Today, I discovered a new AI program to potentially help with improving the cover art of my albums. Not often, but occasionally, I feel obliged to use a low quality image when I can't find anything better. I learned about a brand new (and free) AI program called Krea AI. I've only started testing it, but it seems to do a really good job of upgraded and enhancing pictures.
Here's an example. This is an album cover I made of Robert Johnson a while back. The problem with Johnson is that he was such an obscure figure that only a few photo of him are known to exist, and all of them are of very poor quality. (It was the 1930s, after all.)
By comparison, here's how Krea AI upgraded that same picture, by using guesswork to make up details.
I think it looks pretty damn amazing. But the downside is that it's arguably less authentic, since so much of it is guesswork. So what do you all think? Should I upgrade some pics like this or not?
Here's another one I upgraded just now. It's a picture of the songwriting team Bert Berns and Jerry Ragovoy. My problem was I couldn't find even a single photo of them together, even though they'd written many great songs together. So I used Photoshop to cobble together a picture with both of them in it. But I felt it had some serious flaws, for instance some of the colors not looking quite right (since I colorized some of it too).
And here's what the Krea AI program did. All I did was feed in that picture (minus the lettering) and this is what came out with no changes whatsoever. I think it looks much better, and less stitched together.
I couldn't resist doing one more. This is the Def Leppard cover I did just a few days ago, from a very blurry and low-res video screenshot.
And this is what the program came up with. I thought for sure it would do a poor job with that one, since it had so little to go on, but I have to say I'm impressed.
So what do you think? I could do a lot of this, or a little bit, or not at all. I am very curious to see what other people think about the use of this kind of technology.
new artwork looks GREAT !!!
ReplyDeleteVH-1 series wonderful
Many Thanks for All your work
I think they look fantastic - and thanks for the series so far.
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed with the AI enhancements; i'd go with them. But with my experience of AI, I'd check the number of fingers.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree about the fingers problem. I've experienced that too. But for these three, I checked and everything's good. There's a slider that lets you determine how far from the original you dare to go, so if there's a problem (like with fingers) I can just keep things closer to the original.
DeleteHere's a ten minute video about the program:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G9NyfYFoF0
Looks good, wonder if it will make selfies look better (slimmer??)
ReplyDeleteActually, probably. One clear trend with AI pics is that the people in them are usually extremely attractive. That's probably because a big portion of the data set AI bases its results on is based on attractive celebrities, not to mention all the porn stuff. So I'll bet if you ran your own photos through it, you probably would end up more attractive!
DeleteThey look great to me! Full steam ahead, I say! Thanks for a great sereis
ReplyDeleteYeah, these are all improvements, especially the last two. That middle one in its original form looked pretty horrid and stitched together and is now looking they were actually in the same place...
ReplyDeleteI felt the same about the middle one, which is why it was one of the first ones I wanted to try to fix. I agree it looks a lot better now.
DeleteNah, don't bother. Just focus on the music (for which I say gracias!)
ReplyDeleteWhat happens with the covers doesn't really impact my posting of more music. My main limitation there is just finding the time to listen to all the music I might post. There simply aren't enough hours in the day to hear it all!
DeleteIt looks like people are positive about this and nobody has any serious objections. So I'm going to go ahead with converting some. I could use some help, because the free version of Krea AI only allows a limited number of conversions a day. If anyone wants to help, I could send you a batch of pics to be converted and all you'd have to do is run them through the program.
ReplyDeleteNote that I have now added the three album covers used in the examples above and updated the download links and such. I plan on doing more soon.
ReplyDeleteThat is very impressive
ReplyDeleteWhat makes the Bert Berns and Jerry Ragovoy better is that the guy on the right doesn't have those bug eyes anymore. Looks like a pretty cool program. And a better use of AI then the "creating" of new work.
ReplyDeleteFor all we know, the guy on the right (Ragovoy) does have bug eyes like that. It's hard to tell, since I've only seen a couple of pics of him, period. But I agree he looks much better now.
DeleteFirst off, THANKS PAUL for doing amazing work. Second, aside from the Ragovoy update, the overall look and clarity is fantastic-and I think it could be a sort of calling card for the stuff you put together. When the AI goes 'Ragavoy' on you, maybe those don't need to be used? Thanks Again!
ReplyDelete