Quote from: Zero Talent on March 27, 2023, 09:31

Product photography. For new products. AI can't replace it.

You are more optimistic than I am. You can upload a snapshot cell phone photo to midjourney, give it instructions and it will create something for you. No product photographer needed.
I don't think it would work for product photography yet, because MJ doesn't do texts and writes in its own alien language, so every product packing with text on it would not work and I don't think it can  really completely reproducing an object yet, just another version of it, but it's absolutely something I can imagine for the future: Just take a snapshot of your product, upload it to MJ and tell MJ "make me a beautiful advertisement shot" and voil�!

But besides this, I did actually start looking for other jobs, but it's not like someone is searching for a product photographer anywhere in my area. As said, I am not considered as "trained" with my university degree since I did not work in that field for 15+ years and the only very few job offers where being trained wasn't a requirement were not an option for me for various other reasons, like not having a driver's license.

I though portrait photography might be one that would always be in demand, but I've already seen sites where you can send in a couple of cell phone selfies and it will create 100 of professional looking portrait photographes with your face. 

As I said before AI is always months behind reality because reality must happen first before AI has something to be trained on.
If a product photo can be generated by AI, then it's not about a NEW product anymore. AI needs a lot of NEW product photography, made by real product photographers before it becomes trained enough to generate that product photo.

If a brewery is launching a new brand of beer in a new style of bottle, the brand will require real photographers to make a set of real photos of that new brand, before AI can come up with something similar.
And manufacturers are extremely picky about the smallest detail, the perfect color match, etc, before they expose their new brand to the public.
So no, in such cases, AI will always be useless.

Of course, AI can be used to generate all sorts of enhancements using that initial real product photo, but that real product photo with perfect lighting, perfect color match, etc, will still be needed.

Those AI survivalists will be in short supply once the majority will give up, so I expect such rare skills to be better paid than today.

As I said before AI is always months behind reality because reality must happen first before AI has something to be trained on.
If a product photo can be generated by AI, then it's not about a NEW product anymore. AI needs a lot of NEW product photography, made by real product photographers before it becomes trained enough to generate that product photo.

Sorry, but this is ridiculous

Every new product will be fed to AI in the future long before it is even released.
It will be invented there at the first place!

Hiring a photographer to make photo of a physical bottle... in the age of AI is just laughable.

"Becomes trained enough" - it has been just 1 week of my Midjourney 4 subscription, where I was saving long crafted prompts for future use... before in just few days Version 5 was released that has made my old prompts obsolete, because now it gets it right from the get go with amazing photorealism!

If there is any illusion that Stock Photography will survive, I would advise to forget about it and think how you will put food on the table in a few months.
Stock agencies won't survive to begin with!

Why shall I pay Shutterstock to make DALL-E pics if I can pay DALL-E or get it for free at all with them or other generators?

What are stock agencies expect to charge for? They will become a joke with their pathetic "copyright" nonsense. Are you paying every time you see a picture for inspiration and learn from it on internet? No! So neither machine is charged when it just "sees" the picture and learns from it.

Adobe will survive with their own generator without any need to pay for storage of old pics - that's it. Getty will remain as a small photo album of old photos of Merylin Monroe - the only thing they will be able to charge for.

I have been full-time stock photographer for more than a decade. It is just time to change as soon as possible, until it is too late, instead of feeding yourself with illusions.

Every new product will be fed to AI in the future long before it is even released.
It will be invented there at the first place!

You didn't get my point.
I will repeat: Reality must happen first, before AI can learn from it.

Using a different example, what you are saying is that you don't need photographers to document a soccer match, because the match already took place inside AI.

That is ridiculous, indeed.   

Quote from: Zero Talent on March 28, 2023, 15:50

You didn't get my point.
I will repeat: Reality must happen first, before AI can learn from it.

Using a different example, what you are saying is that you don't need photographers to document a soccer match, because the match already took place inside AI.

That is ridiculous, indeed.   

What I am saying is that there is no need to document reality with a clumsy human photographer, all the cameras around you on every corner of the street do it 24/7 - and this is not even their intention yet.

Nobody needs a clumsy photographers, indeed. Those clumsy photographers re-hashing over and over again the same old, same old concepts will have to give up their dreams.

But professional photo/video graphers will continue to document the reality as it happens, before AI could be taught new concepts.

You may have seen one too many science fiction movies and misunderstood what AI is.

..... all the cameras around you on every corner of the street do it 24/7 - and this is not even their intention yet.

