Support QBNBuild your portfolio with Krop
- mg331
FUCK ADOBE!
Has anyone here actually dropped Adobe completely?
I've never really thought about it, and I haven't minded the monthly expense, but when I do the math over a number of years, the appeal of alternatives to Lightroom, Photoshop, and illustrator suddenly become quite appealing if you can just buy those applications once.
Lightroom is the one thing I have the most significant amount of time invested in. Catalogs push 60,000 images. Lots of custom presets, all the VSCO Film presets. I mostly shoot with Fuji cameras these days so I know that there camera models and settings would be available.
- I'm considering a switch from Premiere to Resolve (free or one time $300 for more tools).
Which will leave me wondering if I should get rid of Photoshop.spl33nidoru - Rawtherapee is a good free raw converter. More fully featured than Lightroom. Not as easy.monNom
- Affinity photo, designer, publisher are roughly equivalent to photoshop, illustrator, indesign. Get all three for $165 USD for a perpetual license.monNom
- Thanks. Was reading about Affinity products earlier. Related - started using Synology Photos on my NAS and wondering how I can leverage it in place of Lightroommg33
- You can do raw editing in Affinity photo as well, but it's less fully featured.monNom
- One thing I've been using a lot in photoshop is the generative fill. This thing is a life saver and would be hard to let go of.spl33nidoru
- Affinity Photo doesn't have the organizational features of LR though. I'd probably consider Capture One for heavy photo work.mg33
- @spl33nidoru
https://kritaaidiffu…
This software extends Krita (PS-like painting software) with AI inpainting. Basicly Gen fill.monNom - Krita is quite good for a lot of PS stuff, and
it's FREEEEEEEmonNom - Nice, will check it, thanks!spl33nidoru
- Nothing remotely close to AE yet but I probably would if I could.MrT
- I don't use AE, would love to learn Premiere, but iMovie is fine for my needs.mg33
- RIP Aperturenb
- Blender has a great compositor and animation system (and video editor too). The workflow is different from AE, but you can do a lot in it.monNom
- Very simple example using textures. You can do 3d or 2.5d in the viewport, and effects in the node compositior. https://www.youtube.…monNom
- For design I have Affinity and Figma, then I can code my specific scripts in Claude.grafician
- I pay for Figma and it could definitely do a lot for me that illustrator and Photoshop do.mg33
- $7500 and countingcanoe
- I'm considering a switch from Premiere to Resolve (free or one time $300 for more tools).
- nb0
Elon Musk
I’m anti-musk and anti-trump but this line that people have about Elon being unelected is a weak argument.
There are always thousands of unelected people working in government. Some of them with substantial power.
- Instead, we should be hammering trump and Elon on the economy that they’ve inherited and ruinednb
- Only 50% of UK Prime Ministers are elected by the people.HAYZ1LLLA
- @nb Also, people ought to be more pissed off about the fact he bought his way in, not that he isn't elected.Continuity
- eg: hotroddymaquito
- This is America, nearly everyone in power bought themselves innb
- But yes, people should be more upset about that.nb
- we will see how weak it is ..when the justice system is finished with ... i guess they appointed Amy Gleason for legal doubtful reasons about doge operations.neverscared
- and not mush... not that they wouldnt all get a pardon... but that would look ungroovy for mush at the top.neverscared
- After all this birther shit about Obama being African, I think it’s okay to call out the actual African unelected immigrant fuckass in the white housemonospaced
- Mono, you’re anti-immigrant?nb
- People "in power" don't buy themselves in, they are bought. They are not the people in power.palimpsest
- No unelected official has access and power like Elon was utilizing. It crosses many lines and cuts checks and balances. Essential factors in the USG.brothernoah
- Also no unelected official has an open threat to fund primaries against anyone who opposes him.garbage
- Yes 'unelected' is the wrong word. "Illegal" is more accurate. In so many ways!nuggler
- @nb, no, I’m anti hypocrite and double standardsmonospaced
- Ok was hard to discern based on your anti-immigrant commentnb
- PonyBoy11
blog
I just landed my first prostate-related product website... yeah, you know you're jealous <3
- hahahaha hahahahah
Brilliant.
Signs your getting old?
