Digital Art Tuesday - Quilt Mandalas (Not AI)

I just watched a YouTube video by Swoop on AI and how it is being used for the wrong purposes. And it has lead to some contemplation about my own process.

Admittedly, I have used AI in the past. I have typed in my prompt into Adobe or Canva to generate a composition based on the description I fed the generator. And when I have used them, I have stated clearly the image was AI generated. Plus, I am not attempting to sell them as my original creation. 

I draw the line at taking a person's image and removing clothes from them for my pleasure. Even if I wanted to, I will not be using a music AI generator and typing in a prompt to create a song and then loading it onto Spotify or similar platform. I am not making videos or shorts using AI generated actors. 

But it leads me to consider at what point do I step across the line? For example, take this picture I took of some quilt panels I recently made. 

I then cropped the picture, removing everything put the fabric panels themselves. At that point I dropped it into Adobe.

From there I copied the image and flipped it. Merging the two layers, I duplicated the layer and flipped it again. And I merged and copied that layer. I used color adjustments and filters to make changes, continuing to flip and rotate the image. 

About 45 minutes later, I had an image I liked against the color of background which I felt worked best. Then I went through and used filters which could add drop shadows or beveling to the edges, turning them on and off and moving them around. Then I was done. 

And because I thought I hadn't saved the picture where it should be, I created a second one. They are similar, but different. Two hours later I had a couple of mandalas I really like. 

It took some work, some adjustments to achieve. They were not the compilation of a computer's 'mind'. But arguments could be made the line between using software like Adobe or Canva to manipulate images or using AI is getting thinner and thinner. 

So while I continue to ponder and think about the subject, here are the results of my relaxation...