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Interview Answers

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My process

(published as replies on Farcaster)

Questions were asked by Lauren at Lamp Photography

https://far.quest/lampphotography

(How did you create it?)

I use a really complicated method for most of my art.

It started with a photograph. I then tweaked it with GiMP, creating the color swatches and removing the background. Then I put it into an AI, in order to make it not look like a photo. After tweaking the AI multiple times, I got a nearly finished image. This I took and ran back through GiMP and Snapseed, getting rid of marks that were out of place, toying with the full color settings and filters. And this got me to the final image.

I do this(roughly) same process for most of my nft art. I try to put in the extra effort so it’s not an AI image, just an image that I used AI during the creation process. This also keeps my work free of any copyright issues.

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(How long does it take?)

Well, it’s not as big a deal now. I’ve been refining the process for about 18mo.

I don’t like the way AI is generally used for images. Anyone can type stuff in. Although there is an art to crafting prompts.

I wanted my work to be free of any accusations of copyright infringement, and to keep the commercial rights free.

I can’t say exactly how long this image took, but in general, images I create this way, I do over several days. Some parts of the process are quite fast. Others not so much. I’ll generally work in 3 separate phases.

1. The photo or 3D render, and its first adjustments.
2. Working with AI changes(this is the real time consumer)
3. Final image processing.

If I know exactly what I want as the end result, I can finish one in a few hours.

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(You must be one of the first authors in the world to use such a process)

Well, it’s also very personally tuned. There’s nothing stopping others from using the same applications, but I spent months playing with the order I did things in, trying dozens of image editing apps, and dozens of AIs.

Something I think everyone should do is keep notes on their process. This can make things much more streamlined in future creations.

I save every AI prompt I use in a notebook. I also keep notes on filters and tools that I use often.

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(Do you recommend any apps?)

There are tons of good ones!!

But, Drafts is by far my favorite. It’s only available on iOS and Mac Though.

I also use Obsidian a lot. It’s great for writing long form.

Logseq is also an excellent app for notes.

I recently started using Standard Notes, because you can publish a note as a blog entry directly in the app.

And Omnivore is absolutely wonderful for taking notes on web articles as you read them.

I try out every new writing app I can as soon as I can. Always looking for a better or unique method.

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