Are the leaps and bounds in #AIvideo what we want?

They probably are exactly what people want. But first, I know exactly where that dismal robot in dystopian world in my last post came from, he lives in an even more dystopian and frightening universe within the multitude of tokens being accrued in the rapidly growing Large Language models.

WARNING you might find this video distressing

The German YouTuber called Fear Tube (there might be a hint there) who created it, notes.

I Asked AI to Create a World of Mysterious Scenes and AI Created a Mysterious World You Won't Believe! Immerse yourself in a fascinating world of epic fantasy! Breathtaking landscapes full of mystical creatures, steam-powered machines and impressive monsters await you in this video generated by artificial intelligence. A journey into a universe where magic and mechanics combine harmoniously.

AI video generation has exploded recently, and honestly, it's everywhere now. Social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube are completely flooded with AI-generated content, though a lot of it feels pretty pointless. What's really concerning is how hard it's becoming to tell what's real anymore. Deepfakes are getting scary good at cloning people's voices and faces, and unfortunately, bad actors are using this tech to deceive people without any consent from those being cloned. And don't get me started on my feed constantly showing me these weird AI videos of scantily dressed women running around game worlds with giant weapons - it's not my thing at all, and I'd rather not see dystopian content either. There's also this trend of people making instructional videos about creating AI clones to run online stores overnight with chatbots and video avatars. I'm not sure I would be ready to trust them.

That said, some of the creative stuff is genuinely impressive. For some reason, my algorithm keeps serving me steampunk videos, and while I'm not sure why, they're incredibly detailed and almost surreal in a fascinating way. The dream-like surrealist videos are pretty interesting too, even if they're deliberately obscure. I've seen some AI-generated music videos as well - not really my taste, but I can see the creative potential there.

What bothers me most is the bias problem. Most AI-generated content features beautiful young mostly white women. Sure, you'll see young men, athletes, working guys, even older men, but older women are practically invisible. I don't think this is necessarily the AI's fault - it's more about the people using these tools and what they choose to create. It makes me wonder: can we actually be trusted with this powerful technology to stay creative and inclusive? 

What's Next for AIart? (Dystopian Surprise!)

Lately, I've been a bit out of the loop with the rapid developments in generative AIart. Life threw a curveball with some eye issues and a corneal graft, which severely limited my computer time – even with NightCafe's regular emails urging me to claim my daily free credits.

My vision is improving, and I decided to jump back in by following one of NightCafe's invitations. This time, the free credits led to another invite to join one of their weekly challenges; they even pre-filled a prompt for me! I only caught the first couple of lines but decided to see what might happen. I'd previously experimented with prompts about AI/robots making art, so I wondered if that had "seeded" my new prompt, or perhaps another AI had "scanned" my earlier work on NightCafe (nothing impressive, just me playing around with the generative AI tech, by the way).

The image generated quickly, and I was genuinely taken aback by how dystopian and depressing it felt. It struck a chord, echoing my own concerns about the "look-at-me" culture of celebrity-seeking masses, which often feels like a desperate race to the bottom. Are we, as real artists, being replaced by soulless images churned out by "pseudo-intelligent" applications, all designed to grab attention so that advertisers pay more? Was I becoming just another cog in a process, simply there to click a link or hit enter?

"A melancholic robot with glowing eyes, standing in an abandoned art studio, surrounded by discarded paintbrushes and canvases, with a single tear of oil streaming down its metallic face, in the style of surrealism, with melting clocks and distorted perspectives, reminiscent of Salvador Dali, with a matte background and a somber, introspective mood."

Upon looking at the full prompt (above) and selected Flux model settings, I realised this prompt was likely just a refinement of my last work from a month or so ago (when I was effectively blind in one eye), rather than a new AI "spoon-feeding" me. The original prompt was: 

"a blind artist being assisted by an AI robot to create a large abstract painting surrealism Salvador Dali matte background melting oil on canvas."

I had used the Dreamscape XL Lightning model, a diffusion style model I was starting to like. However, the results weren't very Dalí-esque. A couple of the generated options had reasonable likenesses of Dalí, but nothing suggested he was blind or that a robot was assisting him. he just looked sad. Plus, the backgrounds were sharp and detailed, not melting, surreal or painterly. Was I to blame?, "Does my prompt need refining?" Yeah-Nah I just lost motivation and stopped.

Perhaps this is the true moral of the story for the artistic and creative communities: Keep an eye on what's going on, but don't worry too much. There's a lot of real life happening away from your computer or phone screen, and it's okay to let the over hyped generative AIart 'race to the bottom.' A bit sad really, if we want to benefit from the technology.