I suspect you're arguing for the sake of it, but there is zero comparison between what a security camera on a street camera can capture and a quality high resolution image. Pixels on sensors aren't interchangeable and thinking that they are will lead you off into the weeds.

AI can only regurgitate if it's fed training data - as the world changes AI will need constant care and feeding to regurgitate up-to-date information. Companies inventing new, patentable things, will keep those quiet until after they've been granted their patent; AI can't imagine what a specific earthquake, volcanic eruption or tsunami will produce, only produce a "something like this" fantasy.

Your comments are not really adding anything to the discussion

Quote from: Anny1234 on March 28, 2023, 15:56

..... all the cameras around you on every corner of the street do it 24/7 - and this is not even their intention yet.

I suspect you're arguing for the sake of it, but there is zero comparison between what a security camera on a street camera can capture and a quality high resolution image. Pixels on sensors aren't interchangeable and thinking that they are will lead you off into the weeds.

Your comments are not really adding anything to the discussion

If you aren't following the discussion, then it is not adding up for you.

The example with street camera meant to give you an idea that cameras and recording systems (not even mentioning robot-mounted 3D vision cameras for product photography and such) are already automated and are all around us without any need of someone running around with 5D Mark 13654654 to take photo of a new beer bottle

Quote from: Uncle Pete on February 16, 2023, 14:44

Just got the email so I tried AI. Seems I could do endless requests, until I get something I wanted?

Here's what the output is:
Large�1024 � 1024 pixels
3 � 3 in�300 DPI�JPG
$2.90 10 pack, discounts for bigger packs, same as downloads.

They are selling 1024 square images for $2.90? 



And that's the watermark? Right click and save, it's a 1024 JPG, I just added websize for this post.

Select, content aware fill, brush the edges with the healing tool = free image.

Ah! That used to be one of my best sellers ! lol    See below. But of course its been copied many, many times since I uploaded it 8 years ago - and by photographers too. Now AI. lol

Doesn't worry me anymore. I retired from stock photography at the beginning of this year. The props room has been cleared out and I have a bit of gear to sell - thats if its worth anything anymore???

But still its sad. Especially looking at the money that comes dribbling in from SS nowadays. A couple of years ago I used to make around 1,000 dls/month for approx $1k. Now I make half the DLs - but for less than a 1/3 $$.  The half amount of DLs I understand (increased competition from competitors and now AI (and Pete  ) - but the 1/3 in cash is dismal.

I should complain about SS more often! I just noticed this from two days ago. $75 for one video and $22 for 44 (??!!) downloads of another. That's SS in a nutshell. lol

no doubt, while AI is eating the pie, photographers still can grab few crumbs here and there

I think there are very few areas where real photography will stay in demand, at least for some time. Who knows about the far away future? Maybe at some point humanity will be so used to AI generated images, that no one will even think to care about authenticity. But at least for now, and for the upcoming years these are the ares I can think of:

- Even photography. I think especially with wedding photography one must be out of his mind to want AI generated images instead of having real photos of the actual event. I also think there will be some constant demand for sports and concert photography. This will probably be easy to AI generate as well, but already now, especially in concert photography, when reporting about a concert there is a high demand to have photos of a very particular concert, even if a band or artis did a whole tour with 20 shows. If a web site reports about one concert, most will use images of that particular concert instead of the photos from any show. Fashion runaway shows is another area where I don't see AI doing the job anytime soon.
 I think there will be some areas of event photography that will be mostly taken over by AI. For a company it might be more important to have photos of an event that give a shiny image to the outside world instead of authentic images.

- Individiual dog/pet photography. The area of stock animal photography will be completely covered by AI, but there is a high demands for pet owners, mostly of dogs and horses, where the owners want to have great photos of their animals and are willing to pay good money for it. (Sadly due to my lack of driver's license that's not a real option for me, otherwise I would try to go into this direction)

- Portrait photography. We already know that this can be done by AI and I am sure it will be - especially the young generation that hasn't cared for authenticity for a long time, but uses Instagram filters to morph themselves into completely different people will not care and I can totally see them using a portrait AI service where they just send in a few selvies, even if they need a photo for something like a job application or to hang on their wall. But I think there is a generation of people over 40 who would not do that. So portrait photography will still be there, at least for the next 10-20 years. However, I do not know whether that's really a area of photography that brings in much money. The very small photography shops where you would go to to have a family portrait taken or a passport photo have become very rare here and usually you can just go there without an apointment, as the photographers don't really seem to have a full shedule.

