A Deck of Cards, Photography, and the Universe

 A deck of 52 cards can be arranged in more ways than there are atoms on planet Earth and almost as many ways as there are stars in the known universe.  It's 52! (52 factorial) which equals (get ready for this):  80658175170943878571660636856403766975289505440883277824000000000000 (yes, I used to be a math major, haha).

What does this have to do with photography?  When one edits a photo with the current software, that number is even larger.  If someone decided to adjust a photo for a new look every second, our sun would be long gone before they could finish.  Every part of a photo can be changed - made darker or lighter, focused or not focused, objects removed or inserted, colors changed, and on and on.

And now that AI is coming into the picture (literally and figuratively) it's getting easier to make some of these changes.  

Below are some examples (prior to AI).

From color to B & W - and there are way more than 50 shades of gray tones available.

The above is just a tiny sampling of what could have been done with this photo.  Clouds could have been added to the sky, it could have been transformed into a painting, and more.

These two photos of Paula were taken at the paddle tennis courts at Venice Beach.  I have no idea where the top photo background is but it looks pretty nice.  The background in the photo above is on a back road from Hwy 101 to Solvang.  The photos below were processed to look like various painters' work.  The bottom was is based on Van Gogh.

Photos are great memories of people you know, places you've been, and things you've seen.  And now they can be transformed into whatever you can imagine.