P.S. I even used Gemini Ai (Gemini 2.7 Flash) to help fix up my dictated jipperish for this post!

Last night of dodgy one-eyed sight and trying to take some photos

The evening before my corneal graft surgery, I decided to venture out with my camera despite my severely compromised vision. With my right eye essentially non-functional any bright or contrasting lights causing lasting effects in both eyes, photography has become a challenge of trust in my camera rather than precision.

Adapting to Visual Limitations

My relationship with photography has transformed dramatically. Electronic viewfinders are now unusable, and even the flip-out LCD screens present a significant challenge. I've adapted by:

• Returning to spot metering in the centre of the frame (reminiscent of my old Pentax Spotmatic days)
• Trusting my camera's autofocus setting to use that centre point
• I don’t fully trust the cameras “averaging” exposure so I set up my Olympus's back wheel for quick exposure value adjustments
• Taking multiple shots to compensate for uncertainty

Despite these adaptations, my photography outings have become rare as my vision keeps me indoors most days.

An Evening in Parliament Gardens

I stayed near the hospital and across the road from Parliament Gardens for my pre-surgery evening. As sunset approached, I noticed St. Paul's spire beautifully illuminated by the fading light. Just as I captured the scene, the bells began to ring—perhaps marking the time or the beginning of a conclave to select the next pope.

After uploading to my computer, I enhanced the raw file using Olympus's Vivid Mode, I had slightly underexposed the scene to preserve the golden hour tones, so lightened the shadows marginally, and cooled the overall temperature to deepen the sky. Not bad for someone with compromised vision!

Moonlight and Palm Trees

The moon caught my attention next, visible at that perfect moment when its illumination balances with the sky's brightness. I framed it with a palm tree swaying in the strong breeze, slightly underexposed again, and trusted my focus on the centered moon. Back at the computer, I applied the same vivid treatment, cooled the colour temperature, and cropped the image to position the moon slightly off-center.

Dinner on Spring Street, with a bit of creative post-processing

We continued our evening at a café on Spring Street opposite the Parliament building. The ambience was magical—lights just coming on while the sky remained bright, creating that challenging exposure scenario where automatic settings typically give you a bleached-out sky and detail-less shadows.

Rather than being discouraged, I saw post-processing potential. Using Luminar Neo's AI sky replacement and relighting features, I enhanced the scene to reflect the warm, pleasant Melbourne evening we experienced. The result captured the ambience of outdoor dining perfectly, despite not having a spectacular natural sunset.

In these moments before my surgery, photography became not just about seeing perfectly, but about adapting, trusting my equipment, and finding creative ways to preserve memories despite visual challenges.

Tools to Disrupt the Unethical Scraping of Art: My thoughts on Glaze and Nightshade

 For my anti-scraping tools experiments, I chose a personally meaningful AI-generated image from 2018. Created using an early version of Google's Deep Dream Generator in style transfer mode, the image merges a photograph of my right eye (taken during a rejection episode of my then three-decade-old corneal graft) with a cloud formation.

The creation process involved using the cloud image to establish the training set and then applying this "style" to a photograph of the right side of my face, originally intended as a profile picture. While I was pleased with the full-sized result, the cloud effect became less visible when reduced to smaller dimensions, making it appear simply as an unusual eye image. Though I ultimately didn't use it for its original purpose, this unique composition proved ideal for testing anti-scraping technologies.

This image represents an interesting circular journey—AI-generated art now protected from newer AI generative systems—making it particularly appropriate for this blog post.

Two emerging technologies from research indirectly supported at the University of Chicago offer some hope: Glaze and Nightshade. Though both tools share somewhat technical interfaces and require significant processing time on standard computers, they serve different protective functions:

Glaze embeds inappropriate AI training signals into your images, making it difficult for generative AI to accurately reproduce your artistic style when prompted by your name. My test on an eye/cloud composite image (see above) took approximately three hours on a standard i5 computer. The resulting image appears visually similar to humans but contains embedded neural network weights that should confuse any AI machine learning systems. While this doesn't prevent scraping, it reduces the likelihood of your style being accurately replicated. Which makes "glazing" suited to any artist seeking to protect their unique look.

Nightshade takes a different approach by "poisoning" specific text prompts associated with your work. This tool processes faster (about 30 minutes in my test) and creates images that appear normal to humans but contain corrupted data that could potentially damage AI training datasets. The theory is that widespread adoption might eventually reduce the reliability of AI models trained on scraped content, though this remains speculative. I'm currently testing Nightshade on some of my online photos to gauge any noticeable effects or responses.

