William Overington

I too am a hobbyist. To start, I think it would be a good idea to state the size of the poster. Then consider at what distance you want people to notice it, read at least one or two or a few words so that they are likely to move closer to the poster to read what is in smaller type. Please remember that eyesight varies among people and that some people are wearing glasses and if your lettering is too small then people may have a problem reading it standing by it rather than sat down reading a leaflet. If the poster is to be indoors at the library, perhaps on a noticeboard, maybe you might consider having a pile of leaflets available at the enquiry desk, then the poster could have something like There is a free leaflet available at teh reception desk with further details. What the "one or two or a few words" are in something to consider. Maybe FREE COURSE will get people to read the poster. Or maybe 3D PRINTING text text text etc etc FREE COURSE might be more effective. What information do you want the poster to convey. When I first saw your post I had never heard of a Cricut machine. Maybe a lot of people who see your poster will not have heard of it either. So maybe somewhere you need to include A Cricut machine is (then concisely say what it is, in general terms) What software are you using? William

The sequence of events was as follows. I decided to follow up on the suggestion that had been made. I copied the post in which that suggestion appeared and produced the following four line prompt for Bing Chat AI. How do I reduce the number of posts needed to say something? So I can have one post instead of four? To take up less room on the forum's page? Could the Enter key be involved? The AI system produced a response. With my research on using the Bing Chat AI system, I write the prompt in a WordPad file at 18 point, saving the file as a record of what has happened, sometimes putting comments of my own that are not input into the AI system between square brackets. Then I copy and paste to Bing Chat AI, where it is displayed in a smaller size. Text response from Bing Chat AI is also in that smaller size, so I do a copy and paste to the WordPad file so that I can read the response more easily and also I have a record of the response. For whatever reason, some things like numbered lists and bold type do not get copied across. There are not usually numbered lists or bold type so not a usual problem. Sometimes the result is in a panel. For example, if I ask for a poem, there might be a preamble about Here is your poem or the like and the poem in a panel, that formatting not copying across to WordPad. So I just got the plain text, which is what is probably what I posted first off. I then sort of took in that the original list was numbered and there were bold headings, so I edited the post to give a more accurate impression of what Bing Chat AI had generated. Even so, I think that the four numbered paragraphs might have been on a panel with the two lines at the start and the final line not on the panel. Sometimes a response offers some web links at the end of the response, these are often very useful. Please note that this request to Bing Chat AI was one suggested to me that I try, so I did. It all has something to do with Carriage Returns, Line Feeds, and the two together, and however the software package that one is using has been programmed to react when it meets them. I first met Carriage Return and Line Feed in the 1960s when using five track paper tape on a teleprinter to program an Elliott 803B using the ALGOL 60 computer language. Carriage Return returned the carriage without going to a new line. Line Feed took one to the next line. That was it. I know from experience that copying from, say, text drafted in WordPad as paragraphs can end with paragraphs concatenated in the webmail system. So I either have to go through the email adding blank lines between paragraphs, or "double paragraph" the text in WordPad when drafting the text. 😁 The computer output punched paper tape. The computer operators had a supply of rolls of paper tape in various colours (light green, pink, yellow, pale blue, white) and when a new roll of tape was needed they just chose one as they chose at the time. William

Sent by Copilot: Certainly! To reduce the number of posts and keep your content concise, you can follow these tips: 1. Use Paragraphs: Instead of creating separate posts for related information, use paragraphs within a single post. Pressing the “Enter” key will create a new line within the same post, allowing you to organize your thoughts without cluttering the forum. 2. Bullet Points or Numbered Lists: If you have multiple points to make, consider using bullet points or numbered lists. This way, you can convey information succinctly without creating separate posts for each item. 3. Edit Your Content: Before posting, review your message and remove any unnecessary details. Focus on the essential information you want to share. 4. Reply to Your Own Post: If you need to add more information later, reply to your original post rather than creating a new one. This keeps the discussion in one thread. Remember, the “Enter” key is your friend for formatting within a single post! 😊

Alright, I'll try that. The results could be interesting. William

The sonnet it wrote, the one that mentions Lucy, is good. William

It also produced surprising and interesting images when asked to produce an original painting and then given a sentence in Welsh, as it seems that it probably first tried to translate into English and mistranslated some of the words. William

But it did produce, upon my request, a picture in the style of Claude Monet of a lady in a long green dress feeding a stegosaurus in a garden with a pond with waterlilies in flower. In fact, in my opinion, a lovely picture, though I am not expert in art. William

One thing some of us tried on another website was to ask Bing Chat AI to produce a painting that includes a gibbous moon. It would not do that. When asked, it correctly stated the meaning of the word gibbous but still did not apply that to the picture, there was no linking through to the picture generating. Similarly when asked about the 1813 locomotive Puffing Billy it produced details including displaying an existing picture yet would not produce a painting of Puffing Billy, producing pictures of locomotives of types from around fifty or more years later. William

