Behind the Scenes: Images Used in "My Favorite Suspects"
Where do I find the images for this Substack?
You might be wondering I find images like the one I used for Erland Fox in “Where This Mystery Takes Us“ or the characterizations for “Coyotes in Winter.” The answer is that I use three main sources.
The first source are images from others. These images are either public domain or available for use under the Creative Commons license. I’ll post these images with the appropriate attribution.
The second source is my own photography. I haven’t had much use for it directly, but I have used it indirectly. These images are covered under my copyright and will be attributed that way.
The third, and growing source, is AI. I currently rely primarily on Midjourney, and to a lesser extent on DALL-E, for creating images.
Yes, I know that AI is taking work away from freelance artists (and writers too!). That’s why I search for Creative Commons and public domain images first, which at least have an origin with a human. However, it can be very hard to find specific images, and costly to share them in this setting. I’m up against a metaphorical wall. Posts with images get more clicks than posts without, but I have no budget to compete with other writers who either can afford illustrators or are also using AI, or both.
I justify my use of AI for images mostly in the hope that someday I’ll be able to afford a human artist to create covers for my books.
I also justify it in the knowledge that there are many limitations in these AI images.
For one thing, it takes time to set up the prompt and review the images that Midjourney and DALL-E create. I usually have to create and review about 20 images before I get something that’s pretty close to what I actually want. But none of the images is exactly what I wanted. As a case in point, this article’s image of the woman in front of the helicopter is the result of me giving up after about an hour of fiddling with the prompt. I wanted the character to look back at the camera but the AI couldn’t do it.
Another limitation is that it’s difficult to modify the same image to, for example, place a character in a different setting. That’s why the backgrounds of the character illustrations in Part 2 of Coyotes in Winter don’t match. I’m actually not sure how I’m going to re-use those characters in other settings. AI is getting better, but that’s another limitation of these models.
So, what are your thoughts, now that you know about the source of the illustrations? Let me know in the comments!