This is a Union Pacific freight train passing through Banning. It's a meh kind of picture that normally wouldn't make the cut for the blog.
Except for one thing. When I shot this I framed it poorly and the left edge of the photo stopped right at the signal. That was too tight, so I expanded the canvas and gave Photoshop's AI fill tool a try. The first attempt went poorly: it was mostly just a mirror image of the train. Then I told it to ignore the train and it produced the image you see. Half of the signal plus everything to its left is a pure AI invention.
Now that you know this, you can see some telltale signs if you look closely. I probably could have improved things with further refinements to the prompt, but I wasn't that committed. I was just curious to see if it worked. It did.
It "worked" in what sense? That you could get a post out of it?
OK, but just leave those photos of Hilbert & Charlie alone, please.
This is an ideal subject for a tilt/shift effect. It would make the train look like a model train.
I tried this on a photo of a friend on top of Echo Mountain, just north of Pasadena, a few months ago and it was amazing. There were 2 or 3 other people in the photo, and the AI removed them and filled in the resulting empty space very convincingly. In the case of one removed person, if you know the location, there are explanatory boards with text and photos behind where the person was standing. AI replaced that person with a kind of "steampunk-y" looking structure appropriate to the scene, though obviously inaccurate. Nevertheless it worked just fine and made a weak photo not too bad. Photographers, beware.
What could possibly be the downside of such wonders…
The blue sky between the train and signal extends to the ground and abruptly cuts off the train and background to the left. Easy to see the weirdness in many of these types of AI-driven mods. That's not the interesting part of the photo. I'd like to know how exposure affects the light aberrations on the right side of the train.
I have never seen a real photo with tree foliage distorted like that. Is this the result of overprocessing of some sort?
Looking at an enlarged version, the rear end of the train is also distorted.
So it invented a tree and an HO scale dude?