Hello Josh, many thanks for reaching out to us. We’re glad for the chance to show you a bit about where AI imagery is at right now and how you may think about it in regards to NBBJ assets. AI is in that stage all new technology goes through, when it begins to enter into daily conversation, which rarely provides a clear picture of where things actually are at. As a catch-all term, it really isn’t that helpful (we’re guilty, we use it all the time). We find it helpful instead to think in terms of specific tools that we can leverage in creating high-end, custom imagery.

As you’re likely aware, advancements in this tech are coming at an astounding rate. The release of a new version can result in a tool that once may have been of little use, suddenly playing a central role for us. We’ve found that by sticking to our roots in building high quality images while staying closely tuned to the space, allows us to pull in new methods as they become available or find new ways to leverage one tool with another.

Generative AI Progression in the last 6 months.

July 2022

November 2022

March 2023

The capabilities of Generative AI are advancing at lightning speeds. Images have progressed from the blurs seen six months ago to the more realistic photo-like images we can generate now. We expect that quirks experienced today, such as the inability to fully form hands and feet, will also be worked out very quickly. Given these speeds, we want to partner with our clients to set up workflows now. We will continue to evolve our processes over time to take full advantage of this fast-moving technology.

CASE STUDIES

Here’s a look at some images we have created for other clients side by side with their comps.

CLIENT IMAGE

ASSEMBLAGE IMAGE

CLIENT IMAGE

ASSEMBLAGE IMAGE

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ASSEMBLAGE IMAGE VARIATIONS

CLIENT IMAGE

ASSEMBLAGE IMAGE

AI image with composited CISCO Headphones

If we’re going to answer the question of: How can AI work for NBBJ imagery without the need for intensive retouching?, the answer is (annoyingly): It depends on where it will be used. Knowing that NBBJ operates at the highest level in its field, we also know that your files are second to none. When leveraging generated imagery, one of the largest hurdles we currently face is the lack of resolution. Our background lies in working with the highest resolution assets available, so this has been a major challenge for us. We continue to partner at an enterprise level with resolution enhancing engines, but the honest truth is, we cannot deliver large files sizes without pulling in other channels of our process. That said, through conversations with our partners and the obvious growth rate in the field, we’re confident that this issue is going to be improving in very short time. Here’s a quick look at what we came up with by feeding your images through a few of our preferred engines and trying to add some talent.

Supplied Image: High resolution image from NBBJ

Assemblage production: As mentioned, AI engines do not do well with large files. In order to maintain lighting, camera angle, etc., we use the original image as reference but in order to do so need to greatly reduce the size of the file, obviously reducing resolution as well. In this case we rendered out a crowd then composited it back into the original image, but as seen here, with poor results.

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Supplied Image: High resolution image from NBBJ

Assemblage production: Again here we see the same result. With more time we would likely have better results creating people of this size by creating them without the constraint of the original image than more composite work, but not without heavy retouching.

Supplied Image: High resolution image from NBBJ

Assemblage production: Again here we see the same result. With more time we would likely have better results creating people of this size by creating them without the constraint of the original image than more composite work, but not without heavy retouching.

Supplied Image: High res images supplied by client.

Assemblage production: We wanted to play with another image a bit and tried to recreate the talent in this image and thought we’d share it to show that generated images are still struggling with people at medium to long distance ranges. Confusingly, close ups can be created that are indistinguishable from real people. As with all of this as our knowledge grows and the tech advances, we see this issue being very short term.

ASSEMBLAGE IMAGE VARIATIONS

:ASSEMBLAGE Library of Images: Technology

Once we’ve established the look and feel, we can apply our method to efficiently create a library of branded images to fill out any campaign or sit ready to reply as needed.