:)Nairn - LOL! great! keep us posted, i am sure many of us could be interested. i suffer from it.renderedred
- @Nairn "signs" nah man, we ARE old :)renderedred
- Go on.Continuity
- Can't spell "Prostate" without "PRO", bro!ideaist
- Are you working with the geezer agency?canoe
- Are you working on the ‘backend’?prophetone
- Well, your work ethic is a little anal, but you went up against the competition and 'wrecked em'.Akagiyama
- FLOL @ prophetone and AkaContinuity
- hahahaha hahahahah
- mg339
Generative Art
Where do you guys stand on using AI to write code to create generative art? That's what I spent a lot of time last year doing while I was out of work, and it kept me focused, engaged and happy to do that and offset the stress of looking for a new job.
I've built two tools / applications / whatever you want to call them that are web based built with HTML, CSS, and JS. They're running on a local server on my NAS now and basically do this:
Collage tool:
- HTML canvas can be 1:1, A1-A4 sizes, and 11x17. Background images are selected from a huge list of paper textures.
- I've got local folders mapped to multi-selects in the UI where I can select from different categories like nature, paper textures, mountains, custom SVG shapes, etc.
- I can choose a min and max width and a random width is chosen from those parameters. I can choose number of images, so if multiple are selected, that's randomized as well. Can also chose whether it uses original image, or crops to circle or square, or randomizes that.
- Ability to set number of square, circle, and line shapes to render on the canvas. Can set min/max size and randomize widths based on that, can rotate squares and lines 45 degrees.
- Can override specific randomization of shapes and input a number from which the tool randomly chooses shapes based on that number.
- Color palettes - huge set of palettes saved in JS that can be selected form a picker and applied to shapes in real-time. Colors are shown in small circles that can be unselected to remove from the canvas. Also has an "update" button that will randomize the colors amongst shapes with each click.
- Mixed blend modes - exclusion, difference, multiply, and normal applied to shapes and images, with ability to still display images as normal, but shapes in other modes.
- Generate button that renders images and shapes on the canvas based on all the parameters.
- HTML canvas is interactive to allow shapes and images to be moved.
- Export canvas as image to local folder.UI controls.
Shapes Pattern Tool:
- Same canvas approach as Collage tool, and ability to select backgrounds from a drop down.
- Canvas is set up as an adjustable grid from an input field that specifies number of columns.
- Shapes picker offering: squares, circles, randomized rotated eq. triangles, another combo of square, circle, triangle, and a custom shapes selector that pulls from a set of SVG shapes, patterns, etc. that can be selected in a multi-select field.
- Padding control - can be both positive value and negative (the negative padding was a "happy accident" and allows for all sorts of color interaction based on palette and mixed-blend mode.
- Color palettes (same functionality as collage tool)
- Randomize rotation - button to randomly rotate shapes within their grid cell.
- Ability to save as PNG, export composite / layered SVG file. The SVG export is great for taking these images and bringing them into InkScape and drawing with my pen plotter. More on that another time.UI controls and some output:
Some thoughts:
- Learning how to do this last year kept me focused on, well, being focused in a year I spent 8 months out of work.
- Admittedly, I could have written maybe one line of JS to do this. Both of these tools are pushing 1,000 lines of JS now.
- I hit roadblocks with Chat GPT, which I started with. Someone suggested Claude back in January and that changed everything. Better accuracy, and it was impressive to upload my original code from ChatGPT (and custom code) and ask it to tell me what it thought the tool did. It surmised that it was a collage tool, explained the JS, etc.
- I mentioned having a pen plotter. That's what somewhat kicked off all of this exploration, because I wanted to try and do something a bit more minimalistic and basic than going down the road of complex generative art, truchet tiles, and that sort of thing. I'm a big fan of bauhaus and brutalist art, and collage art, so that's where a lot of inspiration came from.
- I used to make art like this in PS all the time years and years ago. Loved layer interactions with color and transparency and blend modes. These tools either help me generate images quickly, which would take so much more time in PS (that's why I'm happy with all the parameters that are real-time updates, the color palettes, ability to swap backgrounds, etc.
