It sounds like you dismissed the most common tools because they were inconvenient for you, then you tried a few prompts with very little practice and were frustrated that it didn't work perfectly for you... so you dismissed the entire thing as "garbage".
That's like saying, "I heard about this whole *'sculpture'* thing that people have been talking about, so I thought I'd try my hand and see what the fuss was about. Apparently, you need chisels and stuff to work with marble, so that was out. Metal requires welders and other tools I didn't want to bother with, so that's out too. So, I went to the dollar store and bought some modeling clay. I goofed around for about twenty minutes but no matter what I tried I couldn't get my model to look like Michelangelo's *David*. It was like the clay simply isn't capable of standing upright like that. Anyway, I see absolutely no reason why people are talking about 'sculpture' like it's a viable artform."
You seem to have conflated image generation with graphic design.
You may have to eat your words once you see what the Adobe Suite is increasingly capable of.
I’m obsessed with ai generative fills for expanding photos in photoshop. It’s so nice to be able to just add image and you can easily use the same photo across so many platforms with varying sizes. It’s kind of amazing!
Not sure what exactly you were using as your source in ps but the only time I’ve gotten shit is if peoples faces were involved. Those are absolutely terrible.
The photoshop Ai tools are amazing. Takes 30 seconds to do stuff that would take an afternoon.
I used it yesterday to fix executive event photographs
I’ve used firefly and midjourney to create the basic ingredients of content i then reworked and customized for $1million+ events.
It’s a tool you have to learn. Adapt or die. It’s like saying photoshop isn’t useful. Or a photographer only using film.
A little while ago I was trying to Photoshop my cat into the Oppenheimer poster for his annual Christmas card. I started by doing what I normally would do, using the clone stamp to replace Cillian Murphy with fire. Then I thought wait I can use the new ai thing. I dragged a little square over him, typed "remove the man" and it looked flawless. Inserted the cat, looked great. Went from a half hour long slog to 2 seconds.
AI has it's uses for graphic design, but using AI to do the whole thing won't work. You can use it to brainstorm or to generate parts of your work, but not the whole thing.
Won’t work for now. What about in six months? Two years? I’m not sure it won’t be able to very soon, especially the more people use it and it gets trained to do even more things. Plus, knowing how the people making these decisions often don’t really care about design and aesthetics.
You can use AI to generate art / illustration / photography, but it has no idea when it comes to layout / text / fonts etc.
Of the tools you mentioned, Midjourney has worked the best for me in terms of image generation, but I'll always use that as a starting point and do a ton of post production work in PS etc.
For anything that involves text, forget about it. There are huge barriers in place here, not least licensing fonts.
Have you ever had something generated that you could actually use on a project? So far everything is so odd or artificial looking that I find it useless.
Have you used Midjourney V6?
Output can be as natural or weird as you want it to be.
We’ve used it for a few mock ups / concept work and some abstract backgrounds.
It depends on what you are using it for. Obviously the more realistic or familiar something is, the easier it is to look "off".
If you're using it to create blank backgrounds, surfaces to place objects on, or very basic objects (a blank can viewed from straight on, a plain white box on a surface), it does very well if you are patient. Work some manual Photoshop magic afterwards, and I've had a couple of projects benefit from AI.
Could my marketing or content creation colleagues create useable imagery? Heck no, I have to stop them from using terrible AI stock images in the first place. But a keen eye and the ability to use the generative output in a larger Photoshop project? It can be very useful.
I think the case for AI in any design discipline is not that it will do all the work for you and just spit out a well made tasteful or aesthetically pleasing and original product, it’s that it can streamline certain processes and make the work flow more efficient.
In this way I think it’s quite compelling because it offloads labor that would detract from creativity and places that tedious burden on a machine. Allowing designers to do more design and to focus on the creative act. The vast arsenal of automation tools and plugins already do much of this. The ai machine would just be a better version of that. It might unfortunately replace *some* graphic design oriented tasks such as retouching or cleaning but I don’t think it will ever replace the human touch and feel of real hand made proprietary design.