Both tools add identifiable suffixes to filenames that might eventually be recognized by scrapers, ironically helping them avoid these protected images. This might in part be what artists want, those internet giants not using or freely sharing our work. Encouraging them to contact us, seek permission and pay to use would of course be better. Additionally, social media platforms typically strip metadata and rename files upon upload, potentially limiting the effectiveness of this possibility.

For maximum protection, artists can apply both techniques sequentially, though the practical impact of this combined approach is still unclear. 

While these technologies represent steps toward better intellectual property protection, they're early solutions in what will likely be an ongoing technological and legal conversation about artists' rights in the AI era.

Tools to Disrupt Unethical Scraping of Art: My Experience with Pixsy

Several years ago, I beta-tested through flickr an application now known as Pixsy.com that scans the internet for unauthorized uses of protected images. I continue to use the free version, which offers limited scanning capabilities, though paid tiers provide expanded monitoring and response options.

The system effectively allows users to review potential matches, verify ownership, and decide whether to ignore usage, issue takedown notices, or pursue other legal remedies. Since most of my Flickr images are posted under Creative Commons licenses permitting non-commercial reuse with attribution, I typically verify whether users have followed these terms.

While I've received occasional permission requests (which I usually approve for non-commercial users), I've only needed to issue one takedown notice when a local government publication used my work without acknowledgement. Though the digital version was removed, I suspect printed copies had already been distributed. Given the circumstances and potential legal costs, I chose not to pursue further action.

My recent monthly summary showed a significant increase in matches from social media platforms, particularly:

- Google, despite no longer actively posting to Google Photos (my content should be private except for occasional Blogger posts)

- TikTok matches via a "TikTok scraper" application (I have no TikTok account or uploads)

- Instagram matches (while my content is viewable there, it shouldn't be downloadable)

This unexpected proliferation of my images across platforms I believed were private or don't use, highlights the ongoing challenges in protecting digital creative work. Monitoring tools like Pixsy are a reasonable start. Still, there is obviously more to be resolved to ensure creatives don't have their work plundered to make a profit for unscrupulous others without permission or compensation.

A little bit about "Littles"

 I watched an interesting YouTube demonstration by Al Klein on the American Art School Live Channel about a little tool/technique he uses for plein air sketching. He creates what he calls “littles”. These are small colour studies/composition sketches/almost tonal studies. He creates them in his sketchbook and uses a small viewfinder frame that he made to be the exact ratio of his potential larger work later. 

His beautifully simple next step is to place the viewfinder on a blank sketchbook page and use the cutout area as a template and trace out the frame shape onto the page. Thus eliminating any virtual scaling in your brain when transferring your sketch to a larger studio work. It also helps firmly position the main shapes you observe into the correct position within the composition.

I don’t necessarily agree with all his terminology and explanation, for example, colour temperature is independent of tone. I prefer to limit the term tone to describe the difference between light and darkness. what I did like is the idea of a small sketch in the field that looks at seeing and defining those shapes of colour and tone. So I had to make up a couple of viewfinder frames that would suit any A5 sketchbook.  I like working initially in an A5 sketchbook on site with some basic tools, a small portable colour palette and a pencil. I have made up a variety of such kits based on cheaper A5 visual diaries/sketchbooks to do my little experiments in the field. I’ve also started using them pretty exclusively for my tonal studies in the style of Andy Evanson, these are just monochrome and all about understanding where to put the initial washers and how to join the various toned shapes. They definitely are not colour studies.

I happen to have some internal offcuts of Mat from frames and set about cutting my viewfinder frames. I’m not using sheet and half sheet sizes for my watercolours much anymore I tend to work in sizes A3, A4 and A5. So decided to try out some viewfinder cutouts based on smaller A-size ratios. I quickly dismissed the A6 size hole as it was too large, my arm wasn’t long enough. Basically, when you hold it in front of your eye it takes in too much of the view to be useful in terms of refining a decent composition. So I ended up cutting 2 frames, one with an A7 size hole and one with an A8 size hole. The A7 size is probably my favourite and works very well at roughly arm's length, you can swing it around and see the various compositions very quickly. The A7 viewfinder seems incredibly small but it’s very useful for zooming in and out, moving it closer or further from your eye and can make an outline for a very neat little colour study in your sketchbook.

The issue of finding the best framing is not just limited to plein-air artwork, it also applies to photography. The vast majority of folk still just lift the camera to their eye roughly centred on the subject they are photographing and press the shutter. A small amount of time spent changing the view (frame) can have remarkable results. Changing a ho-hum composition into something striking. This is really simple with a modern digital camera if they have a suitable LCD screen on the back to preview your test photograph and is really straightforward on any modern smartphone with a camera. Remember to try the zoom feature to get closer or a broader view. If you don’t have a zoom lens you can always zoom with your feet.