- I've been using some images as idea-starters that I will edit further in PS or Illustrator. Trying to use these approaches for the artwork related to my music project, The Ageless Sea.
- I had both tools running on my live website for a few months, but moved them to my NAS and a local server, which runs so much better since I can map asset multi-selects to folders in my Design Assets folder. I've been using Bridge to manage most of that, and can easily drop image assets into a Temp folder to work through specific ideas.Anyhow, I know this was a lot, but it's been a blast and continues to be really satisfying to evolve it further and make imagery this way. Maybe I'll post some pen plotter art soon. It takes a while to create that stuff.
Lastly, someone in this thread or another one mentioned someone who is using AI to create stuff they're selling online. That's one of my goals, but I feel better about this stuff not being created with AI. The code was, of course, but not the images. It's all built on choices, randomization, and assets I actually have.
Someone also had a comment in another thread a while back where I shared some of these images, along the lines of "I could do this in PS in 5 minutes..." Yeah, most of us could, but I find the benefits and fun of this to be the quick nature of the randomization, the ease of bringing in multiple image assets, and ability to swap things out so quickly. I don't have any idea in PS or Illustrator how to swap palettes applied to shapes, or randomize colors applied to shapes instantly. I imagine it's a pain. All in all, I just find this method to be faster and more enjoyable, and though the intention in what's created is different than starting from a blank canvas in PS or Illustrator and deciding on every aspect of art on a canvas, the randomized nature of this is what I prefer, whether an image is good immediately, or whether I want to refine it further.
I continue to be unsure what to call all of this... is it generative? Is there a nuance because AI wrote the code? I think about all the crazy generative art being made, Josh Davis' years of processing.org work, and stuff made by others, and is there a big difference when it comes to some people editing their parameters in code, and my having a GUI to control the parameters?
Thanks for reading.
- Cool journeygrafician
- Yes, developing your own tools to make creative stuff is way better than just asking chatgptgrafician
- Myself, built two tools so far for my uses in projects: halftone+pixelate script with controls for the effects and font pairing appgrafician
- Both in Claude, but it's basically React codegrafician
- Took like an hour total for BOTH, Claude is that goodgrafician
- Very cool. I don't think you need to be too concerned that you are using AI to realize your vision, it's a tool. Just call it 'art'.monNom
- I think it's precisely this kind of exploration and building of new capabilities that leads to creative breakthroughs. You aren't doing what everyone else is...monNom
- therefore you are going to get different results, have different inspiration, and you'll have different capabilities to execute your ideas. Keep going!monNom
- I appreciate your thoughts! I've got a ton of stuff I need to get uploaded to my IG page, but it's here if you'd like to follow: https://www.instagra…mg33
- If you want to check out one of the early versions I still have on my site:
https://mg33.com/gen…mg33 - I need to pull this down to free up some storage space, but I'll keep it up for a couple of days. Reminder that the canvas shapes can be dragged.mg33
- Congratulations on finding a job withing the last year. I can't even imagine that happening for me. Luckily, I still have a job.CyBrainX
- ^ Thank you. :) Was out of work from March - November after the agency I worked at was sold. Such a slog but doing so much better now than I was at my previousmg33
- job. It's just so much work finding a job, but I got my portfolio site updated and I won't need to do that again for quite a while, which feels good.mg33
- Very interesting what you have done. Respect.renderedred
- you could/should be posting on github :). you can also go openGL or p5.js (processing to js port) or any language! I think web is awesome! cool projects!uan
- call it open source and cc :)uan
- Cool!skinny_puppy
