A few more early images

 kw: generated art, art generation, AI art, history

Yesterday I compared my first generated image to four images produced using the same prompt, four years later. Here I present four more very early images, without updates this time; maybe I'll get into that later. These were all outpainted from square 1,024 x 1,024 images by DALL•E 2.

1. We had gone to an exhibit of Cezanne's paintings in Philadelphia. Soon after, I prompted thus:

Still Life with apples, pomegranates, and bananas in the style of Paul Cezanne

This does look remarkably like a Cezanne still life. The final image is 1,984 x 1,280 and is a PNG, as are all DALL•E productions. The image above was reduced to 992 x 640 and saved as a JPG. The wallpaper version is 1,984 x 1,116, which cropped out some of the table cloth.

2. I used to read a great deal of science fiction. I still read SciFi, mostly short stories. I wanted a SciFi image of an alien landscape.

Futuristic city on hilly alien planet with violet sky and two moons

Here I outpainted only right and left. The original square had the two ringed moons, and outpainting added a couple more plus a flying saucer. As I discovered over the years, art generators have a hard time realistically depicting moons or nearby planets, pasting them onto the sky rather than showing them as beyond it and usually partly obscured by it. The final image is 2,624 x 1,024 PNG, a wide panorama. This is reduced by half and was saved as a JPG. This time, rather than remove the logo, I put my initials and the date into it: LJV23 in a bold sans-serif typeface. This image is well suited to the panoramic format.

3. I enjoy the deserts of the American southwest, particularly in early winter, the best season for rock collecting.

Desert landscape with mesas and saguaro cactus

This was probably the shortest prompt I used in those first few months. The original outpainted image is a 2,624 x 1,664 PNG file. This version is half the dimensions, saved as a JPG. The wallpaper version is 2,624 x 1,476 cropped from the bottom. I would have prompted ocotillo and cholla cacti to achieve a Mojave Desert look; this is more like Arizona.

4. One more: I like the style of early paintings by Thomas Kinkade (and I'm nearly as fond of his later works). For the prompt I didn't specify an era, however.

A mountain cabin in the style of Thomas Kinkade

I didn't really want the extra cabin at upper right, but it hides the rootlessness of the mountain behind it. The mountain on the left is also nearly rootless. Outpainting is tricky. Image dimensions are 2,432 x 1,664. I didn't produce a smaller version. This was saved full size as a JPG. The wallpaper version is 2,432 x 1,368. As I mentioned, this is more like the artist's earlier work. These days his paintings have a much more luminous appearance.

In the folder stack where I keep nearly everything I generate I have lots of experiments. I want to know ahead of time the limitations of the software so I can get good images with less back-and-forth negotiation, which costs credits.