Why I've been missing.

 I'm not one for excuses but I don't mind sharing what has been slowing me down on the computer/internet/socials front.

1. My recent corneal graft is rejecting and I am losing my vision in my right eye. This makes any work on the computer very taxing.

2. Discovered that some of my best work has been "scrapped" (without permission) into a couple of the more significant Large Language Model data training sets.

I view this as unethical and dangerous behaviour by those driving the current Race to dominate the so-called "AI race". By the way, the current crop of generative and large language tools are not intelligent. They just appear superficially intelligent.

 My current solution, which isn't so good, is to stop publishing my original works on the net.

3.  My reach on Instagram has dramatically declined and I can't be bothered anymore to be part of the constant scramble to keep a users attention so some people can get very rich from advertisers.

Stop the death scrolling folks get up and enjoy life!

You can see more of  adansito work at NightCafe

Sending Watercolour Postcards : Does Size Matter?

The general answer is yes but the specific answer is not really!

Postcards and Christmas cards have fairly well established dimensions. For most postcards it is 4 by 6 inches, or roughly 10 by 15 centimetres. However, postcards are not exclusively this size but generally close and our Australian post office machinery for sorting mail handles this size easily. Assuming you card is stiff enough, 200gsm plus, you just need to put a stamp on the back with the address, don’t forget the postcode, and post.

Christmas cards typically have a variety of sizes, but 5 by 7 inch, or roughly12.5 by 17.5 cms, is a popular size. These cards are designed to be sent in a suitably sized envelope, which are usually supplied with the cards. Such larger envelopes by themselves can be hard to find and it might be best to find the envelopes first before embarking on larger cards.

Australia post have size and weight limits and standard post is now $1.50 for up to 13 by 24 cms and up to 5mm thick. 200 gsm paper is around 2mm thick and 300 gsm paper a fraction over 3mm thick but thickness varies by manufacturer and composition.

Australia post still offer cheaper rate 65c for card only posting around Christmas. I believe they now only sell the stamps in pack of 10 (ie $6.50) and I believe you still need to leave the envelope unseal and write card only on the back. Interestingly, Australian Post allow larger sizes for “season cards”, up to 26 by 34cm and up to 20mm thick, in November and December. So this might be an option if you make you own cards and send out several.

Here is a table of common sized option

Watercolour postcard	Either commercial watercolour or homemade postcards	10 by 15cm ~(9 by 17cm)	☑
A6 postcard		10.5 by 14.8cm	☑
Half A5 postcard	cut in half	14.8 by 21cm/2 =>10.5 by 14.6cm	☑
Quarter A4	cut into four	21 by 29.7cm/4 =>10.5 by 14.6cm	☑
A4 Card	Folded into quarters in envelope	~11 by 15cm	☑
A5 Card	Sent as is in envelope	14.8 by 21cm	⮽?☑ Only in Nov./Dec.

What Brands of Watercolour Postcard are Available and Where?

There are several brands of premade blank watercolour postcards. Here are a few I’ve used.  My favourite is Hahnemuhle which comes in a very nice little tin of 30 sheets, which is easy to pack when I'm travelling. I bought a couple of tins many years ago at a gallery in Fish Creek which is now closed. Unfortunately, this paper then proved hard to source. Recently I noticed that it is now available at The Art Shop in Bayswater.

Another brand of postcard paper I have used extensively is Winslow which I think is only carried by Eckersley’s. I originally bought a pad in Queensland. I think it is a wood pulp paper rather than cotton but it is a very robust 300gsm card. The pad only contains 15 cards, so it is not the cheapest option per card but often available at a discount price in-store.

 Last year I purchased a different brand in a tin called Potentate. It’s supposedly 100% cotton 300 gsm with 24 blank sheets in the tin and comes from China. I bought it from Amazon as it was on special, possibly $15, which was enough to give me free freight on an larger order. I like it but have not been able to find a supplier in Australia and it no longer seems available through  Australian Amazon.

Finally a large number of the postcards I have sent were "homemade", possibly more than half, and particularly the many birthday cake postcards that I sent to the WSV members during lockdowns, These handmade postcards, were just watercolour paper just to size. My YouTube below makes me cringe a bit at the video quality, I made it at the beginning of the Covid locked-downs. Hopefully, it may give you context as to why I like original hand painted watercolour postcards.