- Editorial photographers. I think this area will also be taken over by AI more than some popel think. If the AI can generate a famous building there really is no need for a real photo. I think the area of street/travel photography will be the one to most suffer from AI images, but there are still news events, like a demonstration, a polical meating, etc.  that need to be covered.

That's really all I can think of.  I think most areas - landscape, wildlife, macro, underwater, astrophotography, scientif, fashion & beauty, street, travel, food photography - They will all be 95% replaced by AI in the future.

I think for now there is still a great demand for authentic photos. I have been playing around with AI generators a lot (know your enemy), and I can still see a lot of things where it is struggling with. Hands are still an issue, so are rodent feet, animal claws, insect legs, the AI has problems understanding the proper relation of things like "on the left/right, next to, behind, inside of, etc..." and never places stuff where I want it to be, it ignores way too many instructions and adds way too much stuff you didn't tell it to add and some things it fails to understand completely (someone please successfully generates "tube of glue" on midjourney!) , in studio-settings the light sorces in eyes often don't seem to come form the same direction for the left and right eye with animals, very specific not so common plants or even animals it doesn't seem to know at all. And sometimes it just goes batshit crazy - This was basically "cat hunting a mouse":



I really have no idea where Midjourney went wrong here. 

So there are still some major issues. But, I think with how fast AI is progressing, we can expect most if not all of them to be sorted out within maybe a year.

What I mean by local areas is places that people visit a lot in your city or town. I have sold a lot of stock of Greenville SC area because I live here and cover it, there is still a need for that at this time. break out into aerial and do that! There are still areas for growth. I am very aware that the photo stock business will be nearly dead in about  a year or less!

Quote from: Firn on March 29, 2023, 04:10

If the AI can generate a famous building there really is no need for a real photo.

Yes, there is. Once the NEW building is built. There is a window of opportunity of a few months before enough samples made by photographers are made to get the AI trained.

I hope you are aware that there are photorealistic 3D models and architectural visualisations in the location with all the engineering models etc. of the future building that exist long before ANY building is built nowadays even without any AI.

What wil be the job of the photographer? To take a photo of it against the clouds on the specific day?

I mean seriously... do you really think that buildings are built on the site and not on the computer first?!

Quote from: Zero Talent on March 29, 2023, 07:18

Quote from: Firn on March 29, 2023, 04:10

If the AI can generate a famous building there really is no need for a real photo.

Yes, there is. Once the NEW building is built. There is a window of opportunity of a few months before enough samples made by photographers are made to get the AI trained.

I hope you are aware that there are photorealistic 3D models and architectural visualisations in the location with all the engineering models etc. of the future building that exist long before ANY building is built nowadays even without any AI.

What wil be the job of the photographer? To take a photo of it against the clouds on the specific day?

I mean seriously... do you really think that buildings are built on the site and not on the computer first?!

Training AI with simulated input is a fallacy. Or, for that matter, training AI with AI generated inputs.
That's not how AI works.

You don't need AI to publish simulations instead of the real stuff. These are available today, indeed and yet, you don't see them used instead of the real stuff.

I saw some fools taking for real video games screenshots, instead of real war photos from Ukraine. But you can only do that for so long until you lose all credibility.

Quote from: Zero Talent on March 29, 2023, 07:51

Training AI with simulated input is a fallacy. Or, for that matter, training AI with AI generated inputs.
That's not how AI works.

You don't need AI to publish simulations instead of the real stuff. These are available today, indeed and yet, you don't see them used instead of the real stuff.

I saw some fools taking for real screenshots from video games, instead of real war photos from Ukraine. But you can only do that for so long until you lose all credibility.

I understand what do you mean I just don't understand the need in photographers in creating the "real life input".

Robot-cameras and drones will provide you with much more of the war zone horror than any photographer will ever do.
It is also safer to send robots there!

Haven't anyone seen Google Street View Cars that have recorded every inch of major cities 15 years ago? And without use of any stock photographer waiting in the bushes when the building will be built to take a pic of it first?

Seriously thinking that AI gets the main input from "photographers with cameras" is exceptionally ridiculous I am sorry, I cannot find other words

The AI lab tomorrow can send the car to drive around and record everything in the 100MP resolution if they want.

You might as well apply to be a driver then - they will be more useful in this process than photographers.

A drone operator is a photo/videographer. You don't need a film camera or a 5D Mark IV to be called a photographer.

Maybe that's what you don't get.

And don't worry, AI/robot wars are only happening in the science fiction movies you say you don't watch.