Is AI Art? Understanding How AI Is Used in Photography

The conversation around AI and art has grown rapidly, and with it, a lot of confusion. One of the biggest misconceptions is that AI art is always a one-click process—or that artists and photographers using AI are replacing creativity rather than enhancing it.

In reality, AI has been part of professional photography for years.

AI Is Already Embedded in Photography

Most professional photographers use Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, both of which include AI-powered tools. Features such as noise reduction, subject selection, background masking, content-aware fill, sky replacement, and even sharpening rely on artificial intelligence and machine learning.

This means that many photographers are already using AI every time they edit an image—even if they don’t think of it that way.

AI, in this context, is not creating the photograph. It is assisting the artist in refining it.

AI as a Tool, Not a Replacement

Like any tool, AI can be used thoughtfully or carelessly. A camera doesn’t make someone a photographer, and AI doesn’t make someone an artist. What matters is the decision-making, experience, and craftsmanship behind the final result.

In fine-art photography and digital painting, AI may assist with:

• Exploring composition or lighting ideas

• Speeding up technical selections or masking

• Helping refine details during post-processing

But it does not replace artistic judgment, trained vision, or hands-on work.

Where Craftsmanship Comes In

In my own work, AI may be part of the early stages of development, but it is never the finished piece. Each portrait undergoes extensive hands-on refinement in Photoshop—cleaning up details, correcting color and light, sharpening features, and ensuring accurate likeness.

For more custom commissions, portraits are often painted digitally by hand, using traditional painterly techniques translated into a digital medium. This process can be time-consuming, but it allows for a level of expression, texture, and refinement that automated tools alone cannot achieve.

Final pieces are professionally printed on canvas, and select works are further enhanced with hand-applied acrylic embellishments—bringing the artwork into the physical world with depth and texture.

So… Is AI Art?

AI can be part of the process, but it is not the artist.

Just as darkroom techniques once shaped traditional photography and Photoshop revolutionized digital editing, AI is another evolution in creative tools. What defines the artwork is not the software used—but the intention, skill, and craftsmanship behind it.

The difference between a one-click AI image and a finished fine-art piece lies in experience, time, and artistic care.