Whenever I am cutting up watercolour paper I try to keep any pieces that are roughly 10 by 15 cms in the little folder I made for my Canadian trip and carry this with my plein air gear. This size is great for quick sketches, value or colour studies even when they’re not intended to be postcards.

Can you Send Watercolour Paper Safely in the Post?

I have actually sent a lot of postcards unprotected through the post. From such diverse locations as Canada the UK, Northern Europe, Africa, South Asia, Brazil and even far northern Queensland with just the stamp on the back and an address, without problem. A few took a while to arrive, particularly through the Covid 19 lockdowns. In one late delivery, I had forgotten to add the postcode!

Being watercolour and paper many people worry they are not strong enough and will suffer water damage to smudge or lift the painting. Yes, water damage is a real potential problem but within Australia, the Postal Service does have a pretty good track record. Of course, providing the recipient has a waterproof mailbox!

Concerning the robustness of any watercolour postcard it depends mainly on the thickness and weight of the paper. Cotton-based watercolour papers are actually quite robust but I have not tried sending anything less than 200 gsm homemade postcards. Most of the commercial cards are either 230 gsm or 300 gsm. As far as I know, none have arrived scuffed, creased or damaged. Some wood-pulp-based paper in cheaper watercolour pads feels a lot softer and may require posting in an envelope.

Speaking of which you can always put your postcard in an envelope. Standard envelopes available for letters might prove a little tight. Just refold the top flap to accommodate the card’s width. Given envelopes are also made of paper they will not guarantee that there is never a possibility of water or physical damage.

As far as future provenance is concerned, I romantical have the view that future generations, even art historians or curators might enjoy researching the postmarks and stamp designs. Even today something sent through the post is considered quaint and more authentic.

From Frustration to Innovation: Saving a Watercolour Painting Gone Wrong

As artists, we often stumble upon unexpected challenges that lead to creative solutions. I want to share a recent experience that turned a potential disaster into an interesting experiment with old watercolour paper and ground.

Lately, I've been on a mission to use up my old/unused art supplies – particularly my watercolour paper stash. During a recent Wednesday Wanderers session, I pulled out what I thought was my trusty Bockingford paper, a brand I've always appreciated for its forgiving nature. Oh, how wrong I was!

The Problem

As soon as I began applying my usual semi wet-on-wet technique for the background, I knew something was off. Instead of the familiar behavior I expected, the paper acted more like blotting paper – greedily soaking up every drop of pigment. The whole sheet remained stubbornly wet throughout the entire session. Even after drying, the paper was noticeably warped.

I suspected this must have been a forgotten sheet from an ancient pad, likely suffering from deteriorated sizing. But rather than consigning my work to the bin, I saw an opportunity for experimentation.

The Solution

Remember that watercolour ground I'd recently purchased for the VAS 9 by 5 exhibition to paint on wood? That became my saving grace. I decided to apply two very light coats to the troubled paper. While this process did lift some of the original colour (an expected side effect). 

The improvement in the paper's surface was remarkable.

The Result

The experiment proved successful! The watercolour ground not only rescued my painting but also gave the paper a second life. It's fascinating how often our artistic "mistakes" can lead to discovering new techniques and solutions.

Key Takeaways:

• Don't be too quick to discard "failed" paintings

• Old art supplies might surprise you (not always pleasantly!)

• Watercolour ground isn't just for wood – it can rehabilitate problematic paper too

• Sometimes the best discoveries come from trying to fix our mistakes

Has anyone else experienced similar issues with aged watercolor paper? I'd love to hear about your creative solutions to art supply challenges!

Originally shared on Instagram.

Waiting for better colour tools

Photographic software, particularly editing software, has been dominated by adjusting the RGB Red Green Blue numbers. But human perception of colour is slightly more complex in capturing filtered colours on a light sensor under bayer filters or viewing a screen of  LEDs light emittingdiodes, coloured red green and blue-ish . Further  many graphic artist had complained mixing coloursd in graphic software,  doesn’t necessarily create the same colours that you would expect in a mix using pigment paints.

In the end I had to just live with these limitations.

However things are changing a few graphic applications will now more naturally mix pigments for graphic software. What I wish to discuss here is a surprise addition to the update 1.21 to Lumina Neo. It includes a new section called Color Harmony. The two top sliders will be very familiar to ligthroom Photoshop users but with slight different colours on the top slider, which is not called Tint but Brilliance. Instead of starting at green and moving to a magenta it runs for a bluish grey green to a red. I suspect is colour harmony is very much inspired/controlled by the NCS system which still dominates many European countries.

Colour Contrast is something I will also discuss later as it deserves a bit more investigation.

