The macro photography looks bizarrely uniform and the poses contrived. I feel like a sleuth trying to decide if this is AI generated or not. I suspect it isn't, but I'm somewhat distressed at how suspicious I am of cool things now.
As someone who has done some stacked photos, they always look suspicious! If it's any consolation, I recognize the photographer and they are the sort of person who would never use AI!
You take multiple pictures at different focal points and combining together computationally because the depth of field at the magnification is very shallow. The resulting image looks somewhat flat, but highly detailed.
You know how some photos have super blurred backgrounds? The same effect occurs undesirably when you’re trying to do extreme macro photography (close-up photos of small things). The effect would be that face might be sharp but the body would get blurrier the farther away from the focus plane.
So a workaround is to take a lot of photos with the focus plane at different depths. You sweep the focus plane through the scene, snapping a lot of photos as you go. This can be automatic with nice gear.
Then you take all of those photos and combined them digitally, with the algorithm selecting pixels from the photo with the best sharpness in that region. So the photo you see is a combination of many photos.
Plenty of worries if those images are AI-generated. I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt as he's a macro photographer: https://www.nickybay.com/
Indeed, I saw the watermarks. It's clearly a testament to his skill that his consistency is so unbelievable. Maybe that's common in macro photography but I'm genuinely floored by it.
In my own experience, whenever I detect something AI generated I lose the ability to evaluate how much I can "trust" something. Compare an article on Medium with a published book on the same topic; both are human-originated but the substance of one implies authority, quality etc. Generating a website and pictures with AI requires very little effort and care, and I have no interest in carelessness. Like most humans, I can't help but evaluate the author alongside the art.
I don't mind it at all for decorational images, but in this case I would mind. I suppose I would mind the inaccuracy, the worry that the creatures might not look exactly like the real world ones look.
Not that it actually matters but if those images were generated it would feel pointless to me, even if I can't tell the difference.
If the photography was mediocre, nobody would accuse it of being AI, but because it's the flawless photography of a true professional, suddenly it's highly suspect.
I worked with a woman who kept isopods as pets. She had a little terrarium at work with all sorts of breeds of isopods. That's where I learned you could buy isopods online.
As much as the website looks nice, the design looks AI generated - image loading animations, or quotation marks for species names. (Both are needles decorations.)
Not at all! Decorations are needed for lots of things. For example, obviously decorations are needed for decorating. Successful sexual posturing in some birds requires large, decorative body parts like feathers or crests.
The macro photography looks bizarrely uniform and the poses contrived. I feel like a sleuth trying to decide if this is AI generated or not. I suspect it isn't, but I'm somewhat distressed at how suspicious I am of cool things now.
As someone who has done some stacked photos, they always look suspicious! If it's any consolation, I recognize the photographer and they are the sort of person who would never use AI!
>I recognize the photographer and they are the sort of person who would never use AI!
That is exactly what an AI Bot would say XDXD
What does "stacked" mean in this context?
You take multiple pictures at different focal points and combining together computationally because the depth of field at the magnification is very shallow. The resulting image looks somewhat flat, but highly detailed.
You know how some photos have super blurred backgrounds? The same effect occurs undesirably when you’re trying to do extreme macro photography (close-up photos of small things). The effect would be that face might be sharp but the body would get blurrier the farther away from the focus plane.
So a workaround is to take a lot of photos with the focus plane at different depths. You sweep the focus plane through the scene, snapping a lot of photos as you go. This can be automatic with nice gear.
Then you take all of those photos and combined them digitally, with the algorithm selecting pixels from the photo with the best sharpness in that region. So the photo you see is a combination of many photos.
Plenty of worries if those images are AI-generated. I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt as he's a macro photographer: https://www.nickybay.com/
Indeed, I saw the watermarks. It's clearly a testament to his skill that his consistency is so unbelievable. Maybe that's common in macro photography but I'm genuinely floored by it.
> Plenty of worries if those images are AI-generated.
What would be so worrying about someone using AI to generate images for their site?
It’s an informational and photography site. If the images were faked, it would be a lie.
AI generated images are not appropriate for source or reference material.
The whole point of the site is the images and facts.
In my own experience, whenever I detect something AI generated I lose the ability to evaluate how much I can "trust" something. Compare an article on Medium with a published book on the same topic; both are human-originated but the substance of one implies authority, quality etc. Generating a website and pictures with AI requires very little effort and care, and I have no interest in carelessness. Like most humans, I can't help but evaluate the author alongside the art.
I don't mind it at all for decorational images, but in this case I would mind. I suppose I would mind the inaccuracy, the worry that the creatures might not look exactly like the real world ones look.
Not that it actually matters but if those images were generated it would feel pointless to me, even if I can't tell the difference.
If the photography was mediocre, nobody would accuse it of being AI, but because it's the flawless photography of a true professional, suddenly it's highly suspect.
I worked with a woman who kept isopods as pets. She had a little terrarium at work with all sorts of breeds of isopods. That's where I learned you could buy isopods online.
The kind of site that makes one happy the Internet exists
OpenAI will scrape it and start serving you isopod facts and pictures from their app
Forbidden nigiri
This may be the most important story of the year (for creatures with 20 pods.)
Cool site and beautiful photos!
I can't tell whether the images are heavily photoshopped or AI generated.
This is standard macro photography. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/related/e56465d1-86b9-3a3...
As much as the website looks nice, the design looks AI generated - image loading animations, or quotation marks for species names. (Both are needles decorations.)
I don’t care if someone uses AI to get a simple website up. I’m here for their content, the photos.
Aren’t all decorations needless?
Not at all! Decorations are needed for lots of things. For example, obviously decorations are needed for decorating. Successful sexual posturing in some birds requires large, decorative body parts like feathers or crests.