art

Nightshade app ‘poisons’ AI models copying your art [Awesome Apps]

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Nightshade app
Researchers at the University of Chicago have given artists a tool to fight AI models imitating their artwork.
Photo: University of Chicago
Awesome Apps

Artists have every reason to fear artificial intelligence (AI) models that might train on their artwork online without permission, essentially imitating it and potentially diluting its value.

A new free app called Nightshade — yeah, after the poisonous plant — is here to mess with AI models to deter trainers from doing that.

Turn your TV into a digital gallery stocked with the world’s most famous art

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Put the world's most iconic art on your TV for under $33.
Put a gallery of more than 500 famous paintings on your TV.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

TV is fine for when you want to binge and unwind after a hard day at work, but when it comes time for a house party, it can be a distraction or worse. Now there’s an imaginative and classy way to use that wall space with Dreamscreens, a simple USB device that instantly turns your big-screen TV into a frame for some of the world’s most captivating paintings.

And thanks to a special promo to kick off 2024, you can get it for $32.97 through January 21.

See gorgeous shots from Paris iPhone photo exhibition

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“I Remember You,” a two-day photography exhibition highlighting original work shot on iPhone 15 Pro Max, opens in Paris Friday.
Photo: Apple

An iPhone photography exhibition called “I Remember You” debuts Friday in Paris — but here’s your chance to scope out some of the fantastic iPhone 15 Pro Max photos online.

The two-day exhibition at the Salon Corderie showcases work by five esteemed photographers, Apple said Thursday.

Learn to create video game art for just $35

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Score this package of five game art courses for just $35.
Build worlds within games by exploring this $35 Blender art design bundle.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Plenty of people dedicate serious time to gaming, but do you have what it takes to design a game yourself? If you’re curious about the process, or want to take a serious professional plunge, pick up this low-priced package of courses on game art development.

The 2023 Complete Blender Bundle is currently available for only $34.99 (regularly $655), with no coupon necessary. You’ll score enormous savings on instant access to five comprehensive courses on game art creation that total nearly 50 hours.

Generate AI images with any prompt using Dream by Wombo

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Generate paintings with any prompt using Dream by WOMBO.
With this easy-to-use AI art generator, the only limitation on your imagery is your imagination.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

As processors improve, AI art is becoming more and more accessible. Yet one fundamental question remains: How do you best use it? This art tool from Wombo lets you turn your ideas and words into incredible art in mere seconds, and is now on sale for $49.99.

Showcase your standing as an artist with a .art domain name for less than $10 a year

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Ditch .com and grab a .ART domain name.
A .art domain name could do wonders for your artistic business.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

If you want to be an artist, you need to know how to get your work in front of the right audience. For many artists, that starts with a .art web domain, offering instant identity and credibility to any creative individual looking to showcase their work.

Become an urban sketch artist with these digital workshops

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Learn to sketch your world with this course bundle.
These urban sketching workshops are led by a real pro.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Urban sketching is the practice of drawing the world around you, even if it’s the world you’re used to seeing all the time. You can learn to see, appreciate and render the world you live in with the 2022 Urban Sketching Course Bundle. This 20-hour training bundle is on sale for only $39.99 (regularly $319).

Wow, this stunning iPad drawing isn’t a photo

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iPad art: Wow, this stunning iPad drawing isn’t a photo
It’s amazing what can be created with an iPad, Apple Pencil and Procreate.
Photo: Apple/Greg Joswiak/Cult of Mac

Greg “Joz” Joswiak, Apple’s marketing chief, shared an image of a surprised young girl today. It looks like a photo, but the image was instead drawn by an Apple employee using an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil.

Check Joswiak‘s post for the full image. And never doubt that iPad is a serious tool for creating amazing art.

Learn digital art for less with this comprehensive e-learning bundle

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Get Started with this digital art bundle
Brush up on your digital art.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Even if you have years of experience with traditional mediums, digital art is a world of its own. Get your start crafting beautiful works of art without ever needing to clean a brush again with The 2022 Premium School of Digital Art Bundle.

This huge bundle of art lessons just had its price dropped to $35 (from $2,000).

Artist uses vintage Mac to re-create Flatiron Building, one pixel at a time

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Wahyu Ichwandardi image
Imagine the hours it took to draw this.
Photo: Wahyu Ichwandardi

Using a 1984-era Macintosh 128K and various retro tools, Pinot W. Ichwandardi painstakingly crafted a beautiful pixel art drawing of one of New York City’s most stunning skyscrapers.

Ichwandardi created his stunning image of the Flatiron Building one pixel at a time, a process he calls “pixel knitting” due to its time-intensive nature. But the incredibly detailed artwork isn’t even the point.