Split colour versions of pigments, as warmer or cooler versions when mixing intermediate colours, have been a long standing practise of how artists have traditionally bought a lot of drama and harmony  into their artisticworks. On a flat surface, like a painting or photograph, cool colours tend to recede warm colours tend to come forward.  

Portrait photographs have known this even back in the film days. Using various filters of coloured lights to enhance their work and bring the sitter to life. In the smartphone world there are “warmify” apps to liven your selfie and deeply buried option on most digital cameras to alter th colour temperature of the photo output. Cannon is renowned for their “warmer” sensors. These digital tools usually apply to the whole image

Why these Split Colour Warmth sliders are different they change warm and cool components of your picture separately. This is a bigger deal than I originally thought. Here is a simple example of a young bougainvillea “bloom”, actually just new leaves that are orange before turning magenta, taken at my studio window. I’m a little amazed how much impact can be achieved when you separately adjust the whoops and cool have on the photo. I’m expecting to have a lot of fun with these sliders.

 

Colour Balance adds nuanced refinements, combining tonal/luminance steps with more detail colour adjustments. It is also an area I wish to explore further.

 Finally I should point out the Film Strip at the bottom of my screen capture above, this has been a long asked for addition to Luminar Neo. It allows you to see several thumbnails of adjacent images in the catalogue and you can rate and compare them directly here

Using robot.txt

For decades, website owners could control how search engine crawlers and other software bots interact with their sites. This powerful tool, known as robots.txt, has been an integral part of HTML since its early days. Let's dive into what robots.txt is and how you can use it effectively.

What is robots.txt? It is a simple text file placed in the root directory of your website. It provides instructions to web crawlers about which parts of your site they're allowed to access and index.

How does it work?

 The file typically contains at least two types of instructions:

1. User-agent: Identifies the crawler being addressed
2. Disallow: Specifies which parts of the site the crawler shouldn't access

 A basic example might look like this:

User-agent: *                                    
Disallow: /                                        

The downside of this approach is that Google’s will not Index your website and therefore it won’t be found in any Google searches. Probably not what we want. An alternative is to identify a folder on your website (if you have folders). In this case my images are all stored in the subdiretory /images. 

Disallow: /images/                           

It is easy to make your robot text file much more specific. For example I don’t want chat gtp’s web scraper to go through my website you can stop so I need to know the agent name that OpenAi are using and I got this information from 20i article How to stop AI scraping your website (see see video below) 

User-agent: GPTBot                    
Disallow: /                                    

At this point in time I not sure this approach is reliable because I suspect that a lot of Bots that are scraping the Internet are just ignoring robot text.  it’s clearly a voluntary exercise. However it is one step that demonstrates you want to be opted out of the datasets collected by specific AI developer, which may come in handy in future.

A more regulated way to opt-out os such indiscriminate content scrapping would be nice?

Is AI getting “good enough”?

In two minds about using AI for art works

This is an AI image I created with the prompt above, using google Deep Mind’s latest incarnation of its generative app Imogen-3. it really looks better than most other generative AI. Less overcrowding with intricate but less relevant detail, with consistent lighting and better capturing the emotional direction of my prompt. It was also my only creation with this prompt.

Google claims 

"We’ve significantly improved Imagen 3’s ability to understand prompts, which helps the models generate a wide range of visual styles and capture small details from longer prompts.

To be even more useful, Imagen 3 will be available in multiple versions, each optimized for different types of tasks, from generating quick sketches to high-resolution images."

Ok that’s nice wording google but what does it mean and why do I see such a difference to other prompt generated images

Well perhaps there is a hint right at the end of their hype.

"Imagen 3 was built with our latest safety and responsibility innovations, from data and model development to production.

We used extensive filtering and data labeling to minimize harmful content in datasets and reduced the likelihood of harmful outputs. We also conducted red teaming and evaluations on topics including fairness, bias and content safety.”

Recent developments in AI technology have raised some intriguing questions about data handling, promoting fake news and bias. It appears that at least google is implementing input checking mechanisms on the information they use to train their models. This likely extends to assessing image quality as well, ensuring that the data fed into these systems meets certain standards. Looks “good enough”.

However, this observation leads to a more pressing personal concern: 

Does responsible AI development truly encompass ethical practices across the board? The issue of data collection methods remains a significant point of contention. Are these companies indiscriminately scraping data from various sources without proper consent or consideration?

This brings me to a personal worry many of us share: the privacy of our own data, particularly our photos. With the prevalence of cloud-based photo storage services like Google Photos, and the vast number of images captured and uploaded from mobile devices daily, it's natural to wonder about the security and usage of this data. I worry some companies are "hoovering up" these personal images en masse? If so, what are the implications for our privacy and the control we have over our own digital footprint? 

