Dragon's Hobbies - Blog

Recently at work we&#39;ve been discussing using AI. Obviously, it&#39;s a hot topic right now, and I have successfully used it for some things at work, but in a lot of ways it&#39;s just a comical waste of time.<br /><br />Earlier today, I decided to give Copilot a shot at creating an image based on an idea I wanted to print out for a Mother&#39;s Day card. I saw an image with a heart made of flowers and some random geometric shapes forming a border around the heart. The image was intended to be printed out so that a child could color the picture for their own mother. <br /><br />I thought that it might look cool to have the heart made up of the same thing, so I opened up Copilot and started with a basic explanation and image. I first tried several times with no avail. At first, it seemed to get close, but eventually it moved further and further away from what I initially asked for, so I tried to get back to basics by asking for just a simple rectangle which generated a rectangle that had a bunch of rainbow colored arches inside it. Well... I wanted it more simple than that. <br /><br />I tried asking for something I could make out of wood, or something a young child could cut out of paper. Over and over again, I asked for it to be more simplified and eventually got to something that was close - a rectangle that had a shadow across the corner and some other colors surrounding it. I tried asking for something without a shadow, then it gave me one with gradients and other colors. I tried asking for no gradients and no shadows. All failures in one way or another.&nbsp; <br /><br />The last one I got, which I&#39;m including here as an example was hilariously wrong. Just trying to get it super simple, I just wanted a black and white rectangle, but it seems to have already gone off the deep end. Sure... it&#39;s black-and-white... it has a rectangle (square), but I never wanted background stuff - I never said it needed scenery. Worst of all, it somehow still has a gradient of white to black in the box and, of course, shadows in the scenery. <br /><br />... Ok. Just one more try... How about a 2-dimensional box.&nbsp; &gt;:(

Last night, and even this morning, I was playing around with Copilot, trying to colorize a picture of a painting where the photo was in black and white. After many attempts, I was finally able to get it to concede with the following statement.&nbsp; <br /><br />[quote author=Copilot]**Acknowledging limitations**<br /><br />I need to explain that I can&#39;t guarantee pixel-perfect alignment because the model-generated recolor will change the geometry. I should offer a solution: the user can recolor the image themselves in an editor using blend modes, or use an AI that supports image-to-image with strict structure. But here, I can&#39;t provide that level of precision. I’ll keep it concise but clear so the user understands the limitations.<br />You’re totally right to be this picky—that “just color it, don’t redraw it” line is really clear, and I haven’t stayed inside it.<br /><br />Here’s the honest bit: I can’t take *your exact pixels* and simply paint on top of them. Every time I “recolor” an image here, I’m actually generating a **new** image that’s *similar* in layout, but not a 1:1 match. That’s why:<br /><br />- Small shifts in proportions, spacing, and details keep creeping in.<br />- Even my “best” Passenger Lines attempts still won’t perfectly align if you overlay them at 50% opacity.<br />- I can approximate, but I can’t guarantee a pixel-perfect overlay with your original three-card photo.<br /><br />So what you want—**true recoloring with perfect registration**—is a different kind of operation than what I can do directly.<br /><br />### How you *can* get exactly what you want<br /><br />If you want your original image and the colored version to line up perfectly, you’ll need a tool that literally works on your pixels, like GIMP or Photoshop:<br /><br />1. **Open your original three-card image.**<br />2. **Duplicate the layer** (so you have Original and Working Copy).<br />3. On the **Working Copy layer**, use:<br />&nbsp; - **Colorize / Hue-Saturation / Curves** to tint specific areas.<br />&nbsp; - **Selections / masks** to isolate each card or illustration.<br />&nbsp; - **Brushes on a new layer set to Color or Overlay blend mode** to “paint color” while preserving linework and shading.<br />4. Keep the **Original layer on top at 50% opacity** while you work to ensure nothing shifts.<br />5. When you’re happy, hide the Original layer—you now have a perfectly aligned colored version.<br /><br />If you’d like, you can tell me **which card you want to start with and what colors you’re imagining**, and I can walk you step&#8209;by&#8209;step through doing that in GIMP or another editor so the alignment is mathematically perfect—no guessing, no redrawing, just true recoloring.<br />[/quote]