- Superb. Love the idea of building interfaces to create the art. The generative art I make is based on my 20+ yr old actionscript knowledge...microkorg
- ..its been accelerated massively since I've been using ChatGPT to help me code.microkorg
- Where do I stand? I stand on the side of this. This is exactly the sort of use of AI that we should be aspiring to. Microkorg did something similar, didn't you?Nairn
- Thank you for your amazing post. Great stuff.SimonFFM
- Simon, Nairn, microkorg, uan, skinnypuppy, renderedred, thanks so much. :)mg33
- PhanLo3
- this is the end, my friend...renderedred
- Once Elonia gets booted from the MAGAverse, he will have an epic sissy meltdown and go MegaWoke on MAGA Trump world.utopian
- yes, the meltdown will be something to witness.renderedred
- also, i am very interested how will putin handle all that.renderedred
- nice mullet, donnie!maquito
- IDK if he'll get booted, I think he's too valuable as a donor. But if things go really bad for Trump he might cut ties.yuekit
- will fElon allow his $290M purchase go that easy?mxhxr
- You dumb fuck. LOL
https://x.com/ImMeme…bigrobot - LOLL this is why TSLA stock jumped today :))))grafician
- You're taking Leavitt at her word? Interesting.garbage
- Inner Circle? https://m.youtube.co…nb
- Taking Leavitt at her word? No, it's literally what they've been saying since DOGE started. Dumb fuck.bigrobot
- ..but you just quoted her as a whiffed gotcha? Sorry to get you all snowflaked.garbage
- service limit nears , Insiders say Musk will leave soon, when 130-day cap on government service expires but ‘Doge’ team set to continueneverscared
- yuekit7
- New one from WeFail
https://x.com/wefail…yuekit - https://wefail.art/yuekit
- Trash ass "art". Pay attention to your own sinking country overrun by violent immigrants, you Brits. LOLbigrobot
- true... mush is a trash ass... white trash ass tneverscared
- Hey ChatGPT can you draw me Elon Musk with a block of cheese on his head in Francis Bacon style.milfhunter
- with loser written on his signature blue space jacket and burning fire backgroundneverscared
- New one from WeFail
- mg334
Generative Art
Had some ideas after posting about my tools earlier. Updated the gird-based tool to incorporate images into a specified number of shapes, which is something I was doing in PS when I'd import the composite SVGs. Really happy with how this turned out!
I'm using Bridge to manage all the assets, so it's easy to connect to my server folders and just copy / dump assets into those folders right in Bridge.
- these look very nice!
But they kinda make me want to take out some old magazines and cut and paste irl hehehegrafician - Thank you! Interestingly enough, this is actually gotten me into the beginnings of making physical collages with cut up images.mg33
- I bought a scanner as well so that I can import stuff easily to use in the digital versions.mg33
- Somewhere ahead is a convergence of all of this with my own plotter, combining cut out stuff with plots.mg33
- You are on to something heregrafician
- Nice <3
I've been having similar fun recently albeit a bit more chaotic. I like your controlled compositions.microkorg
- these look very nice!
- autoflavour13
- Been following these folks on insta for a bit, they do/release a lot of really fun and interesting generative tools. (Along with solid work overall)duckseason
- nicerenderedred
- fooler20
- it's been a long time coming
i always liked him.
cool cat.AQUTE - the saintAQUTE
- RIP Madmartiganprophetone
- Bang bang bang (HEAT)OBBTKN
- he is gonna sing duett with jim now..neverscared
- Daaamn. RIP, dude. =(elahon
- thought its april foolpango
- dang, true loss of an 80's apex stud. Know he was battling throat cancer, hope no suffering and he had peace. RIP.thenohero
- Clarence, I like you. Always have. Always will.haga
- cathartic - https://www.youtube.…thenohero
- :’(instrmntl
- RIP :(PonyBoy
- oh! RIP.renderedred
- @nohero Highly recommend Val. He seemed like he was at peace. RIPgarbage
- @garbage thx. I have it in queue. Just gotta get a little more strength in the heart to watch it.thenohero
- it's been a long time coming
- _niko5
AI logos
My son used chatGTP to make a logo and kits for his Sunday league youth team that he's starting with some friends, he did this with a couple of prompts and revisions, 5 minutes total if that.
