Submit your best photos tweaked with Ai
Welcome to the July installment of the Critique the Community! This month's critique theme is going to be "Augmented with Artificial Intelligence," and we want to see your best photographs that have been enhanced using Artificial Intelligence. This could be headshots that have been retouched using Ai, architectural images that use Ai to clean up landscaping, real photoshoots that were planned or designed with the help of Ai, or simply photos that have been re-rendered using an Ai image generator. The only requirement is that some part of the initial image was created by you, using traditional photography.
Top 3 Images - The top 3 submissions will receive their choice of any Fstoppers photography tutorial found in the Fstoppers Store.
Our elaborate and exhaustive photography tutorials not only help photographers immediately start taking professional quality images, but most of our tutorials also share business and marketing techniques that can help make photography a full time income. With genres like Headshots, Landscapes, Architecture and Real Estate, Fashion, Macro, and Product Photography, there is something for every photographer no matter what genre you specialize in. This prize is valued at $299.
Good luck to everyone who enters, and we look forward to seeing your best "Ai augmented" photographs!
Click on the thumbnails below to comment and rate each image.
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39 Comments
Everything has been updated.
Thank you!
The results and critique videos, including the last "motion" contest, have been posted to the Fstoppers YouTube channel. For what it's worth, I really dislike YouTube channels.
I looked all over the F Stoppers You Tube channel for the critique videos. Could not find them. Would you be so kind as to put a link in these comments? Thanks!
I find them by doing this YouTube search: "Fstoppers critique the community 2026." If you don't put the year in, it finds stuff going back several years.
We titled them things based on the video content because titling a video CTC gets absolutely no engagement for some reason. There is a CTC playlist that always has the latest videos in them
Maybe put a little trophy graphic in the title or on the title card? It keeps the engagement, but lessens the confusion for those looking specifically for the contests? I'm a Nikon shooter, so I wouldn't watch a Canon video, nor do I have a side hustle, so I wouldn't watch that one, either. I never go into the channel itself, I just watch for new videos to pop up in my YouTube favorites feed, so I don't see the playlists. I'm sure that's the same for a lot of subscribers. I have my own tiny channel, so I know what a pain YouTube can be, and balancing all the needs of people with the wants of YouTube is not fun.
Yeah I got behind on one of them because a winning image was deleted after the video was filmed. I was waiting to hear back from the winner but never did. I’ll publish it today. You can always go to our CTC playlist on YouTube to see the latest videos.
why do you not like YouTube? I’d say YouTube and Reddit are the greatest platforms left on the internet
Actually, I think you're behind on three of them. The last contest with a CTC video and winners posted in the Fstoppers site was for the March "Print Worthy" contest. The April, May and June contests indicate winners have not yet been announced.
YouTube is great for when I need to figure out how to fix a leaking water faucet or for watching old music videos. As a place to carry on a discussion about photography, I think it's terrible. Take a look at the 71 comments following your “Motion Blur” CTC video. There's virtually nothing more than a shallow reaction, a line or two, a few snarky insults, a debate about AI, and always the predictable people threatening to leave. Otherwise virtually no further conversation about the contest photos. How can you read those comments and not have to jump in the shower and rinse off the slime?
There are other reasons I don't care much for YouTube as a source to engage with photographers:
I wrote previously about having my comment deleted from a real estate photographer's YouTube channel. Needless to say, all it takes is a couple of those experiences to make it feel like writing a reply is a total waste of time. Most photography videos are too long and lack focus, as if I really want to follow along for a 20 minute hike through the forest and just look at scenery. The videos asserting a list of ten things I'm doing right or wrong with my photography, or need to remember... well, I'm exhausted by the time I get to the third thing on the list. If photographers making videos would listen to their own still photography advice by focusing on a subject and eliminating distractions, their videos would be half the length of time and more educational.
Fstoppers provides the best online site from which to talk photography. At least there's a better chance of getting in-depth thought provoking comments in response to the articles. The evidence is in the length of the comment. One or two words or lines invariably say nothing; a couple paragraphs express a thought or idea. It's what makes a community a worthwhile community. Many of the people here actually contribute something interesting to the discussion, whereas that is hard to find on YouTube.
I have no idea how that translates to revenue, or if the idea is worth cultivating for you. Close meaningful relationships with clients were far more important during my career than quantity of clicks or page views. There wasn't even a YouTube in existence during the better part of my career. Maybe it's purely nostalgia, but I felt better about my work and business before the era of YouTube and social media... at least until I need to fix a leaky faucet.
If an entire sky or background in a photo has been replaced, as in the example, I would no longer call it a photo. The result can be a nice picture but not a photo. Sad to see a contest like this on a site about photography.
People have been doing sky replacements since the days of film, that is nothing new. AI just has made it a bit easier. (and people have been making this argument since then as well)
Reality is, its impossible to take a photo that is a genuinely true representation of the scene. The photographer’s vision is always distorting reality.
Photojournalism aims to try to be as genuine as possible but most other genres do not try to be genuine at all.
If it bothers you, just don’t engage in it, but the photography world accepted creative editing as a cornerstone of photography a century ago.
So because it was done 'since the days of film' it's still ok? That is a non argument.
Then you talk about 'distorting reality'. That is not the same as replacing reality. So a partially AI generated image is still a photo? A full AI generated image is a photo as well? Do you draw a line somewhere?
I engage because it bothers me. I speak on behalf of 'the photography world' as well , but maybe not your world?
You might be fighting against the tide of history. Yes, the literal definition of photography appears to combine the making of a picture with light falling on a photosensitive surface such as film or electronic sensor. Other more casual definitions simply interchange picture for the word photo. However, technology has always had a way of changing definitions. Cameras in the future may not even exist as we know them today.