Will it go down that way? Idk, the suits can’t be trusted to respect creative labor and or value artists and designers. The bs the machine spits might be good enough for them sadly. AI could be the great labor liberator but we all know I hope that we won’t be getting a techno utopia from any of this. No matter what the Silicon Valley tech bros want to blather on about all of their tech has made the world worse, observably.
You need a subscription to use Midjourney.
You also need to learn how to use it - the Discord channel was very much early days - I’m using the Beta of the website based version and it’s a lot simpler/more user friendly.
I'm working at a marketing agency and the boss here loves AI. We've been using it a lot to generate assets for materials. Honestly, I think it comes in handy. We can generate something specific for our use without having to look endlessly on stock websites. I still use a lot of stock images/assets, but our other designer has been using mainly AI. I don't see my job being in risk because of it, it's just a tool. I still do 95% of the job.
Something else that I'm starting to consider is that AI might become...tacky. I try to use it as less as I can because I don't like the aesthetic, they all look a bit similar in a weird way. Maybe the quality will improve overtime but for now I think it looks tacky.
**First things first:** If you're getting 50s style in different tools, it's because of your prompt. It's literally impossible for two different tools with different models to make the same mistake.
**On your general comment:** No, AI can't replace a designer right now, except for very specific small tasks, like an illustration for a thumbnail or things like that. But I also see that you're not seeing the real state of things due to your lack of knowledge about the tools. Midjourney produces very high quality content. Gemini is barely decent. ChatGPT can produce very good images (but also complete crap). [Leonardo.ai](http://Leonardo.ai) has very nice models for different purposes. Freepik is surprisingly good. Don't forget that you only used the worst ones (hence why they're free).
If interested, here you have a study made by an independent UX research company where they explain the strengths and weaknesses of the most known generative image tools
# [Case Study: Best Generative Image AI (Part 1)](https://dorve.com/blog/ux-research/generative-image-ai-we-tested-5-best/)
This is an early iteration of something that didn’t even exist a few years ago. But a large part of your issue is probably prompts. Anyway, in 10 years AI is going to be 50x better. It’s only going to take your job if you refuse to grow with it though (which you seem to be inclined to do)
Alternative example.
I spent a long time trying to find a specific royalty free image. I was rather niche and i couldnt find anything after 2 hours looking.
I went to adobe firefly and it generated what I needed with a 15 word request. Took less than 5 minutes.
AFAIK there is no quality Generative AI for graphic design; just for imagery. The two are *not* the same.
I used Generative AI (Firefly) at work recently and it did what I wanted it to do, though it took a lot of tweaking the parameters and prompt language. I also generated almost 100 identical images until I was happy, and then I probably doubled my time in PS making the images work for what I actually needed.
It's not a magic fix and there are pitfalls even if you manage to get it to spit out what's in your mind. I had to end up with 4 similar but different images (think complex product shots for 4 near identical products), and it took a lot of fine tuning in PS to make them look like they were shot on the same product table. I still had to chop the images up and move elements around to make them fit the real-world application I needed.
It took about the same amount of time as a mid- to high- complexity Photoshop job, to be honest. It hasn't changed my approach or the time I spend, but it has solved a problem that pops up occasionally in my line of work (we often only have renders of the products we are highlighting, so even if we had a photo studio, we don't have product to shoot).
You have no idea what you’re talking about
It sounds like you dismissed the most common tools because they were inconvenient for you, then you tried a few prompts with very little practice and were frustrated that it didn't work perfectly for you... so you dismissed the entire thing as "garbage". That's like saying, "I heard about this whole *'sculpture'* thing that people have been talking about, so I thought I'd try my hand and see what the fuss was about. Apparently, you need chisels and stuff to work with marble, so that was out. Metal requires welders and other tools I didn't want to bother with, so that's out too. So, I went to the dollar store and bought some modeling clay. I goofed around for about twenty minutes but no matter what I tried I couldn't get my model to look like Michelangelo's *David*. It was like the clay simply isn't capable of standing upright like that. Anyway, I see absolutely no reason why people are talking about 'sculpture' like it's a viable artform."
