Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Photography
  3. News

Shutterstock’s A.I. helps prevent you from committing copyright infringement

By
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Shutterstock is making it easier to web surfers to resist swiping a copyrighted photo on Google — Shutterstock Reveal is a new Google Chrome extension that allows web surfers to select an image from the search results to find a similar shot that’s actually available to license. Announced on Tuesday, May 8, the tool comes alongside the launch of two new search tools inside Shutterstock Showcase (previously Shutterstock Labs).

After installing the plug-in, images in the search results will have an icon in the upper right corner. Clicking the icon opens a Shutterstock pop-up that displays images similar to that first image from the Shutterstock library, which now numbers more than 180 million images. The plug-in works for photos as well as illustrations and vector graphics.

Recommended Videos

Shutterstock is also launching a new platform for the company’s experimental search tool, bringing two new options to the list of tools for users to try out. Renamed from Shutterstock Labs, Shutterstock Showcase uses artificial intelligence tools to assist searches on the stock image platform.

1 of 3
shutterstock showcase new ai search tools refine findsimilar copy
Image used with permission by copyright holder
shutterstock showcase new ai search tools reveal googleexample copy
Image used with permission by copyright holder
shutterstock showcase new ai search tools copyspace layout
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Refine is a new experimental A.I. tool that allows users to select a handful of images from the first page of search results in order to refine a new search based on those images. The A.I.-powered tool is designed to help users find a specific style. 

Related

The second tool, Copy Space, allows graphic designers to look for images that leave enough space for text. The tool uses computer vision and includes tools for searching based on how much space is needed as well as where that space is.

“Shutterstock is dedicated to providing our customers with smart, easy to use tools and technology that are seamlessly integrated into their daily workflow,” Jon Oringer, founder and CEO of Shutterstock, said in a press release. “We continue to invest in building an innovative platform for our users around the world and investing in computer vision research and deep learning to improve the customer experience. It’s exciting to be able to share the results of some of the A.I. technology we have been working on.” 

The search options follow earlier A.I.-based tools like Composition Aware, which allows users to search for photos based on where the objects are in the photos, rather than using only keywords. The previous tool is now joined by the latest A.I.-powered options inside Shutterstock Showcase.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Hillary K. Grigonis
Hillary K. Grigonis
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Hillary never planned on becoming a photographer—and then she was handed a camera at her first writing job and she's been…
Facebook’s new image-recognition A.I. is trained on 1 billion Instagram photos
brain network on veins illustration

If Facebook has an unofficial slogan, an equivalent to Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” or Apple’s “Think Different,” it is “Move Fast and Break Things.” It means, at least in theory, that one should iterate to try news things and not be afraid of the possibility of failure. In 2021, however, with social media currently being blamed for a plethora of societal ills, the phrase should, perhaps, be modified to: “Move Fast and Fix Things.”

One of the many areas social media, not just Facebook, has been pilloried for is its spreading of certain images online. It’s a challenging problem by any stretch of the imagination: Some 4,000 photo uploads are made to Facebook every single second. That equates to 14.58 million images per hour, or 350 million photos each day. Handling this job manually would require every single Facebook employee to work 12-hour shifts, approving or vetoing an uploaded image every nine seconds.

Read more
An Amazon A.I. scientist wants to transform downtown Jackson, Mississippi
Nashlie Sephus

Most people look at a couple of vacant lots and see … vacant lots. But Nashlie Sephus sees gold.

Sephus, a 35-year-old Black A.I. researcher with Amazon, plans to turn seven buildings and about 500,000 square feet of downtown Jackson, Mississippi, into a technology park and incubator. Her story, as detailed on Inc.’s Web site, is remarkable:
The 35-year-old has spent the past four years splitting her time between Jackson, her hometown, and Atlanta, where she works as an applied science manager for Amazon's artificial intelligence initiative. Amazon had acquired Partpic, the visual recognition technology startup where she was chief technology officer, in 2016 for an undisclosed sum. In 2018, she founded the Bean Path, an incubator and technology consulting nonprofit in Jackson that she says has helped more than 400 local businesses and individuals with their tech needs.
But beyond entrepreneurship and deep A.I. know-how, Sephus is eager to bring tech to a city hardly known for its tech roots. "It's clear that people don't expect anything good to come from Jackson," she told Inc. "So it's up to us to build something for our hometown, something for the people coming behind us."

Read more
The BigSleep A.I. is like Google Image Search for pictures that don’t exist yet
Eternity

In case you’re wondering, the picture above is "an intricate drawing of eternity." But it’s not the work of a human artist; it’s the creation of BigSleep, the latest amazing example of generative artificial intelligence (A.I.) in action.

A bit like a visual version of text-generating A.I. model GPT-3, BigSleep is capable of taking any text prompt and visualizing an image to fit the words. That could be something esoteric like eternity, or it could be a bowl of cherries, or a beautiful house (the latter of which can be seen below.) Think of it like a Google Images search -- only for pictures that have never previously existed.
How BigSleep works
“At a high level, BigSleep works by combining two neural networks: BigGAN and CLIP,” Ryan Murdock, BigSleep’s 23-year-old creator, a student studying cognitive neuroscience at the University of Utah, told Digital Trends.

Read more