Will AI software advance the future of photography or destroy it?

The latest version of Photoshop includes tools for replacing the sky and changing facial expressions. This aligns with what other software platforms offer. Are these features helpful or detrimental to creativity and the future of photography?

When it comes to digital art and making liberal use of software to enhance an otherwise ordinary image, I'm all for it. If we have the tools at our disposal to create wondrous images conjured from the deepest recesses of our minds, why not? Whether with Photoshop, Luminar, Capture One, or something else, I think it would be foolish of us not to fully exploit the available tools. For me, however, there is a caveat: This is digital art, not "photography" in the typical sense of the word. Let me give you a concrete example.

Two years ago, my wife and I spent two wonderful winter weeks touring on skis and with our camera in the Lofoten Islands. I took the following photo in Reine:

Using the software "Luminar" from skylum, I transformed the image into the following "new photograph" with minimal effort:

I was amazed myself at how easily such a modification is now possible. But can the resulting image still be called a "photograph"? After all, it depicts a scene that didn't exist at the time the picture was taken and probably never will. The original sky was replaced by the software with some random night sky.

"Is that allowed?" After much deliberation, I concluded that it absolutely is. But perhaps such a product is more akin to painting than photography. Or, to put it in more modern terms: I think if such images are declared for what they ultimately are—namely, "digital art"—then there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.

With the latest Photoshop update, however, I feel things are different and go a bit too far for my understanding of photography. In case you're unaware, Adobe recently released some updates that include artificial intelligence for sky replacement and face recognition editing. Sky replacement is certainly not a new phenomenon and has been available for some time in other software platforms like Luminar, but with Adobe's release, such advanced sky replacement tools will now be accessible to many more people.

Personally, I believe this was an inevitable update from Adobe, simply because it's catching up with other software platforms that have been at the forefront of this field. However, that doesn't mean I necessarily agree with it, as I think it negates the post-production skills of many people who have become proficient in such things.

And that brings me to another of Photoshop's recent updates: facial recognition and the ability to edit faces. The latest update gives you access to various sliders that allow you to artificially add a smile or a frown to your subject's face, add surprises, change the direction of light hitting their face, or even remove glasses. I don't know about you, but when I first saw this, I found it absolutely appalling. Why? Because I've always believed that the best portrait photographers—and, incidentally, the best interviewers—are those who can bring out the best in their subjects. They're the ones who can calm their subjects to the point where they feel so comfortable in front of the camera that they surrender to the photographer and let their guards down.

The ability to draw out a smile, an open expression, or an authentic introspection that shines through in a portrait is a genuine skill, learned and honed through years of practice. This is what distinguishes the best portrait photographers from wedding photographers and interviewers. Anyone can point a camera at a subject to take a sharp, well-lit photo, but bringing life and character out of a subject is an art form in itself. Nevertheless, it frightens me that software is moving in the direction of allowing even the most boring facial expression of a subject to be manipulated to create a smile, a twinkle in the eyes, or a look that one is satisfied with.

With the latest update stacks that now allow us to swipe left or right to determine whether someone is smiling or frowning, happy or sad, wearing glasses or not, I think it's not beyond the realm of possibility that within 5 to 10 years we'll be able to create any kind of face we want and add any kind of smile or expression we want faster than we can blink. This will make the art of the great portrait photographers almost obsolete.

Summary

There's a reason we admire people who excel in their field and rise to the top: it's because they are exceptionally gifted and have spent thousands upon thousands of hours perfecting and refining their talents and craft so they can stand above the rest. We marvel at the abilities of our favorite musicians, athletes, and artists. And we should. They are the best of the best. But is modern photography software leading us down a path where the very best suddenly find themselves back in the pack because computer programs can fill the gap between mediocre and outstanding? Is that a path we, as a photography community, want to take?