The rapid evolution of generative artificial intelligence has shifted AI tools from a perceived existential threat into something anyone can use to create images fast.
two people running together side by side on shoreline during blue hour
It was early last year when my own friends were starting to use AI images creating and sharing their own and using LinkedIn AI photos... It started to make me think, maybe this is the future..
From a photographers perspective I will provide some capabilities of these platforms and their disadvantages..
Choosing Your AI Tool
| Platform | What it does best | The Downside | Price (Approx.) | Best Used For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Midjourney (v6+) | Creates absolutely stunning, artistic images. It excels at cinematic lighting, vibrant colors, and highly realistic portraits and faces. | It runs entirely inside an app called Discord, which feels like a confusing, fast-moving group chat room. It takes some practice to get used to. | $30 / month | Brainstorming styles, creating dream-like concepts, and generating high-quality art pieces. |
| DALL-E 3 (OpenAI) | Incredibly easy to talk to. You can type out a long, detailed description in plain English, and it places every single element exactly where you asked. | Images can sometimes look a bit too "perfect" or digital, lacking the raw, movie-like texture you get from Midjourney. When I first dove into AI content this is what I first used. | $20 / month (Comes with ChatGPT Plus) | Beginners who want specific objects in exact spots without having to learn complicated AI keywords. Can get very detailed if you know a bit about photography, lenses and lighting. |
| Adobe Firefly | Safe to use for businesses. It's built right into Photoshop, making it incredibly easy to instantly stretch backgrounds or remove unwanted objects from your photos. | It plays it a bit safe. It isn't as moody, wild, or artistic as Midjourney when generating an image from scratch.
I also find that it can be too practical and creates images that resemble something.. well. NOT what you want it to convey. |
Included in Adobe Creative Cloud (or free basic web trial) | Fixing existing photos, extending backdrops, and commercial client work where copyright safety is a priority. |
| Stable Diffusion | Gives you ultimate creative freedom. Because it runs on your own computer, you can download custom plug-ins to trace exact human poses and matching layout designs. | Very difficult for beginners. It requires a powerful graphics computer, complex software setups, and a lot of technical troubleshooting. | Free (If your computer can run it) | Tech-savvy creators and advanced users who want absolute, pixel-by-pixel control over a layout. |
| Google Gemini | Brilliant at creating bright, crisp, and vibrant commercial-style images. It's incredibly fast and understands general conversational descriptions beautifully. | It can occasionally struggle with highly complex, multi-step image commands compared to DALL-E, and sometimes applies strict built-in safety filters. | Free basic tier (or $19.99 / month for Advanced features) | Quickly generating crisp marketing graphics, clean illustrations, and colorful everyday social media imagery. |
three models standing in black jeans and black shirts infront of a white background
Prompting Like a Photographer
One of my absolute favorite parts of creating images with AI is the incredible amount of detail you can add when you use the right words. By using real photography terms, you can trick the generator model into creating incredibly realistic lighting, depth, and angles.
💡 Mastering Lighting
📷 Lenses & Depth
⚙️ Camera Settings
💡 Descriptions
hockey player during intense game, close up 135mm f4 indoor lighting
three friends outside of a pub called "north" pub in new york city, sunny lighting, f2.8
How to Use AI in Your Daily Workflow
Using AI doesn't mean letting a computer do all the work. Instead, think of it as an assistant that handles the tedious, time-consuming steps so you can focus on the fun, creative parts. Here are three great ways to use it:
-
1. Planning Your Ideas & Vision BoardsThe Old Way: Spending hours scrolling through boring stock photo websites, trying to piece together a rough idea of what you want to create (Average: 6–8 hours).The AI Way: Typing your exact thoughts into Midjourney or DALL-E 3 to see instant ideas for lighting, colors, and layouts (Average: 20 minutes).The Win: You get a clear, perfect visual plan of what your final image should look like before you even pick up a camera or open an editing tool.
-
2. Cleaning Up & Resizing Your Images
- Generative Fill: Instead of spending an hour painstakingly painting out an unwanted background distraction or a stray power line, you can simply draw a circle around it and ask tools like Adobe Firefly to erase it seamlessly.
- Stretching Backgrounds: If you have a beautiful photo that is too tall or too narrow for your social media layout, AI can automatically look at your image, guess what the rest of the scene should look like, and cleanly extend the background for you.
-
3. Creating Instant Backgrounds & Textures
- Fresh Asset Creation: You can instantly generate clean, colorful graphic patterns, simple abstract textures, or soft studio backgrounds to use behind text on your marketing materials and social media posts, saving your own photography for primary focal elements.
Where AI Falls Short (Why the Human Touch Matters)
As powerful as AI is, it is still just a computer program executing rules. There are deeply human elements of creating an image that a machine simply cannot copy:
- Capturing Real Life: AI cannot document genuine, live moments. It can't capture a real wedding, tell a true news story through a lens, or freeze a spontaneous, unscripted laugh between friends. While it can instantly change visual scenarios, it can never be used to truly document real, historical events.
- The Human Connection: A computer cannot talk to a nervous portrait subject, make someone smile, build trust, or direct someone on how to pose naturally to capture a moment of authentic vulnerability. That crucial spark of human connection is lost the moment you attempt to purely "generate" your way through a session.
- Knowing What Makes an Image Special: AI always tries to make things look completely perfect. It doesn't understand the emotional value of an imperfection—like leaving a unique birthmark untouched, or deliberately keeping a shot a little blurry or moody to tell a deeper, more moving story. Even if you fine-tune a very detailed prompt, you are still entirely relying on a premade, pre-trained math model.
