AI is on everyone’s lips these days, and as controversial as it is, I guess it’s here to stay. So, I want to figure out how it works.
I already know that AI can be helpful with my writing process, help me edit and critique my texts, or help me find the right words for the right situation.
It can also be helpful and support the creative process when used with a bit of caution.
I participated in a workshop the other day, offered by Nucly Akademy (my favorite Photoshop Learning place – www.nucly.com). During the workshop, we created a monumental text with the help of AI.
I’ll explain the process.
First, we created a reference picture of what we wanted in Photoshop, a rough grayscale sketch – the letters, the mountains, and the outline.
Then, we jumped over to Adobe Firefly (Adobe’s AI generator – www.adobe.com/products/firefly.html) and uploaded the reference picture.
After some adjustments, by adding different categories (like cinematic, dramatic, monumental, etc…), we wrote down a prompt for the AI generator and let it create several suggestions. We picked one as a style reference, and generated it again. We repeated that process again and again, with little tweaks until we had the “perfect” picture. On the right, you can see one of my style references…
Then we took that “perfect picture” back to PS, adjusted it to taste (photo adjustments, hue saturation, curves, etc.), added some elements like a flock of birds and a man looking up at the monument, and voila, the Monumental Text in the Mountain.
This whole process showed the possibilities AI provides but it also revealed the limitations it still has (depending on the software).
We didn’t have a lot of influence on what the generator threw at us unless we were very clear with your prompts and even then, it didn’t always understand what we wanted. At one point, I misspelled Shadow as “Schadog” in the prompt and what I got then were dogs instead of the shadow I wanted. When I corrected the word, the AI generator still gave me dogs as suggestions for shadows, which was quite funny.
Still, I had a blast trying this, and I am happy with the result of the Walz Monument.
