Is AI sky replacement ethical? I can’t be the only one struggling with this

It seems so harmless. AI sky replacement is not even in the same league as generative AI, since it just uses AI masking and blending techniques to add in a new sky that’s also perfectly real and did exist, just not here. It’s just made something easier that needed a bit of Photoshop skill before. But it does cast light on some important questions about facts, representations and motives.

Here’s a question. Do you want your photographs to represent the actual reality of a scene you saw, or how you wish the scene had actually looked? Both seem to me to be valid, but they need to be examined. 

If you are struck by a scene just as it is and think it’s worthy of capture even if the sky isn’t beautiful, that’s one thing. That is the way I would probably lean. I would still exaggerate the tones of a deep, blue sky, maybe, or emphasise the drama of storm clouds, but I would still feel that the sky came with the scene. It’s part of a package. The photograph is worth taking or it isn’t. You might want to make some local adjustments for the sake of emphasis or drama, but it’s still ‘real’.

But then you might have a picture where the sky is lacking in tone or drama and there’s nothing you can do to fix it to give the mood you’re looking for, and this is where AI sky replacement is genuinely transformative. You can get a much better looking image just by replacing the sky. Luminar was the first software to introduce AI sky replacement, followed by Photoshop and ON1 Photo RAW. It can be extremely convincing.

It seems like a small step to take, but I think it’s actually a very significant one, because you are exchanging just a little bit of actual reality for idealisation. This is fine in itself. Artists do this all the time. But while it looks like you’re adding something, are you actually taking something else away?

My sky-replaced image looks great, I think, and so much more spectacular than the original photo. But something has changed. It’s no longer an actual scene that actually existed. I cannot feel the same way about this photograph or that particular place. It didn’t happen. It didn’t look like that. The image is no longer grounded in reality. It looks great, but it has lost the power it would have had if it had been real. 

I feel that way about all the images where I’ve replaced the sky or merged in parts of another photo. They’re just not the same.

Not everyone will care about that, or feel this loss in the same way I do. There will be plenty of photographers who care only about the outcome – whether the image will impress the local camera club, whether it might win a competition, whether it might help sell a property or boost ticket sales for a tourist attraction.

Photographs are used for selling, for marketing and for boosting our own reputations. We have to decide how much deception we are willing to employ – and disguise – to achieve that. We don’t necessarily deceive on purpose, but we’re still making a place or a thing look better than it did, or making ourselves look better, more observant or more persistent than we actually are.

It might seem perfectly harmless to replace a grey sky with a blue one in a real-estate shot, or promote your holiday let with a dramatic fake sunset over the beach, or show your friends your beautiful vacation shots of scenes that never quite looked like that in real life. But while you might gain admiration (or sales), I think maybe you lose something of your soul doing it. That might sound like a rather dramatic interpretation, but I can’t think of another way of expressing it.

AI sky replacement is perhaps just a symptom of something deeper. I think we are losing our grip on, and our respect for, reality. Reality may not always be what we want it to be, but it’s all we’ve got, and when we lose interest in reality, that’s when we’re really in trouble.