The Merits of Airbrushing

By faerierealm

Have you ever created an AI image that you loved in every way except for maybe one or two small issues? Happens to us a lot even when running the latest AI models. Rather than toss the image or accept the defect, though, we often fix the issue(s) using airbrushing. What is airbrushing? It’s basically blending colors from one part of the image to another. For this example, we'll use the free, open-source image editor known as GIMP (Gnu Image Processing Program). We recently posted a surfing creation ( https://budgetpixel.com/p/14864 ). To make this image, we generated several (our usual process) and picked the one we liked the most. However, that one had an extra ankle strap: Surfers always attach the tether to the trailing foot, not the leading foot (and certainly not to both feet), so anyone who's surfed more than one day will know this image is inaccurate. So let’s airbrush that strap away! First, let's zoom in on the leading foot using ‘+’ in GIMP: Next, let's pick up some neighboring flesh tones using the eye dropper tool (press 'o' in GIMP), and then apply them to the dark pixels using the airbrush (press 'a' in GIMP). Note that we've chosen a brush size of 9 pixels in this example: Rinse and repeat: Now let's do the same with the sides, this time picking up the gray colors with the eye dropper: Almost done... As we get close to finishing, we switch to a smaller brush size (5 pt instead of 9 pt but the actual size you choose will be based on the resolution of your image): Final polish: Let's zoom out to view the finished product, which doesn't have to be perfect because we generally run our images through a final Clarity Upscale before posting: In the beginning, it may take some time to become comfortable at airbrushing, so maybe start with very small defects and then work your way up. But rest assured, it gets faster and easier. If you've been working with graphics for a while, you may pick it up even faster. @DavidP read an earlier version of this tutorial and mastered the technique in less than a day. Feel free to practice on this image even. The cleanup described here took about 5 minutes for me (not including the time to take screenshots and type this tutorial). And now, just to be complete, let's put the airbrushed image through a Clarity Upscale at medium strength: Hard to tell that leading strap was ever there, right? ☺️ Final thoughts: GIMP is free, and airbrushing is a useful skill for an AI creator to know. To reiterate: Just alternate between the eye dropper ('o') and airbrush ('a') tools while adjusting brush size to the regions you want to blend. Good luck! 👍

Comments (27)

archangeltara

Awesome tysvm for showing and sharing how to I am new here so this helps a lot

JustAsh

Yeah the AI backlash is real for sure. To me AI is a tool, just like any other tool. When digital cameras became all the rage film camera fanatics called it the death of photography, when electric guitars came on the scene musicians called it the death of music. When photography first came out it was derided as not real art and viewed as a threat to painters and other artists. People are always afraid of the new tech and yeah it can be seriously misused by some people, but it can also be a beneficial tool as well. As always it really comes back to the humans that are using it as to whether it's good or bad. But some people have been angry about photo editing since the days of physically airbrushing real photographic prints. It's just the nature of artistic endeavor. Everybody's a critic as they say. PS I'm sorry about kind of hijacking your comment section. I like and enjoy your work and like talking about this kind of stuff. But I can be a little verbose sometimes.

JustAsh

I've never called it that. I call it digital editing, blemish removal, repainting, clone brushing or a variety of other things. However you want to describe it I was doing that kind of editing ages ago on real life photos. Removing parking lot light posts from fireworks photos, cleaning up smudges or spots left on camera lens and even smoothing the odd wrinkle or two. It's nothing that Cosmopolitan, Playboy and other glamour mags haven't been doing for decades now. So I don't think twice about it, especially with AI images. I want to provide the best images I possibly can, and I don't understand why anybody would object to that.

JustAsh

It's a touchy subject in some communities. People whining about filters, or fake or AI or photoshopped. In my experiences it's mostly people acting like they are being personally catfished as if they are actually going to ever get to meet the person in the image. LOL And yeah a lot of people are completely unaware of the world of digital editing. I think it's cool y'all posted this in an effort to help out. It's a skill like any other, that has to be learned and refined, any kind of assistance to help others create better art is a good thing IMO.

faerierealm

Well now that you mention it... we have noticed a slow but growing backlash against AI. Not just AI art, but AI music and writing as well. And who knows, maybe that's a good thing? I mean, since AI companies are making money off of basically the entire output of the human race. Of course, soon we won't be able to tell one from the other...

germancowboy

The only thing I can think of is this: you get 30 credits daily for clapping 10 times. So once you are done, you it the next day again. But that is not really how it works. To get your 10 daily claps you can also clap on a blog post again, that you used all your 20 claps on, it still count for your daily clapping requirement.

faerierealm

Haha that's fine, but it's just past midnight here and tomorrow's a work day, so I'm turning in now. Suffice to say we use AI mostly to create erotica (which we don't publish) as a means to counteract the drop in libido brought on by menopause. So our use case is very specific and AI art works very well for our purposes haha. Goodnight!

faerierealm

Well I just assumed @DavidP was making a joke, but now I wonder if he wasn't... Hey David, is there a limit to the number of claps a user can give each day? I've given as many as 60 on a day, but maybe there's a higher cutoff value?

faerierealm

Sounds like you have more experience with it than we do! I'm not sure artists really object to it, but rather some who are new may not realize how easy it is, regardless of what it's called!

mim86

This is amazing really! Because I have had Gimp for years and never really knew how to make the best of it. Fabulous tutorial, thank you.