(affiliate links to my greeting cards)
Early in the pandemic, my neighbors asked if I would check in on their cat when they had to travel out of state to be with a terminal relative. (The family member passed on a couple of weeks later due to cancer, not the other 2020 killer.) Lizard and I are cat people, but we can't have a pet now due to the tripping hazard. Taking care of our neighbor's elderly, blind and hard-of-hearing cat was a show of kindness during a scary time, but it also gave us the opportunity to indulge in some purr comfort.
Last month, my neighbors' cat crossed the rainbow bridge. I know how much they loved that cat. She was their baby for more than 20 years! I wanted to design a greeting card that might express the sadness we feel and the heartfelt love we hope to share. I decided to try my hand once again at AI. Because, well, I don't have a cat. And because I snapped only a few photos of my neighbors' cat back in 2020.
One of the AI images gave me a great idea. I don't have cats anymore, but I do have yarn. What if I built a rainbow bridge from my fibers and used an image of my hand-dyed colors to generate the sympathy card I could see in my head?
I came up with a few great images, in my opinion. But many needed some heavy digital TLC. Such as this one... Check out the face on the seventh cat. And the boats in the background. I made no background specifications in my prompts.
With the help of old images from my own kitties decades ago...
...I was able to fix what AI couldn't. One cat in my favorite AI rendition looked like a gerbil with a cat paw coming out of its tummy. One cat had too many legs. One cat had a dog's tail coming out of its neck. All the eyes but one were wacky. And there was a piece of thick barbed wire coming out of the mountain to what may have been an "intelligent" attempt to generate lightning in the smaller cloud. ??? Sometimes, AI makes me roll my eyes!!!
After heavy editing in Photoshop, I came up with what I think is a wonderfully expressive card! And this is what I sent...
My sympathy to your neighbors for their loss. May they find comfort in their memories and in your kindness.
ReplyDeleteThese cards are wonderful!
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