What was the first digital image format you used for schoolwork or office presentations?
For those of us old enough to remember, bitmaps were all the rage in the 1980s and then vector clipart took over in the 1990s. In the 2000s, digital photography went mainstream and everyone learned how to say JPG (“Jay-Peg”).
Today, if you need stock photos, you can download free images from Pexels. You can also use digital artwork if you have access to a graphic designer or a modern clipart library.
But all that is about to change.
Last year (2022), AI Art suddenly became accessible to the masses. Today, you can generate your own image for free using Bing Image Creator and other AI Art tools. Advanced users can create mind-blowing visuals with Stable Diffusion (free) or Midjourney (paid subscription). I train myself on these tools daily and I can barely keep up with the new features that emerge weekly.
The new age of AI Art will change the way we use images too.
If you look at the bottom right image, the AI generated of Michelangelo’s David isn’t posing like the real sculpture was depicted in the other three images. I’m a stickler for perfection, so I re-generated the image several times to get it to pose “correctly”, but then I stopped myself.
Why should I insist in recreating reality, when I can show another version of David made with gloriously colorful mosaic tiles? So be it!
Today, AI Art may seem to be strange and perhaps irrelevant to you. However, I firmly believe it will become the dominant way for us to create and use images in the next decade. If you are interested to explore AI Art for yourself or your company, I’m here to help.
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I help others grow through the power of words, visuals and technology. thinktan.net
(Image credits: Bitmap image from Pinterest, vector image from Dreamstime, photo from Pinterest, and AI Art image generated by me in Stable Diffusion)