Generative AI is the new frontier in photography, with new AI generators and tools popping up on a near-daily basis. And while generative (so it might not be able to recreate completely photorealistic images just yet, or know how many fingers a person should have) it is a super fun tool for enhancing photos with some AI-generated assets.
In the spirit of this idea, of turning photos into art, SnapChat developer Kyle Goodrich has developed the DreamGenerator – an incredibly cool-looking camera that can transform your photo into one of 30 themed images, using generative AI directly within the camera itself, with no extra hardware required.
The camera offers unique looks that can be selected on-screen. It can then take an image and apply that unique look to the photo in real-time, for some interesting results. The looks teased include Dinosaur, Wild West, Zombie, Pirate, Retro, Demon and Fairytale, and the example pictures Kyle shows from the camera seem very impressive.
The camera might look minimal, but inside is a Raspberry Pi computer that is running an instance of Stable Diffusion and ControlNet – which transforms the image before your very eyes on the camera screen.
I am certainly not a computing genius, but this appears to be an impressive feat as AI generation usually requires either a powerful GPU or data to be offloaded to the cloud. We have only been treated to a few brief and well-curated videos via X (formerly Twitter), so we would be keen to see more of the camera in action.
If this camera ever actually makes it beyond a one-off prototype remains to be seen, although I personally would love to get my hands on one, it is a very niche product, and the results can be achieved using a phone camera and app, although with far less style.
If you want to experiment with generative AI for yourself right now, then you can try Adobe Photoshop (Beta) with a subscription, or you can use Adobe Express (Beta) online for free.
If you're keen to try AI yourself, take a look at the best AI image generators. If you want to create your own masterpieces, find out more about the best photo editing software and find out our choices for the best laptops for photo editing.