Well, yes it can. But what it represents may be excellent, rubbish, or even self-contradictory. For an example of self-contradiction, asking Bing Chat Ai to produce a nineteen line poem, it purported to do so, but the poem produced was not nineteen lines. Bing Chat AI has produced for me some really beautiful images, but it also has produced some rubbish. It is me who has chosen with which to go forward, of which to buy a print and frame it. William

@Rickertmork Thank you. Do you let, or need to have, each colour dry before the next one is used? William

The place where Leonardo lived when he was in France is now a museum and park. Welcome to the Château du Clos Lucé - The Clos Lucé (vinci-closluce.com) It also features on Google street view. Both in the building and in the park. William

I produced the above in 18 minutes, I was just having a go with an Affinity Designer oils brush. How long should/does a proper oil painting take an accomplished artist please? I realize it will vary from painting to painting, but what sort of time, both with real paint and with Affinity Designer? William

Yes, I can imagine that as a real possibility. For a start, proving it to a client so the client's lawyers are not concerned about the possibility of future legal claims. That is the concern that my suggestion of separate apps is addressing. And for generative AI, staff artists in the premises producing art on computers not connected to the internet is addressing. But the complainant would not be Adobe. It might be an artist in some mid-Western state who has had his work on his website for a decade and is claiming that the AI system has been trained on his work without his permission. So then a court would have to decide whether the claim was valid or not, (how would they do that?) and the author of the book and the publisher would have a legal problem and even if they eventually won and the claim were dismissed it would still be a problem over it all. Then there would be the knock-on effect of other authors being wary of using generative AI unless there was good provenance of how it had been lawfully trained on properly licensed artwork. William

I regard them as related in that a decision made at one time when a then clearly available different decision could have been made can some years later result in problems that are by then difficult and expensive to fix and which could have been avoided ever happening with a bit of forethought of the potential for bad consequences when the original decision was made. William

Suppose someone writes a novel and uses Affinity products to produce the electronic files ready to print and uses generative AI to produce some illustrations for the novel and the novel is published in hardcopy printed form, copies being sold. Some time later a letter arrives from a law firm stating that their client claims the illustrations in the novel are in breach of copyright and claiming that the AI has been trained using the client's artwork and compensation is required. A good defence would be that the pictures were produced using Affinity Generative AI and there is provenance that the training of the AI system was done using only artwork produced by staff artists working in the premises on computers not connected to the internet. How else could the claim be defended? William

Hopefully what I am suggesting is a fail safe way to proceed. I remember that because around 1980 it was decided that two digits was adequate to express the year that by the 1990s there was a big problem looming before the year 2000 because the expiry date of an insurance policy would seem to a computer system to be before its start date, and so on. Converting software to have dates as four digits was a huge effort. That problem could have been avoided if four digits had been used in 1980. So if any AI is kept in separate apps in the Affinity suite then any future problems not apparent at present could be resolved more easily. William

Well, I have put forward this request to the Affinity team. Whether the Affinity team chooses to discuss this request is a matter for them. If the Affinity team does discuss this request then what, if anything, the Affinity team decides about this request is a matter for them. Management must manage. William

Well, in my opinion it is about providing those customers who want them with the tools they want to enhance their creative processes yet also not requiring those customers who do not want them to have their work potentially deemed to be using them. William

How do you mean please? I am an independent person. Affinity is not owned by Apple. My only connection with Affinity is as a customer, an end user of Affinity products, and a participant in these forums. William

Well why not? Management must manage. Surely if management wants to keep the present three apps free of AI then that is possible. I have AI generated images custom generated for me as a result of a text prompt that I had authored. There is a ban on mentioning them in these forums, but I have bought prints of some of them and framed them. I am not at all against AI, I do however opine that it needs to be kept separate from the existing Affinity programs so as to provide provenance that it has not been used when that is the case. William

Thinking about this, is there any evidence that Gutenberg ever got ink on his fingers? Operating a printing press was a two man operation, one inked the type, one kept his hands clean and pulled the lever. It is entirely possible that more than two people were involved. Maybe a third person handled the paper, both before and after printing. It is thought that Gutenberg was born around 1400. He was a goldsmith before he invented printing with moveable type. William

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not advocating that Affinity does not use AI. I am advocating that if Affinity does use AI that it is done n separate programs in the Affinity suite of programs and not integrated into any of the existing three programs. So there could be, say, five Affinity programs. Affinity Publisher, Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, Affinity Enhancement AI, Affinity Generator AI. Affinity Generator AI could be produced such that an AI engine is bought in as totally untrained and then the Affinity team train the AI themselves using only artwork generated by staff artists while at work in the Affinity premises on computers not linked to the internet. That way, anything generated using Affinity Generator AI would have provenance of being both lawful and moral towards all artists. In addition, the other three programs would be AI free, with provenance of that. Some people could choose to not have the AI programs on their computer. In addition, if someone using, say, Affinity Publisher, were to want an original picture to include in a document, he or she could link through to Affinity Generator AI and use a text prompt and receive an original picture. I consider that this would be a sensible, balanced approach, introducing AI in a lawful and moral way while also providing provenance of it not having been used at all for those end users who want that. William