Progress and setbacks in my photography.

I’m sitting here at my computer this morning without coffee, for that matter without anything to eat or drink, looking at the screen with only one eye and discovering how challenging it must be for some people with a permanent disability. While my setback visually is temporary for others it is every day. To those of you who work to overcome permanent disabilities, I salute you.

Now for the progress. The featured photograph is one that I thought I would never use. The original had a huge sign in front of the picket fence with the name of the school and when it was built. It was not a good-looking sign. In fact, it was hideous. While we have had the capability to remove such things for a long time using Photoshop it wasn’t until recently the task became easier and faster. What would have previously taken a considerable amount of time, at least to make it look decent, has been reduced to a matter of seconds. In a current public beta release of Photoshop, there is a feature called generative fill. Generative fill has caused a bit of controversy for many because it uses artificial intelligence and stock photographs to help determine how to fill in an area.

I’m not sure where this whole generative fill will go since I’m not in that “need to know” loop but I see features like that becoming a huge benefit to photographers, especially those of us who are focused more on the creation of art rather than recording reality.