“The most rewarding thing from it is the process,” the 50-year-old designer told Cult of Mac.

It just goes to show that even a Mac that’s nearly 40 years old can still be used to make amazing pieces artwork. And you can buy a print of Ichwandardi’s Flatiron Building art — printed on a vintage dot-matrix printer, naturally!

Glitch Clip makes music-video art on the iPad

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Glitch Clip
Glitch Clip glitches clips
Photo: Jerôme Gangneux

Glitch Clip is an iPad app for VJs. That is, Glitch Clip lets you combine video clips with in-app effects and visuals, and sync them to music. Thus, you can create live video performances, or you can just make killer music videos for when you put your own songs up on YouTube.

Previously this kind of power was found in apps like Isadora for the Mac, which costs over $500. And while Glitch Clip is no Isadora, it’s only 1/100th the price.

Giant emoji canon will bruise you with ‘likes’

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Emotigun
Tadas Maksimovas takes it on the chin for his art.
Screenshot: Tadas Maksimovas/Vimeo

Our spirits rise and fall by the number of “likes” we receive on our social media posts.

But would your appetite for online validation change if your face was literally pelted with emoji?

Artist Tadas Maksimovas stood in front of a rapid-firing “Emotigun” so the rest of us won’t have to.

How to draw a portrait with Apple Pencil

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Are you drawn to draw with your new Apple Pencil 2?
Are you drawn to draw with your new Apple Pencil 2?
Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac

Got a new Apple Pencil? Once the initial novelty wears off, you might find that it spends most of its time magnetically clipped to the side of your iPad Pro or, worse, stuck in the back of a drawer. After all, there are only so many PDFs to annotate and screenshots to mark up.

Which is a great shame, because what your Apple Pencil really wants to do is create art. You only appreciate the true joy of owning one when you draw with it. So, why not follow this handy how-to guide and start sketching lifelike portraits of friends and family? It’s a really fun hobby.

As Kate Winslet once said in Titantic, “Draw me like one of your French girls.”

Oscar-nominated filmmaker says smartphone killed photography

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Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders wants to find a new term for the type of photography done with an iPhone.
Photo: BBC

So many people are taking so many pictures thanks to the iPhone. And yet, renowned filmmaker and photographer Wim Wenders says photography is “more dead than ever.”

“The trouble with iPhone pictures is nobody sees them,” Wenders said in a recent BBC video interview during an exhibit of his Polaroid photos. “Even the people who take them don’t look at them anymore, and they certainly don’t make prints.”

Steve Jobs would never approve this toxic portrait

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Steve Jobs art
Add cigarette ash and an ashtray to the kinds of art inspired by the late Steve Jobs.
Photo: Shin

The late Steve Jobs has inspired artists to immortalize him in bronze, on canvas, the silver screen and even the opera stage. There was even a guy who injected paint into bubble wrap to create a Jobs portrait.

But the oddest may just be a Jobs likeness made by a smoker arranging ash in an ashtray.

iPhone movie nominated for celebrated art award

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Charlotte Prodger
Charlotte Prodger is just the latest artist to use an Apple device for her work.
Screenshot: Film London

One of the works nominated for this year’s Turner Prize, an annual award given out to the best British visual artist, is a short film that was shot on an iPhone.

Shortlisted Scottish artist Charlotte Prodger filmed her video Bridgit on an iPhone. It’s just the latest example of how Apple’s devices can be used by creators to make art.

Awesome Mac Pro concept packs expansion slots pros want

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Apple should steal ideas from this Mac Pro concept.
Apple should steal ideas from this Mac Pro concept.
Photo: Curved

Professional Mac users will have to wait until 2018 for a glimpse at the new Mac Pro Apple is working on, but if the next-gen computer looks anything like this new concept, it might be worth the wait.

German site Curved created a Mac Pro concept that shows how Apple could add modular features, allowing professionals to swap out pretty much every component. The concept artists even dreamed up a Cinema Display that packs plenty of ports for expansion.

Take a closer look:

Artist creates with Macs and lets nature take its course

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The artist known as Monsieur Plant prompts nature to override the power of the computer.
The artist known as Monsieur Plant prompts nature to override the power of the computer.
Photo: Christophe Guinet

Cult of Mac 2.0 bug Apple designs its products with an affinity for creatives of all kinds. But a French artist known as Monsieur Plant uses Macs to take “Think Different” to another level.

The Apple computers used by Christophe Guinet, 39, are not the tools but the subject in a body of work that integrates life-giving plant matter with life-altering technology.