This one is inspired by the cold weather we’ve been having in Florida. Yes, cold is relative because to me, below 70s is cold. It even got down to freezing a couple of nights. Plants died that I have had here for years, it was heartbreaking.

Anyway, the idea for this just popped into my head and I finally got around to starting it. I created the source a while back. I don’t use AI at all. I think the idea of generating photos could be cool, but the way the whole AI thing has been done just disgusts me. Not to mention the complete hypocrisy – for example – Adobe suing people for stealing their programs back in the day and – oh wait – now they’re being sued for stealing other people’s IP?? These companies have gotten so out of hand.

With all this AI, it seems like people are outsourcing their own thinking. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but it gives me a very bad vibe. The most exciting part of creative work is coming up with the ideas and figuring it out! It’s going through the process of getting an idea and thinking about how you’re going to execute it.

What could be awesome is if you could somehow have your very own AI image generator that is completely private and somehow have your own photography as the source material. I’m not sure if that’s possible, but I have thousands of photos and if it didn’t take a huge amount of effort, I’d at least try using it in that way. I haven’t really looked into it, so maybe this is in some way possible…

I used to use photoshop to make my sources, but my copy of it just stopped working on a new computer I bought a few years ago. So, I had switched to Photoshop Elements for a while, I refuse to use subscription based products. Well, I just bought a Windows 11 laptop and the Photoshop Elements I paid for doesn’t work with it. I wasted time I shouldn’t have had to spend trying to get it to work. It’s beyond unacceptable. Also, both my printers and my scanner don’t work with my new laptop! How can this be? I have NEVER had so many issues. When I get around to it, I will probably switch to Linux. The only thing stopping me was that I thought I’d have to give up using certain software, but if it doesn’t work anyway, well there’s nothing stopping me! I’m not going to upgrade to get it to work either, I’m just going to stop using these products.

Anyway, now I use Paint.NET to make my sources, which is free and more than adequate. I try to use my own photography as much as possible, but obviously I’m not going to get these cool photos of wildlife. I have gotten some decent photos of birds, but even that’s been very difficult because they are very fast and don’t get too close to me. I find free references to incorporate into my sources when I can or I buy reference packs which are so helpful. I have thousands of photos from the reference packs I’ve bought over the years.

So I have two types of ‘styles’, I guess. One is where I more or less paint my photos as realistically as I have the patience for and the other is my imaginative work, where I come up with an idea and try to get source material to create the image in my mind. Ideally, I’d love to be able to just magically paint from what’s in my mind, but I don’t know if that will ever be possible for me.