The apocalypse

Decades before Photoshop and AI, I was doing all kinds of special effects in the darkroom. This was the late 60's and 70's, and all my friends thought I was on drugs. I wasn't. My brain just worked differently. I did this for 10 years before I focused on wildlife, nature, and travel. But I’ve always loved creating visual fantasies – whether a camera is involved or not -- and now we have such amazingly creative tools. I made this image using both AI (I use the online software Midjourney) and Photoshop. For the horse and rider, my word prompt was: “A female cyborg with long legs riding a galloping chromed horse fully mechanical.” For the background, I created a separate image in AI with this prompt: “A cityscape in ruins, a dystopian future.” I composited the two images together in PS after I increased their resolution using Topaz Gigapixel AI, and then I applied the ‘dehaze’ command in Adobe Camera Raw which added the unique atmosphere, the other-worldly colors, and the interplay of light and dark. Finally, I used the dodge tool on the horse to emphasize some of the highlights.