* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #957 / Revived #177 on 2026 08 19 *

I am going to take the opportunity to address both Minnie's image and Kumsal's comments.

The image is a fun digital visual creation, based on a number of sources (some of Minnie's own photos and other elements).
I think it looks really good and is quite funny : like a still from a CGI-created animation movie.
Very well done.
I also like Minnie's forthcoming explanation about this kind of work and her explanation of the inspiration and some of her method.
(I would like to see at least some of the source elements separately, because I believe that this will make me appreciate the compositing and processing effort even more.)

I also really like Kumsal's comments and want to thank him for these thoughts, because I think they are really relevant.
AI in image creation and modification can indeed be fun when the results are obviously not based in reality.
But the same methods do indeed constitute a real danger of manipulation when the results of these techniques is presented as reality.

I do share the view and opinion :
- that use of AI in the creation of images is fine (just like the use of paint is fine for creating art),
- but such use should always be disclosed (especially when there is a danger of confusion with actual reality).

I like this! Very well done. The contrast between the hair/skin texture and the smooth surface of the eye is a wonderful reminder how strange and fascinating all living beings are, how much we are shaped by the world around us and how much we shape the world around us because of the way we are... for example creating something like a camera as an 'extension of our eye'. (My brain is getting hazy and I can't recall which writer/philosopher argued in this way, but I always found it interesting.) If our senses and our body would be different, all of our tools would be as well and the large parts of the whole world would be significantly different.

This is a fun photo, it made me smile. Very well executed. I admire your skills with using these new tools.
It's obvious that this particular image is AI generated, because I'm not used to seeing Iguanas enjoying cocktails. My brain is just about clever enough to send me the "AI detected" signals for this image.

Here's a comparison to another website.
I also take part in another larger German speaking photography image sharing website where, a while ago, a flood of AI images began to appear. sometimes (mostly?) they were declared as "AI generated" but perhaps not always. Some of the images were, like yours, fun fantasy type images, that would have been impossible to photograph normally.
Some other images e.g. Landscapes looked just amazing, what other photographers had spent ages to capture, could now be generated, by anyone with the skills to drive the easier to use AI software, to make images which made the real photos look less amazing and less valuable.
There was an outcry, both for and against posting AI images.
The first step taken by the website owners, trying to satisfy the various groups was to introduce a mandatory "AI tag".
Then users were given the possibility to use a toggle to hide/show any images in a certain category with that AI tag.
The latest step was to move out all the AI images to a completely separate category in the website.
So it's still possible to post and enjoy looking at AI images, but you won't see them if you don't want to.

I think in our smaller group we don't need such technical steps. If anyone wants to post an AI image and marks it as such, that it is fine by me.

By the way, the use of other simple tools like "noise removal with AI" is fine for me and doesn't need "declaring" unless the image is specifically trying to show some technical performance feature of a camera (but that is rare here anyway)

Thanks for the interesting tour!
The water level looks quite low in that reservoir, it's the same here in Austria.
Just read that some of the mountain huts here, that hikers love to visit, have shut down because the fresh water springs have dried up (hopefully they'll come back soon)

Some people might complain about including power lines in images, but I think it's (mostly) fine. They have become part of our landscape, sort of almost like modern monuments to our technical achievements.
Last week we watched a helicopter lay new high voltage cables between the big existing pylons in the mountains here in Mühlbach/Austria. (It was like watching a spider spin a Web between branches, ) There was a man waiting at the top of each pylon who caught the cable and fed it over a pulley wheel before the chopper pulled it on to the next one. They repeated that 3 times to lay three new higher capacity cables.
Fascinating to watch, I made some photos with my phone but they were not the best quality.

Agree completely.

Some of the processing tools and plug-ins in software like Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom have been around for ages and have been well accepted to be tools that do not change the nature of a photo (from real to fake), because they are the modern equivalent of techniques from the analog darkroom (dodging, burning, timing exposure to light, timing the time spent in chemicals, masking etc).

Obviously as software evolves, many of those well-established tools are now also AI-assisted.
Some of them are quite obvious (like the automatic detection of red eyes, the cloning and replacing of unwanted elements in an image, automatic detection and masking of sky vs land etc.)
Others have more subtle AI enhancements : automatization of exposure optimalisation, contrast, blacklevel, etc.

I think it would be unfair to qualify "normal" images that have been enhanced with these means as "AI images".
We are using the same tools as always, only they are more practical.
(Removing unwanted elements from an image or expanding the width/height of images for better composition is borderline for me.
Same with HDR images that have been created from a single image instead of layering multiple exposure - those look fake to me, most of the time, anyway.)

If we need any kind of definition, I think I would qualify as an "AI image" any image that is more than the result of "normal" standard processing.
Standard processing can include all of the above, including even minor cloning/removing (as of powerlines, trash on the ground etc)
An AI image, by that kind of definition, would be an image that may or may not have started as a normal photograph, but on which intensive CONTENT-related modifications have been made, by adding or removing substantial elements, combining multiple different source images etc.