In 1965, Bob Dylan caused a huge uproar when performing at the Newport Folk Festival with an electric guitar. It was technically music, but not the acoustical sound which the audience had been accustomed. In 1994, my wife and I set out to buy a piano. It was either going to be a traditional piano, or a Yamaha Clavinova electronic keyboard… the later having the capacity to create the music of an entire band from one device. The debate continues with AI generated music. Is it fair to the artists from whom the AI music is derived? Is an AI generated novel a valid work of literature? Is it original? Is it human? Does it matter?
These are probably questions without answers, or answers that may only be resolved over a long period of time. Perceptions change as technology impacts daily life. The definition of a photograph may need to evolve, the same as any other item which depends on technology. We can fight it along the way, and that makes perfect sense to me as someone up in years, but I thinks it’s ultimately a losing battle. In the meantime, I see no reason why Fstoppers should ignore the issue. It’s a good platform from which to open the conversation. As more and more entries are submitted to the contest, we’ll see how other people navigate AI in their own photography.
I think it's a fairly quick and easy answer to your questions: AI generated music and pictures may well still be music and pictures, but they are not art.
Hmmm... I would say that AI generated pictures are more art than photography. Art is not limited by the tools that are used.
To me AI can be art: not 'more', but different. I just hope it stays a different art. Sadly it is already impossible to see if a photo is real, or partly real...see the failing tool Meta introduced. Images are important, knowing an image is real is important. Just ask the kid that gets extorted with fake nudes, or remember Phan Thi Kim Phuc. Think about sad people shouting 'fake news...ect
I wrote earlier about calling AI generated stuff pictures: I am an non native, but I guess you feel what I mean. Just like all people telling me editing is nothing new know what I mean asking to keep photography realistic. Each photo is a unique capture of a moment in time that will never be the same. I lost a picture of a loved one once. Terrible. Photo's are important.
Does that mean they aren't infringing on the real art they are modeling themselves after? Can you have your cake and eat it too? If Ai images are not art, then can they infringe on real art if they themselves are not reproducing art itself?
🙄
Fstoppers has always been about all types of photography, videography, and making a living as a professional. I view using AI to augment your work as just another tool that we now have available. We've never discouraged photographers from retouching, compositing, liquifying, or altering their images in order to make them more commercially viable. I say this only to hit the point that we do not care if an image is 100% traditional photography but rather does the skill set you have developed have value in the paying market. I dunno, it's difficult for me to say the majority of digital photography has any real roots in the traditional concept of photography being baked into a chemical negative that has not be altered in any way.
'Commercially viable' and 'paying market'. A picture made with AI is just fine with me. Especially if it pays your bills. But why call it a photo if you know it's not. Or do you still think you are a photographer if you create an image with AI?
Well obviously, if it's 100% created by AI then yeah, it's something different altogether. But if you just replace a background or tweak something here or there, I think it's just digital editing like we've all been doing for decades.
Well, then my obvious question is: where do you draw the line? If 50% of a picture is created by AI: still a photo? 90%?
I know these things are usually open for interpretation (that's art!) but I feel like "AI augmentation" is going to be doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
There are already submissions where roughly 5% of the photo is original, the rest AI; that's not an augment, that's just AI using your photo as a prompt.
Whatever your opinion of AI generated images is, surely we can all agree that an augmentation is something simple like removing the hand of some passerby that got in the way or a slight colour change or something equally small.
Personally I don't agree with doing that, it's those small imperfections that make art interesting and human and real, but I appreciate that this modern world very much does not work that way.
I tend to agree with you, Alex. However, and probably because of that, I've chosen to not take the theme too seriously (read: not seriously at all) and just have fun with it. I certainly haven't entered an image which I think is supposed to be taken as a serious photograph, it's a POS but I had a laugh creating something I otherwise never would and probably never will again. YMMV ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Totally agree, but I don't appreciate it. I do understand that everyone has a different opinion on what is acceptable, on when an image is still a photo and when it becomes a fantasy. I guess it's a matter of ethics?
I hope we find a way to tell what is AI generated and what is not. That seems pretty important to me.
Hello Patrick and Lee. Could you please do us a favor, and post the results of the past 3 contests here on your site? I just spent 15 minutes scrolling around your You Tube sites and did not find them. Thank you;.
They are now live. One contest had an entry that was deleted after the video was filmed which I was waiting to hear back from the photographer. I never did and so I delayed the other contest announcements. Everything is back up and posted now.
If you want some massive inspiration, take a look at Felix Hernandez`s portfolio here on Fstoppers. He puts the a.i. in the shadows. And the most incredible thing is that he does it without a.i.! He is the true photography artist. He uses real miniatures, and a lot of skill, and old fashioned composites. And fantastic color rendering. Hours and hours and hours of dedicated photographic work of art and skill. Maybe my biggest inspiration here. For instance take a look at this masterpiece sample here: https://fstoppers.com/media/213608 And this masterpiece here: https://fstoppers.com/media/721326 He is for me the true hero of creative photographic art.
whats the best software to create AI backdrops for products?
I've been buying tokens on RunComfy.com and using Wan-2.7 and Seedream4.5 under their models. I find they have good workflows where you can upload multiple images (image to image) and get results that are less "roll the dice and see". Each image generation costs about $.02 so it's incredibly easy to generate a ton of stuff and see what works. Once you get a good background, you can then input your final photograph with the new Ai background and have the software simply add it. Of course you can also use Gemini and Chatgpt directly too.
I think you should include the original photograph to understand how much or how little
a.i. did to your image. The final may look great but did a.i. do 50% or 90% of the final.
Cheers to that
should be a rule