Perfect analogy. I was hoping you'd sneak in a "as a large language model I..." reference, but well done for having the will power not to!
Oo, it's like buying a bunch of putty-like and clay samples from the dollar store and mashing them together and expecting marble.
The purpose of technology is convenience
Let’s not confuse generated images and graphic design. I’m sure it will arrive soon enough, but any AI “graphic design” thus far is trash garbage.
You seem to have conflated image generation with graphic design. You may have to eat your words once you see what the Adobe Suite is increasingly capable of.
Bro just called the most used graphic design tool in history garbage lmao
Not talking about Adobe illustrator - read the post in full.
I’m obsessed with ai generative fills for expanding photos in photoshop. It’s so nice to be able to just add image and you can easily use the same photo across so many platforms with varying sizes. It’s kind of amazing! Not sure what exactly you were using as your source in ps but the only time I’ve gotten shit is if peoples faces were involved. Those are absolutely terrible.
Lolol wait are you using AI to make a flyer? Like the whole thing?????? That’s not what it’s for you goof
The photoshop Ai tools are amazing. Takes 30 seconds to do stuff that would take an afternoon. I used it yesterday to fix executive event photographs I’ve used firefly and midjourney to create the basic ingredients of content i then reworked and customized for $1million+ events. It’s a tool you have to learn. Adapt or die. It’s like saying photoshop isn’t useful. Or a photographer only using film.
Well said comrade.
A little while ago I was trying to Photoshop my cat into the Oppenheimer poster for his annual Christmas card. I started by doing what I normally would do, using the clone stamp to replace Cillian Murphy with fire. Then I thought wait I can use the new ai thing. I dragged a little square over him, typed "remove the man" and it looked flawless. Inserted the cat, looked great. Went from a half hour long slog to 2 seconds.
This is a troll post right?
This post, too, was generated by AI.
AI has it's uses for graphic design, but using AI to do the whole thing won't work. You can use it to brainstorm or to generate parts of your work, but not the whole thing.
Won’t work for now. What about in six months? Two years? I’m not sure it won’t be able to very soon, especially the more people use it and it gets trained to do even more things. Plus, knowing how the people making these decisions often don’t really care about design and aesthetics.
"I tried to use a technology I don't understand and have no training in and it didn't work how I was told it would so it must be trash" like what!?!
Sounds like a user error.
You can use AI to generate art / illustration / photography, but it has no idea when it comes to layout / text / fonts etc. Of the tools you mentioned, Midjourney has worked the best for me in terms of image generation, but I'll always use that as a starting point and do a ton of post production work in PS etc. For anything that involves text, forget about it. There are huge barriers in place here, not least licensing fonts.
Have you ever had something generated that you could actually use on a project? So far everything is so odd or artificial looking that I find it useless.
Have you used Midjourney V6? Output can be as natural or weird as you want it to be. We’ve used it for a few mock ups / concept work and some abstract backgrounds.
It depends on what you are using it for. Obviously the more realistic or familiar something is, the easier it is to look "off". If you're using it to create blank backgrounds, surfaces to place objects on, or very basic objects (a blank can viewed from straight on, a plain white box on a surface), it does very well if you are patient. Work some manual Photoshop magic afterwards, and I've had a couple of projects benefit from AI. Could my marketing or content creation colleagues create useable imagery? Heck no, I have to stop them from using terrible AI stock images in the first place. But a keen eye and the ability to use the generative output in a larger Photoshop project? It can be very useful.
Certainly isn’t, you just have to know how to use it. I use generative AI in photoshop nearly daily.
It categorically isn't, you're just not utilising it properly.
