# What's real anymore?

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly), 2023-09-23

generative-ai, midjourney, paris, photo-editing, photography, photoshop, salt-flats, street-photo, tech, urbanism

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Generative AI has made it a lot easier to make things up using software like Photoshop. This, of course, isn't a new thing. But it has gotten significantly easier for people like me who aren't experts in photo editing.

Here are two examples that I created this morning. The first is a photo of me from last summer in the Salt Flats of Utah:

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/8b5aee0bd98cf071a21c9d4ed078bb6b.png)

And here I am again after adding new clothes, a dog friend, a couple taking photos, a more impressive backdrop, and some sort of body of water in front of me:

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/a2d1a31d42029640387e7e30921c2adb.png)

The second is a photo from Paris:

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/cdce5a560ea9f09902e0291b2351ff15.png)

Now here it is again with tall buildings in the background, glass storefronts, a few neon signs, string lights above the middle of the street, a bollard blocking car access, and a few more people:

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/e9b2b8a4df9362580e9710060b5159f2.png)

These aren't entirely perfect if you're really paying attention. But for the most part, I think they're pretty convincing -- especially the second one.

Generated images are only going to get better going forward and I don't think that's a bad thing. But we do have to start training ourselves to question whether something is real or doctored. It's already hard to tell.

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly/whats-real-anymore)*