Mobile image editing with AI

I'm on holiday currently, enjoying some time down in Wilsons Prom. What I've not enjoyed so much is the crowds. Crowds at the beaches, crowds on the walking trails. Crowds everywhere. This is just the reality of popular destinations however; it just comes with the territory. 🤷

Of course with a modern smart phone you can fake it, you can make your own reality. The technology is undeniably cool but I can't help feel a sense of wrongness.

Too many people spoiling your beach photo?

BAM! Just erase them all.

Land interfering with your shot of the ocean?

Just highlight and delete it.

Okay, maybe not quite, but pesky people be gone!

The technology isn't new, even this packaging of the feature isn't new. I'm using the Magic Eraser feature in Google Photos. The results may not stack up to pixel peeping and extreme zoom, but if the photo you're looking at is on a mobile phone it's really hard to tell what's real and what isn't and that's a somewhat scary thought. Without any real effort or expertise it's entirely possible to take a photo of something that never happened or just wasn't there - or remove something that was.

The effect is even more convincing against a plain background and with photos that themselves aren't particularly sharp. Take these photos, the first is a shot of the radio towers on the Mount Oberon summit, taken at extreme zoom so there's a bit of graininess introduced.

The second photo? Well I've just removed those pesky radio towers.

While it's pretty impressive that with the press of a button you can make it look like you had the entire beach to yourself.

It just isn't the reality, as much as I wish it were it all feels like a lie.