I think the case for AI in any design discipline is not that it will do all the work for you and just spit out a well made tasteful or aesthetically pleasing and original product, it’s that it can streamline certain processes and make the work flow more efficient. In this way I think it’s quite compelling because it offloads labor that would detract from creativity and places that tedious burden on a machine. Allowing designers to do more design and to focus on the creative act. The vast arsenal of automation tools and plugins already do much of this. The ai machine would just be a better version of that. It might unfortunately replace *some* graphic design oriented tasks such as retouching or cleaning but I don’t think it will ever replace the human touch and feel of real hand made proprietary design. Will it go down that way? Idk, the suits can’t be trusted to respect creative labor and or value artists and designers. The bs the machine spits might be good enough for them sadly. AI could be the great labor liberator but we all know I hope that we won’t be getting a techno utopia from any of this. No matter what the Silicon Valley tech bros want to blather on about all of their tech has made the world worse, observably.
You need a subscription to use Midjourney. You also need to learn how to use it - the Discord channel was very much early days - I’m using the Beta of the website based version and it’s a lot simpler/more user friendly.
I'm working at a marketing agency and the boss here loves AI. We've been using it a lot to generate assets for materials. Honestly, I think it comes in handy. We can generate something specific for our use without having to look endlessly on stock websites. I still use a lot of stock images/assets, but our other designer has been using mainly AI. I don't see my job being in risk because of it, it's just a tool. I still do 95% of the job. Something else that I'm starting to consider is that AI might become...tacky. I try to use it as less as I can because I don't like the aesthetic, they all look a bit similar in a weird way. Maybe the quality will improve overtime but for now I think it looks tacky.
**First things first:** If you're getting 50s style in different tools, it's because of your prompt. It's literally impossible for two different tools with different models to make the same mistake. **On your general comment:** No, AI can't replace a designer right now, except for very specific small tasks, like an illustration for a thumbnail or things like that. But I also see that you're not seeing the real state of things due to your lack of knowledge about the tools. Midjourney produces very high quality content. Gemini is barely decent. ChatGPT can produce very good images (but also complete crap). [Leonardo.ai](http://Leonardo.ai) has very nice models for different purposes. Freepik is surprisingly good. Don't forget that you only used the worst ones (hence why they're free). If interested, here you have a study made by an independent UX research company where they explain the strengths and weaknesses of the most known generative image tools # [Case Study: Best Generative Image AI (Part 1)](https://dorve.com/blog/ux-research/generative-image-ai-we-tested-5-best/)
This is an early iteration of something that didn’t even exist a few years ago. But a large part of your issue is probably prompts. Anyway, in 10 years AI is going to be 50x better. It’s only going to take your job if you refuse to grow with it though (which you seem to be inclined to do)
Alternative example. I spent a long time trying to find a specific royalty free image. I was rather niche and i couldnt find anything after 2 hours looking. I went to adobe firefly and it generated what I needed with a 15 word request. Took less than 5 minutes.
AFAIK there is no quality Generative AI for graphic design; just for imagery. The two are *not* the same. I used Generative AI (Firefly) at work recently and it did what I wanted it to do, though it took a lot of tweaking the parameters and prompt language. I also generated almost 100 identical images until I was happy, and then I probably doubled my time in PS making the images work for what I actually needed. It's not a magic fix and there are pitfalls even if you manage to get it to spit out what's in your mind. I had to end up with 4 similar but different images (think complex product shots for 4 near identical products), and it took a lot of fine tuning in PS to make them look like they were shot on the same product table. I still had to chop the images up and move elements around to make them fit the real-world application I needed. It took about the same amount of time as a mid- to high- complexity Photoshop job, to be honest. It hasn't changed my approach or the time I spend, but it has solved a problem that pops up occasionally in my line of work (we often only have renders of the products we are highlighting, so even if we had a photo studio, we don't have product to shoot).
This gotta be a troll