“Look, I’ve managed to get AI to generate an image!”, exclaimed I ecstatically.

My friend couldn’t help but smile at the awkward, formless creation that resembled, at best, a poorly developed, blot-filled photo from his grandfather’s bathroom photo atelier.

It was 2021. In just two years, unbelievable apps like Dall-E 2 or Stable Diffusion had emerged, able to create photorealistic pictures and imitate the styles of the most advanced painters.

In this new world, we as artists have yet to find relevant answers to fundamental questions: Who am I? Why do I produce art? How can I make money with my art?

But let’s leave these questions to philosophers and ask a more practical one: How can AI help us produce better art instead of scaring us with its powers?

Here are a few ideas and tips on how visual artists can use AI to achieve benefits that were impossible before the AI era:

• Use AI to search for new ideas and topics and make initial sketches for you.
• Conduct research in the early stage of producing a painting: vary characters, compositions, color gammas, and any other aspects of the artwork.
• Easily introduce or remove elements and instantly see how they look.
• Generate a series of supporting images for the promotion of your new artwork.
• Quickly and effortlessly create fan art to offer to your followers.
• Produce collectibles in physical as well as digital form (NFT).

These examples illustrate the huge window of opportunities that have opened to us recently. By using these tools, even better ideas could come.

Furthermore, new Photoshop neural filters make it possible to enhance images in new ways, such as face editing, skin smoothing, scaling, or depth blur, to name a few. While perhaps less mind-blowing, they are still incredibly useful.

In conclusion, as a visual artist and designer, I would be glad to exchange ideas with those who share my approach to using AI. You are welcome to tell me about your experiences with AI in our Telegram channel.

And here’s a small gallery of digital artworks I’ve made using Dall-E 2. If you like what you see, join me on Instagram to see more!