Seeing how descriptive I can get with ZiT
An attempt to recreate the photo that became the image compression benchmark.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna
You are free to judge this post or the history as you deem fit, that's not the point of it anyway. I just thought that it would be poignant to try to recreate the elements of the original (full) photo to test my own descriptive skills as well as Z-Image.
As someone with an interest in all things computer, including image compression and manipulation, I found the history interesting, if not amusing. It's a part of the digital world we live in, as much as Tom's Diner is part of digital music.
Feel free to decry the misogyny or my "goonerism", all comments are equally welcome. As Douglas Adams said, this is the new democracy.
This is a crop of the full image, since the rules don't allow nudity.
I'm wondering how much I can prompt before concepts start to bleed into each other, or if moving around descriptions further/closer or rephrasing them can fix composition.
Getting the hat the right shape, and putting the blue feather boa in the right position took some tries.
And I couldn't get the horse's head out of the screen, or I gave up trying.
For those of you interested, the full prompt:
A centerfold photo of a tall Swedish woman with striking eyes and straight shoulder-length brown hair.
View from behind, she facing to the right, is looking over her shoulder, her head slightly downward and a fierce look on her face.
She is naked, wearing a floppy tan wide-brimmed summer hat. The top of the hat is rounded, hat is tilted, pointing upwards at the side in front of her face. A blue feather boa droops from the side of the hat down the side of her face, partially covering her hair.
She hugs a pink feather boa to her chest that cascades from her breasts down to her legs.
The leg facing the viewer is kneeling on the top of a black chest, while she is standing on the other leg. She is wearing sheer dark purple thigh highs and black ankle boots.
The chest is to the bottom right side of the picture.
She is standing in front of a large full-length oval mirror that is taller than the woman, with a dark teak frame. The mirror is on on the right side of the picture, and takes up most of the space, extending well below.
The woman and the pink feather boa are reflected in the mirror.
The background is a dimly lit attic with wood beams, and a round stained glass window off-center in the picture. The background is blurred with a bokeh effect.
A kerosene lamp sits on one of the beams above the stained glass.
Directly beneath the stained glass window, you can barely make out a doll in a wicker basket cradle.
The tail end of a black wooden wheeled rocking horse is just visible at the bottom left of the scene. The head of the horse is off-screen.
The scene is illuminated with a soft yellow-orange light coming from the left, highlighting the left side of the womans body, especially the curve of her back and her buttocks.
The photo is taken with an analog camera, with a natural film grain
To your credit, the origin was instantly recognizable.
She looks like Agent 99.
Z-image is good for starting images. I refined this one with Flux, but sometimes SDXL makes a good Z-image refiner too.
https://preview.redd.it/73u0iwpc2a6g1.png?width=2200&format=png&auto=webp&s=5dba239829f4753160c684a8101f94c6516a65ad
Wow, what was your workflow for that ?
How is this better in any way? There's a vertical stripe pattern all over the image, the texture on the hat and other objects is worse and her elbow seems to have migrated...
There are a limited number of resolutions that work well with what I'm doing. This isn't one one them, hence the stripe artifacting. The hat texture is debatable, but I did miss the elbow. I must have become too used to actual woman who sometimes have bruises and skin discolorations.
Must say one thing image generation AI will do is teach us how to express ourselves
I was here...
It's always amazed me how misogynistic our world is, where a crop of a porno picture became the default measuring stick for image compression.
You have a valid modern viewpoint and I approve of your comment. I don't necessarily agree with it or disagree with it. I don't know if I can say anything that doesn't sound apologetic to history.
I just think it's interesting that the researchers thought nothing about grabbing the centerfold from a random Playboy magazine someone was carrying around the lab and then used it as a standard test image.
From all the down votes people are thinking that I hate pictures of nude women or something? I just think the use of that particular image, the source of the image, and the fact someone was randomly carrying a copy of Playboy around the lab speaks to a way of looking at women that today could be called misogynistic.