Fort Collins Digital Camera Club

The goal of our Synthetic Photography SIG is to help each other to learn about and use AI tools to create art.
This is a place where artists support each other and nurture creativity in others.
Unrequested criticism can feed an artist's fear of failure and stifle their creative growth.

ATTENDEES
Mike Barry
Mark Bolles
Jim Limburg
Walter Lyons
Paul Marcoux
Kevin McCaghren
Cyndee Meese
Greg Nott
Albert Wang

My goal for our first meeting was to find out what you want to get out of this SIG, how much you already know about AI image generation, and to get us started with our AI image generation journey

1. I plan to hold ZOOM meetings on the 1st Tuesday of every month starting at 6pm and ending by 9pm. You can always email a question to the group if you don't want to wait until the next meeting. I will create a page for "Synthetic Photography SIG" on our club website, https://fcdcc.com/synthetic-photography.html, and it will have a list of SIG members. I recommend that you create your own email list for the SIG so you can easily email questions to the SIG.

2. Jim Limburg will host the ZOOM meetings so we aren't limited to just 40 minutes.

3. SIG members want to get a lot from this SIG.
Improve image editing skills in Photoshop and Lightroom
Create fantastic art using AI tools, even commercial products using AI tools
Learn about AI image generation tools, the current state of AI image generation, and where AI is going
Understand the ethical issues with AI art generation
Get inspired by AI image generation to create better art (which includes photography)
Hang out with friends and enjoy stimulating conversation

4. We discussed how much computer power is required to run AI image generation tools on your local computer.
Stable Diffusion on Windows requires Windows 10 or later, with a dedicated video card and at least 4GB VRAM.
Stable Diffusion on Mac requires M1, M1 pro, M1 max, M2, M2 pro, M2 max with at least 16GB memory.
About half of our members have enough computer power to run Stable Diffusion locally, but we all can run some kind of AI image generation tool online.

5. I am asking everyone to experiment with the Bing browser AI tool, Copilot, before the next meeting. Albert showed off a bunch of examples during the meeting, but I believe that you will learn a lot more by running some examples yourself. Copilot is free and easy to use, but it has a very limited capability. Copilot is based on DALL-E 3 and will be a good place to start.

A. Open the Bing browser, type in bing.com
B. Sign in, type in the email address for your Microsoft account and wait for bing to email you a passcode
(or click on "Create one!" to create a new Microsoft account)
C. Copy the code from the email that Microsoft just sent you into the code box
D. Click on "Copilot" at the top of the screen
E. Type your prompt into the "Ask me anything" box
(IE "Create an image of a flying monkey")
F. Copilot will try to create 4 images for your prompt
G. You can download the images or add to your prompt to modify one of the images

TASK #1
Create an image using this prompt "photorealistic image of a wizard with a long white beard riding a white horse being chased by monsters", download it, and show it at the next SIG meeting

TASK #2
Create a self-portrait using BING COPILOT|DALL-E 3, download it, and show it at the next SIG meeting
(Optional: create a self-portrait with a different AI Tool, and show it at the next SIG meeting)

TASK #3
Create an image in a scientific illustration style

TASK #4
Experiment with different styles, artist styles, subjects, backgrounds, lighting and show them at the next SIG meeting

MORE TOPICS FOR FUTURE DISCUSSIONS
- AI vocabulary
- How AI creates images (training models, generating images)
- Ethics of AI art generation (censorship, training sources, legality, ownership...)
- Different AI Tools (Midjourney, Dall-E 3, Stable Diffusion, Adobe Firefly, Generative AI by Getty...)
- Txt2Img (create images from text)
- Img2Img (create images from images and text)
- Txt2Vid (create video from text)
- Img2Vid (create video from images and video and text)
- How to refine your images (InPainting, OutPainting, UpScaling,... )
- Models and LORAs
- Training Models and LORAs
- Styles (specific artists, art movements)
- How to write a good prompt (manually, ChatGPT)
- Tool Parameters (may be tool specific)

RESOURCES (Where you can find sources of inspiration)
AI vocabulary
- https://stable-diffusion-art.com/glossary/
- https://www.coursera.org/resources/ai-terms
- https://www.twilio.com/en-us/resource-center/ai-glossary
Where to find out more
- https://Civitai.com
- https://GitHub.com
- https://YouTube.com
How to get started
- https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/1b2mhjv/eli5_absolute_beginners_guide_to_getting_started/
Artist Styles
https://supagruen.github.io/StableDiffusion-CheatSheet

AGENDA FOR OUR NEXT SYNTHETIC PHOTOGRAPHY SIG MEETING - Tue 8/6/2024 @6:00pm
1. Discuss what we created with Bing|Copilot
2. Discuss creating AI images using Leonardo (Stable Diffusion online)
3. Discuss questions, ethics, techniques, what is happening with AI in general

Please email Mike, info@fcdcc.com, when you find mistakes, missing information or if you have suggestions for the Synthetic Photography SIG and I will try to address the issues.