So recently, I was judging a photo contest, and during my judging, I commented that a few images could have been greatly improved by simply adding a little space or adjusting the composition using Lightroom or Photoshop's AI features. But the moment I said "AI," I could feel the tension in the room. People cringed, and that reaction got me thinking. Why? And the fact is, this discomfort isn't new.
Back in the early 1900s, people debated whether photography itself was an art form. Fast forward, and people questioned whether using Photoshop was cheating. Then it was Instagram filters, and now the new debate is AI. So is using AI cheating? In my opinion, absolutely not. It's just another editing tool. Just like dodging and burning or cropping in the darkroom, or doing it in Photoshop or Lightroom in your computer.
It's how you use it that matters. Okay, let's just take a quick step back. Let's look at Ansel Adams. He was a master at post-processing in the darkroom. In fact, for his famous Moonrise Over Hernandez photo, he added the moon in the darkroom. It wasn't even in the original image. Was that fake? Absolutely it was. But was it dishonest? No, because he wasn't trying to pass it off as a literal documentary photo. It was art.
It was his vision. So here's the real issue. It's not about whether you use AI. It's about intent and honesty. If you add a moon and say that's exactly the way it looked when it wasn't, that's dishonest. But if you're using AI to remove a distracting airplane or extending your sky at the edge of your image for a better composition, I think that's just creative choice.
The fact is you can use AI in two major ways. One, to help enhance your image during the editing process, and I think that's totally legitimate. Or two, you can use AI to generate an image entirely from scratch. Now, if you're doing the latter and presenting the AI-generated photo as something you photographed, that's where it crosses the line into dishonesty. It's not about whether you use AI. It's about whether you're being truthful about what you've created.
Here's another example. You wouldn't call it cheating if someone picked up a piece of trash from a landscape photo before taking the shot, right? So why is it cheating to remove it digitally after the fact? And am I cheating if I use AI to do it? It's time we stop being afraid of every new thing in photography. AI is just a tool. Like any tool, its value depends on how we use it.
If it helps you better express your vision, go for it. Just be honest about your process and stay focused on what really matters: creating compelling, beautiful images. Ironically, during that photo contest, a lot of the same people who cringed at my suggestion to use AI had submitted heavily over-processed images. And I thought, if that's not cheating, why is using AI considered cheating? It's the same concept.
It's manipulation, just doing it differently. The question isn't whether or not you edited the image. It's how well you edited that image and what your intention was. So remember, photography is an art form. Whether you're shooting, editing, or enhancing with AI, it's all about your vision and your ability to share that vision with others. Don't let fear of technology stop you from growing creatively.
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