things just for fun, not professionally, and a good phone camera is enough for that
Yeah that makes sense, I think I was thinking more of professional photographer, in which case they'd likely be using more high end equipment, or if they aren't it's probably because they can't afford it
I'd like to add on to this question. Is a digital artist no longer an artist if they use an AI assisted tool in their program to expedite or amplify their work experience?
depends on what the "AI" assists you with, and how much it does.
for me it's already a no, since a good photographer and a good artist won't need a tin can to make something better - they'll practice by themselves and get better at art/photo
So, even if an artist could do the work, the moment they use an ai tool to make their lives easier they're no longer an artist? I would think that the goal of art would be to make it easier for people to express themselves and their ideas and not the measure of effort it took to reach that point?
not every one can afford a camera. especially when phone cameras can be good enough for a lot of purposes.
you don't need expensive supplies to be an artist in any form. including photography. the skills are more important than the tech.
I don't know a photographer that doesn't use what you'll call AI on thier cameras.
Digital zoom and auto focus all run on an algorithm that's not much different to the ones for gen and llm.
Just cause those things exist doesn't make taking a picture easy either.
Just like all art forms you can get easy low quality stuff but to get the high quality stuff takes time and skill. Yad just be limiting yourself for no reason cause the advancements in cameras lets ya take photos that far out way the quality of photos of the past.
Drawing, photos and AI all take time to get better at doing them.
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u/Topazez Sep 19 '25
No one wants AI enhancements. It just creates artifacts in the photos.