A Sky Full of Hope

Anybody visiting Frankfurt would probably not bother visiting one of its largest squares, Konstablerwache. Apart from being a useful hub of public transport and the site of the popular twice weekly Farmers' Market, there wasn't much reason for going there. Boring by day, especially visually with its utilitarian post-war buildings, and a reputation of being slightly dangerous after dark, there really is little to see. But a couple of weeks ago that changed and yesterday I went to see for myself.

It would be a monumental undertaking to beautify the buildings, but it is possible to turn peoples' gaze away from them. A massive sculpture of red and blue nets has been suspended above the square, and after dark they are illuminated by a choreographed light installation of blue and red light. It is 'A Sky Full of Hope – Earthtime 1.78 Frankfurt' by Janet Echelman, and has already made a huge difference. It is inspired by the data of the height of waves of the Tsunami which destroyed the Fukushima atomic power station (the 1.78 refers to the average increase in wave height), and is part of her Earthtime series, which include pieces in Madrid, London and Denver.
She sees her work as a trigger for inspiration - all you have to do is look up - and the colour and form will lift the spirit and counter the oppressive grey concrete. Elsewhere her works have inspired people to hold yoga classes, start drumming groups and give dance performances below them.

I hope it happens here too. It made the news again today - the fire brigade had to rescue a crow from the nets.

Thanks FP!

That's a good point. While true that outliers are most often an anomaly, not always the case as they can be a very relevant edge case not to be ignored.

Some nice milky way shots and meteors viewed full screen. Viewed up close, I think you have some camera movement there. Top left in the first one there are some small dots with a thin line to the left then larger blobs (shutter press?). Bottom right in the other two the stars have a bit of a triangular shape. I have no experience in astro so I can't really say...

Thanks Bryan.
Ah, you spotted the camera movement in the first. It wasn't anything fancy like shutter shock: It was completely dark and I managed to kick the tripod in that one 😂
I have other shots, that I took just seconds before and seconds after that first one, with exactly the same view, all with no camera shake but they don't have the interesting meteor. I corrected the worst of the shake with the clone tool, but must must have missed a few.

As to the triangles. That 16mm Viltrox lens, wide open, is supposed to be pretty good throughout the whole image even out to the corners, but there's still a tiny bit of coma visible.
The calculation says that with a 45MPixel full format camera and 16mm lens you can only shoot for max 15s before the star's point starts to become elongated to a line. Perhaps that is also part of the triangle shape ?

Maybe someone who has done some astrophotography can jude the sharpness of the last two shots here?

I like the look and composition of this one. It's such an interesting mix of colors as well. Nicely done!

A beautiful sunrise, perhaps being appreciated by a resident. So we find architecture, local transit, local sunrise, local people all in one image, wrapping up the culture and geography in an interesting package.the horizontal stripes and lines of the bridge intersect with the vertical lines of the river and the human subject stands right in that intersection for maximum impact. He and his bike create a triangle shape that is enclosed in the larger triangle shape of the river. Wonderful geometry.

Well, you look like an expert to me! I've never been successful with the few I've tried, so there's that. Very beautiful but the last one is the most magical with the galaxy rising up out of the fir trees and mountains. The kind of image that makes you catch your breath in wonder.

A fun puzzle illustrating how easy it is to manipulate images these days. Of course this particular trick would have been easy to do years ago with the simple editing tools photoshop has offered as long as I can recall, long before AI made it so much easier. And also of course someone would have noticed the bird's unusual rump.

These are such interesting birds, even with only two legs. At a trip to the zoo recently, I was near two little boys when looking at the display of such birds. The younger one turned to the older brother and said "that bird looks just like Grandmama". From that, I might have recognized grandmama if she had walked up.

Beautiful swan. Is he in the wild? I have only seen black ones either in captivity or in park settings. I've only met white swans in the wild. The simple but rich colors - reds/blues/black/whites - enhance the beauty of this image. The question mark curve of the swan's neck provided you with a perfect composition. Well done.

It appears you are in a safari bus - would that be you in the blue shirt? The eye looks innocent, almost plaintive. Was he hoping for a treat, or disguising a planned attack. Amazing what we can capture, in a bull's eye. Sharply caught, creative presentation.

I will respond to the first, third, and 7th as if they were a set. They would make a good one, all iof what is clearly one setting, n similar contrasty monochrome processing. They provided three different angles to a setting that combines old industrial type structure with modern technical industrial structures against a countryside backdrop. We get a general idea of how the water connects with the stone, and how the electrical system might connect to both, or might have replaced them in functionality. It is history and modernity rolled up together in an artistic way. You might print these three and hang them in a vertical arrangement.

This is so beautiful. The oddly lovely hanging ornaments with girls morphing into flowers remind me of the old art series "Flower Fairies" by Cicely Mary Barker. Your capture gives glorious detail to the red rose lady who is indeed displaying a side-eye look. The rest of the story, like so many of yours, is told in the lovely blur you can summon from your collection of old lenses. The colors, shapes, and light mesh to become the setting for the rose girl. Impressive as usual.

If it were horizontal instead of vertical I would liken it to a Gursky. Three layers of texture and color, uninterrupted by anything, the blues sandwiched between and mixed with the pinks in the middle layer. A subdued horizontal in the middle section to create an inverted Z. Idea: try flipping it horizontally, it seems to read more easily from that angle.