As consumers and digital citizens, it's important that we stay informed about these practices and advocate for ethical standards in AI development. The balance between technological advancement and personal privacy is delicate, and it's a conversation we need to keep having as AI continues to evolve and integrate into our daily lives.

My Most Portable Sketching Setup

One of the primary objectives with my art gear that I took to Queensland was figuring out the minimum I required when painting or sketching. A significant oversight was that I forgot to pack a small sketchbook, so I had to purchase an A5 Visual Diary at the airport. I managed to find one with 110gsm Cartridge paper which I figured would be okay for pencil and pen, but maybe a bit thin for watercolour.

It was just the right size, combined with my dot chart, a water brush, and sometimes a gel pen. I actually did a lot of sketching with this. Anyone else who has tried sketching people at the beach knows that no sooner do you start the sketch than the people move away, stand up, change positions, or go home. Capturing people on the beach can be a fun challenge, but you probably only have a short time to get the basic gestures and textures.

What I found is that these sketches could capture a lot more life in the figures than a photograph. If I was careful how much water I used with the water brush, I had no problems with wrinkling the page as I was painting, so decent-weight cartridge paper is probably okay for this size sketchbook if you're just using it to collect some gestural pictures quickly.

I really appreciate the dot chart on the CD laid out like a colour wheel. On this particular dot chart, I may have overdone the number of colour dots. It's easy to mix the colours you want onto the paper as you go, and I really didn't need that many colours - going back to the 6 basic families is probably okay, possibly with one or two darks and an earth colour.

Creating the dot chart like this is both practical and very cheap and won't discourage me from experimenting. So I've already started making up a few, -CD colour wheel dot charts to start very minimal sketching kits based on a water brush and a small collection of pencils and/or pens.I have a few water brushes, but I really liked the Pentel waterbrush with the bulbous water barrel - it's easy to load with water, always has a decent flow, and the bristles are easy to clean. On the trip I also bought a cheap set of water-soluble graphite pencils in two grey shades and black, and I liked them. Perhaps I'll look out for more upmarket suppliers, like Derwent.. I also like gel pens, particularly the ones with soluble ink.I'm okay with just using the cheaper spiral-bound A5 visual diaries, as long as they have thicker pages (e.g., 120 gsm) rated for mixed media, which should mean they can take a little water media if I want colour.. My intention is to have several of these kits easily accessible everywhere so there is never an excuse not to stop and sketch - e.g., in my studio, office, car, art bag, and perhaps even in the back pocket of my camera bag.

Plenty of fun to come!

The Dilemma of "Bully" Colours in Watercolour Palettes

As I mapped my watercolour pigments onto a hexagon grid, seeking to merge colour systems from RGB and CMYk to the likes of Ostwald and Munsell, I noticed an interesting pattern. The warmer colours (yellows, oranges, reds) spread out more on the grid's edge, while cooler colours, blues and greens and even deeper reds and purples on the outer sections seemed to merge in tone and hue.I wondered if this was because I had picked the darker richly pigmented “bully” colours? Those strong staining colours that look so overwhelming straight out of the tube.  

This observation led me to two questions:

1. Do I have enough variety in my blues, deep reds, purples, and magentas?

2. Should I retain strong, staining "bully" colours in my basic palette?

To address the first question, I experimented with new colours during a trip to Queensland. I bought some extra colours shown here that I added to my normal palette using little half pans stuck in with bluetak. I was particularly chasing tropical colours and I also wanted at the same time to try out a couple of MaimeriBlu colours. My choices were  good. This exploration will be covered in a separate post.

The second question about "bully" colours like phthalo green and blue is more complex. These intense pigments can be powerful in mixes but require careful handling. 

They offer several benefits:

1. Desaturating complementary colours while maintaining harmony

2. Creating strong contrasts when used sparingly with analogous colours

3. Adding warmth (Quinacridones) or coolness (Phthalos) to mixes

4. Achieving split-tone effects, like warm highlights with cool shadows

Instead of discarding these pigments, I'm considering using them as mixing aids rather than relying on convenience colours like naple's yellow or sap green or any of those gorgeous pigments you may have impulse purchased but seldom used. This approach might help create a more nuanced and harmonious palette.

Have You Been Scraped? Uncovering AI's Training Data

In the age of generative AIart and large language models, the question of concern for any creative artist (I am loath to call them "content creators" but social media does): 

Has our work been used to train AI without our knowledge or consent? A new tool offers some answers and a way to take action.

