22/08/2026
I’ve mentioned before that I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with AI… and this is a big part of the reason why. ❤️🤦♀️
Over the last several years, I have spent MANY, MANY hours learning how to create composites like these in Photoshop.
Late nights watching tutorials. Hours practising. Plenty of frustration. Starting again when something looked terrible. Learning lighting, masking, blending, shadows, colour, perspective and all the little details that make completely separate images look like they actually belong together.
And, if I’m being truthful, a ridiculous amount of money spent on courses, tutorials, programs, templates and everything else along the way. 😂
But I loved learning it.
There was something incredibly satisfying about starting with a normal photograph and slowly building it into something completely different. Seeing an idea in my head and figuring out how on earth to make Photoshop do it was half the fun.
None of these images are AI generated.
They were created by me, in Photoshop, the old-fashioned way — one layer, mask, adjustment and probably a few swear words at a time. 😂
And then along comes AI…
Now you can pop a photo in, type a few words and ask it to put someone almost anywhere, wearing almost anything, with whatever background or effect you can dream up.
Something that might have taken me hours can suddenly be produced in minutes… sometimes seconds.
And I’ll admit, there’s a little part of me that looks at that and thinks…
Well, there goes several years of my life. 😂
It can make all those hours spent learning Photoshop feel a little bit null and void.
Although, to give Photoshop and us humans a little bit of credit, AI isn't quite there yet.
It can still decide to "improve" things you never asked it to touch. A face can change slightly, features can look different, hands can become interesting 😂, logos and writing can turn into complete gibberish, and sometimes the person looking back at you is almost you… but not quite.
That's one thing I still really value about doing my composites manually. The person in the finished image is the person I actually photographed. I'm changing the world around them, not asking AI to recreate them.
But here's where the love part comes in…
I actually use AI every single day.
If I don't know how to do something, I ask it. If something isn't working, I ask it. If I need an idea, an explanation or step-by-step instructions, I ask it.
Last week I changed the battery in my car with AI talking me through it. 😂🔧
There were definitely a few "ummm… which bit do you mean?" moments, a couple of photos sent back and forth and possibly some mild panic when something sparked 🤣… but the battery got changed!
And THAT is the side of AI that I absolutely love.
Having something sitting in your pocket that can teach you how to do things you never thought you'd be able to do is pretty incredible.
So I'm certainly not anti-AI. Far from it.
But I do feel a little sad that skills people have spent years learning and perfecting can now sometimes be replicated with a sentence and the click of a button.
I'm still incredibly proud that I know how to create these myself. I understand how the pieces come together. I can take an idea, photograph it with the finished result in mind, and then build that final image from scratch.
AI is amazing. I use it. I love it.
I just also occasionally want to tell it to bu**er off. 😂
So yes…
AI and I definitely have a love/hate relationship.
And these images are a little reminder of why I still love doing things the long way sometimes. ❤️
