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My post about using the AI Generative Remove tool in Lightroom prompted a response from Bajadreamer on how he approaches the modification of his images. Here’s what he shared with me:
“My goal with most of my images is to allow the individual bird to be the “star” of the photograph. Anything that effectively detracts from that goal, I will try to minimize or eliminate. Sometimes distracting elements can be eliminated via cropping; sometimes not. As long as the overall “mood” of the image is not changed, I have little problem with using the tools available. That may be the Remove Tool, Cropping, burning or dodging, or cloning. What I will not do is to change the overall mood or story I am trying to show.”
“This first image is the original of a Cocoa Woodcreeper in the rain showing a distracting vine and tree trunk in the background” [Mike’s Note: see how close the bird is to the tree trunk on the right]:
“The second is how I would normally process this image. It has been cropped, and the clone and remove tools eliminates vine and second tree” [Mike’s note: the tree trunk to the right of the bird and vine are no longer visible]:
“The third is changing the background to something totally foreign to this bird, scene, or location” [Mike’s note: the background has been replaced using AI adding rain/sleet and a building in the distance]:
“These examples are exaggerated and poorly edited, but hopefully they get the point across. Yes, I will disclose any major changes to an image before I post it on Facebook or wherever. The camera club I belong to does not allow any changes other than cropping or lighting adjustments in competitions.”
Thanks Bajadreamer for sharing your images and thoughts about how you approach and communicate your image modifications. Would anyone else care to share their thoughts and/or images on this subject? Just reply to this email or add it to the Comments section of the blog post.
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All three to my amateur eye are interesting pictures. I like them al.