The website haveibeentrained.com allows users to search through vast, publicly researched AI training datasets like LAION 5B using text prompts. Curious about my own digital footprint, I decided to give it a try.

https://haveibeentrained.com/

Searching my name yielded numerous images from other Norm Hansons, but among them was a familiar face—my own. A self-portrait rock painting I'd posted long ago as a profile picture on Artists at Large had made its way into the dataset. While not overly distressed by this single instance, it did give me pause.

More concerning was the discovery that my charcoal sketch of Sir John Monash, created for an exhibition in 2018, had been scraped from my website. This unauthorized use of my work felt like a violation of my artistic rights.

Fortunately, the website offers a small measure of control. For individual images, users can tick a box that adds the image to a "Do Not Train" register, signaling to participating groups that you don't want your work included in future neural network training sets. For broader protection, entire domains can be registered.

It's worth noting that these actions are somewhat akin to closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. The data has already been used in training existing models. However, it's currently our best option for protecting our work moving forward.

This situation highlights a critical need for transparency and ethical behavior from those creating large language models, whether for legitimate research, commercial interests, or other purposes. As AI continues to evolve, so too must our understanding of its implications for creative rights and data privacy.

Have you checked if your work has been used in AI training datasets? Share your experiences and thoughts in the comments below.

Is Image Glazing Worth the Hassle?

Protecting our art is becoming crucial in today's AI-driven digital world. But is image glazing the answer? Here's my experience so far.

Cara, a popular alternate platform to Instagram at the moment, has yet to offer built-in glazing. They suggest using Glaze, a separate software. Sounds simple. Not quite.

Setting up Glaze is a bit of a headache:

- It's free, 👍 but requires downloading large zip files 👎

- You need a hefty amount of disk space 👎

- The process feels outdated and tedious 👎

took ~88 minutes to Glaze

The real kicker? It's slow.👎👎👎 We're talking almost an hour and a half per image for my 9x5 submissions on older hardware. Ouch.

tool ~83 minutes to Glaze

You can batch them 👍 but it's one at a time.👎

But here's the biggest issue: you can't tell if it worked 🤞. The image looks the same, and there's no way to verify if it's actually protecting your style.🤞

So, is it worth it? Excuse me if I'm a little sceptical. The process is time-consuming, and we're essentially trusting a black box. 

Can it really save our unique mark-making styles from AI theft?

Supporting My Art: Why Buy Me a Coffee?

In light of recent developments regarding social media ethics and content usage, I've decided to make some changes to how I share my artwork online.

Why These Changes?

I'm concerned about:
- Unauthorized use of my content
- AI systems scraping my artwork
- Maintaining control over my creative output

What's Changing:

- Reducing posts on social media platforms
- Limiting the publication of large versions of finished works
- Focusing on sharing here through my personal blog and website

How You Can Help

To support my continued work and the maintenance of my independent platforms, I've implemented a "Buy Me a Coffee" system. This allows you to:

- Make one-time contributions
- Show your appreciation without ongoing commitments
- Help offset the costs of hosting and creating content

Your support, even for just one virtual coffee, is greatly appreciated and helps fuel my artistic journey.

Thank you for your understanding and continued support!

Protecting Creative Work in the Age of AI Scraping

As creatives in the digital age, we're facing a new challenge: how to protect our work from indiscriminate scraping by AI companies. While tools like Creative Commons licensing have been a go-to solution, their effectiveness against AI data collection is questionable.

Creative Commons: A False Sense of Security?

I've long relied on Creative Commons to share my work while maintaining some control. My license specifies attribution, non-commercial use, and (previously) share-alike terms. However, I'm beginning to question whether this offers real protection against AI scraping.

The Reality of AI Data Collection

Many companies, often hiding behind research organizations, are scraping vast amounts of online data to train AI models. This process often ignores licensing terms and lacks proper attribution or curation.

Changing Tactics

In response, I've updated my blog's license from "share-alike" to "no derivatives," hoping to prevent AI from copying my style. However, the legal landscape around this issue remains unclear, especially in Europe.

New Technological Defences

A promising development is the creation of tools that embed changes in image files. These alterations are invisible to humans but can disrupt AI training, potentially "poisoning" the dataset. Glaze and Nightshade are two such tools, though they're still in development and can be resource-intensive to use.

The Path Forward

Despite these efforts, I'm still uncertain about how to confidently share my work with those who behave ethically while protecting it from misuse. As creatives, we need to stay informed about these issues and continue seeking effective solutions to protect our work in the AI era.

What are your thoughts on protecting creative work in the age of AI? Have you found any effective strategies?

I've prepared this blog post with some good advice and a little rewording from Claude.AI