is it great? not really but it's better than most youth and some pro logos out there and he did it by himself or getting his old man to begrugingly obsess over it for a week and come up with something even more half-assed lol
- for me, I never have luck with it, it just frustrates the hell out of me, but for 99% of the population this is all they'll need :(_niko
- I also had a client come to me recently who went the AI rout by herself and the results were ok but not what she needs, so she ended up paying me to come up_niko
- with a logo and the big difference was that in AI logos there is no thinking, no purpose, no cleverness, no hidden Fedex arrow just trendy looking things that m_niko
- might be better than 99¢ logos or other crowdsourced nonsense._niko
- yuphans_glib
- push button art, y(our) kids generation is going to have a whole new take on the world - GPS, Screentime Syndrome, AI, legit robots...canoe
- as humanity turns sideways I hope there's still people who try to right itcanoe
- Very cool - a little west ham inspo. I do think the soccer ball looks somewhat like a golf ball on a tee but this is 100 x better than my kids youth team logosstoplying
- cannonball19786
Show some recent work
The whole shabang (except the writing). Been working on it for a few months, just me, so the site design is more of a "nudge it into a shape over time" deal than it is more of an intentional design process with typical UX artifacts. It's rough but functional.
If you write about the future, hit me up I'm looking for nonfiction as much as I am fiction....
- An idea: add next prev story to each "article" so a user can go to the next one quickgrafician
- But solid website, nice effort!
Stories not too bad, the type of stuff to read in the metrografician - I have that at the bottom, but at the top would be useful, yes. Thanks for the feedback!cannonball1978
- Beeswax5
News of the day...
If this isn't news what is?
No it's not an April 1st thing
https://www.techspot.com/news/10…- unlimited applications, including use cases in aerospace systems, artificial intelligence devices, medical equipment, small drones, micro-robots, and moreBeeswax
- So we won't be able to pull the plug on AIBeeswax
- woahPonyBoy
- Coolio.utopian
- Nuclear waste everywhere... Last episode in this dystopian present we're buildingOBBTKN
- The first application will obviously be militaryOBBTKN
- It's for micro stuff. So no, it won't power your smartphoneNBQ00
- This was announced at somepoint last year, not new news. will be used for pacemakers etc.microkorg
- Enron coming to life.milfhunter
- jonny_quest_lives8
THE GEN X CAREER MELTDOWN
As a Gen X'er I don't recall a time when the bottom wasn't perpetually falling out of every creative industry...
- Seriously. The dot com crash was no picnic but I think the job market now is at least as bad as late 2001. That was when I had my first layoff.CyBrainX
- Agree, very uncertain times with AI, tooling, job market etc.falcadia
- The job market has been screwed up for a while, it's worse that it's been going on for too long.OBBTKN
- yuekit3
- ...and STAY the fuck out of my state, twat. We don't want you OR your money.theonlyengineerhere
- Elonia only lost a few pennies by trying to buy an election for uncle Donnie. He makes George Soros look like pauper.utopian
- maybe he can end the war in ukraine on day one since donnie dork cant.... evidently notneverscared
- _niko6
THE GEN X CAREER MELTDOWN
Not just Gen X.
Remember what made many of us feel special as kids? our ability to draw or make art? How impressed our schoolmates were? How no matter how much of a fuck-up we were at math or how much we horsed around, the teacher would give us a pass and actually respected us because we were creative?
Yeah, for the next generation, that's probably all gone now.
- Millennials, Gen-Z, Alpha live life under a constant 4K microscope socially...prophetone
- everything is (potentially) recorded, scrutinized, media over-stimulation is off charts, de-sensitization at all time highprophetone
- I agree – i feel like the instant access to everything means that nothing is special any more, and there's not as much boredom that leads to magicDaveO
- little is cool anymore, it's all snapped to rails or an industry/platform formula. where are the wild rock bands, crazy movies, explosive creative pop culture.prophetone
- there are amazing rare examples of this of course... but pre-2000s it was like an explosion of creative musi, visuals and the artsprophetone
- the motivations have shifted away from striving for the creative magic as THE GOAL - now it's just focus on maxing 'likes, subs, mentions, shares'prophetone
- and most importantly imo - the 'zombification' of the, especially, younger generationsprophetone
- like now, even if a young person sees something inspiring! special! freshly-creative! they 'pause for a sec say MEH and keep doom scrollingprophetone
- All of this just in time for fast food approach of A.I. - which imo will create millions of more kids saying MEH out there even if actual great creativeprophetone
- Ok enough of this, time for my vitamins and Metamucilprophetone
- nah keep going. I think you are right.cherub
- You felt special?palimpsest
- https://www.youtube.…renderedred
- lol yeah not special more like bad-ass...I felt special when I tried to do math ;)_niko
