So I’ve recently gotten back into writing (coding) on episode and I’m at the point where I realized I don’t have backgrounds that fit the theme of my story. I am not an artist by any means, but I am a digital editor. I’ve dabbled with AI for work purposes and found that it can be very helpful. I typically make all my background and overlays by hand from royalty free stock images. But I wanted to get other people’s opinions on the topic. Do you think it’s okay to use AI generated images for backgrounds and overlays?
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Try searching other threads about this topic, as it comes up often. You’ll see that people have different opinions on it and ultimately you should go with your gut feeling/ educated opinion.
Personally, I use AI for more and more things, both creative and work-related.
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I think most people have issues with the ethical side of AI programs (there are so many) and most available programs steal/learn their styles from actual artists’ work without attribution or payment. There are ethical programs that exist though - so I think as long as you use an ethical AI program and let people know that it is AI-generated (I’ve seen people tag them with a specific emoji to indicate AI usage) people won’t have as much of an opinion.
It’s my opinion that, if you want to use AI, you have every right to use it. 
People may not like it and others might ask how you did it, but it is your story so do what you want.
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I did do some searching on this topic but all of those threads I saw were closed, so I figured I’d start another and get some fresh voices in.
I also use AI to refine my images as sometimes it’s faster than doing it myself.
That is true. I’ve done all of those things at least one for work purposes. It’s a great tool.
I completely understand that. Art is subjective and nt everyone is going to like it or agree with the choices of the artist. I do understand that there are some AI programs that are unethical and I try to avoid them at all cost.
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For pre visualization / storyboards, sure. For anything you want to sell, nope.
I personally don’t see any issues with it if you’re using an ethical program as @ColeCatalyst perfectly stated above.
Of course it’s not the best option, especially if you can easily afford art from artists, but not everyone can. I also use it for my covers, bg’s etc. mainly because it’s almost impossible for me to afford art that I’d want for my story considering my country’s currency being way lower than eur or usd.
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I think for backgrounds, AI can be so helpful. And as someone else on this thread here said, it mostly lies with the ethics of the program. I have an entire background drive and take commissions for my backgrounds that start as an AI generation, but of course I use an ethical program that pays their artists to program it rather than stealing images and after the generation, I also personally photoshop and edit the image further to make it match exactly what is needed. And I am always transparent with people who commission me about this, so they understand how my process works.
But overall I find it as a wonderful resource for people who are on a budget or are looking for a certain style of backgrounds for their stories. I love the style and I find that a lot of people give compliments on the aesthetic of them.
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Aside from the ethical sides already discussed, it’s important to read the fine print of any AI art generator program to make sure you can use the AI generated images for commercial purposes (which is Episode story writing) as some will state that you cannot.
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I always read the fine print. That is definitely good advice for some who may be new to all of this.
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