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Software

VSCO Canvas is a Reminder that Generative AI is Still Not There

Chris Gampat
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Last updated on 03/10/2025
03/11/2025
5 Mins read
An AI image generated by VSCO Canvas by Chris Gampat. The prompt given was the following: A man running through a city wearing workout gear. The image is shot using stroboscopic flash while also panning the camera to blur the background. He is alone while running and the setting is during the sunrise. Credit: Chris Gampat via VSCO Canvas
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I have to be very honest and say that anytime a company says that they’re going to dive into working with AI, I get very skeptical. Recently, VSCO clarified their terms of use to discuss generative AI and their platform. Essentially, it was all in time for the release of the new VSCO Canvas. The service, which is much smaller than Adobe and others, is often a lot more ethical towards photographers. And if VSCO Canvas is using only internally sourced imagery, then I don’t think photographers have anything to fear. Instead, I had quite a bit of chuckle time.

Table of Contents

About VSCO Canvas

To use VSCO Canvas, you first need a VSCO account. For years now, I’ve been using them as an alternative to Instagram to post my images. In fact, I’ve leaned more into using them, Flickr, and Behance as I’ve pledged to myself to be off of social media for the next four years. I pay for a Flickr Pro account and a VSCO Pro account. Yes, I pay for my sanity and to not be served ads like crazy. The irony is that I’m both an Editor in Chief and a publisher, and I see the value in both sides. I realize that if everyone reading the Phoblographer for a month paid the yearly subscription fee to get a banner-ad free experience, I’d be a multi-millionaire and I’d have enough money to push the site into dominance over all the others even while retaining ethics. In fact, the month isn’t even half over, and I’d still have enough money to do that.

With that said, you should know the cost of a free-VSCO account. Canvas uses images that have been submitted to the VSCO community over the years from users who have free accounts. If you’re paying for an account, then your images are safe from being part of the VSCO Borg Collective — that’s to say that you won’t be assimilated.

Like every platform, there are spammers who post images from other people without their permission. Those images, we assume, have also gone into the generative AI database. One can also consider the whole era of the VSCO girl — and that all their images are probably also part of Canvas. In some ways, I applaud VSCO for taking control of their platform again. In other ways, I hope that they don’t forget that it’s photographers who work for a living that they’re going after.

All of this needs to be done from the desktop and cannot be done via the app on your phone. Specifically, Canvas really wanted me to use Google Chrome instead of Safari.

Trying it Out

People walking near a waterfront at dusk with a bridge in the background, city skyline, and a lit streetlamp. Credit: Chris Gampat via VSCO Canvas.
People walking near a waterfront at dusk with a bridge in the background, city skyline, and a lit streetlamp. Credit: Chris Gampat via VSCO Canvas.

Of course, you need to use your imagination. But additionally, we don’t think that the system understands what certain things are. For example, it doesn’t understand panning or stroboscopic flash. And I guess that that’s fine — I don’t think most humans understand stroboscopic flash. Luckily, when it doesn’t give you what you want, you can reroll to get something news. So I tried again and again, until it gave me this awesomeness.

Person jogging on a city waterfront path at sunset with skyscrapers and colorful sky in the background. Credit: Chris Gampat via VSCO Canvas
Person jogging on a city waterfront path at sunset with skyscrapers and colorful sky in the background. Credit: Chris Gampat via VSCO Canvas

I almost wanted to clap for VSCO Canvas with praise synonymous to that one would give a child for drawing a stick figure or an adult who does the bare minumum of insert-random-task-here and who expects praise. It’s easy to feel like a parent who paid for the tuition for their child to pass college only to not use the degree for their career — and to end up in debt anyway. So I decided to try again.

This time I tried “A dog running around a park with motion blur to look like it’s in motion.” My location was Central Park. This time, VSCO Canvas didn’t understand a few things:

  1. Motion blur
  2. Central park
  3. The dog being in motion instead of being perfectly still
Two photos of a grassy park: one shows a house, the other features a dog running on the grass. Credit: Chris Gampat via VSCO Canvas
Two photos of a grassy park: one shows a house, the other features a dog running on the grass. Credit: Chris Gampat via VSCO Canvas

At this point, it would just be easier for me to find a dog, ask the permission of the owner to photograph it, and make the shot myself. I can describe this all that I want, but it just won’t have the same experience.

So, one last time, I decided to go all in and use all my powers as a writer and a journalist. My prompt this time was, “An AAPI couple in their 30s enjoying the sunset on their balcony. They’re both wearing linen and sitting down on their balcony furniture. They are enjoying alcoholic drinks while the sunset is happening. It’s during the end of the summer as it’s going into the fall.”

Street view at twilight with cars, streetlights, and a distant lit building under a cloudy blue sky. Credit: Chris Gampat via VSCO Canvas
Street view at twilight with cars, streetlights, and a distant lit building under a cloudy blue sky. Credit: Chris Gampat via VSCO Canvas

What’s quite fascinating to me is that the Phoblographer uses assistive AI to help us with captions on images before we add refinements. The captions in this article were all done by our in-house assistive AI and the credit line was added on by me. Different AI, of course, don’t talk to one another and they all are taught by different people.

At the moment, I don’t think that VSCO Canvas is a reason to worry about replacing us. Instead, it’s designed for inspiration. And this week, I have a yoga shoot coming up.

Person practicing yoga in a studio, elevated on one leg. Three others watch, sitting or lying on mats. Bright, airy room. Credit: Chris Gampat via VSCO Canvas.
Person practicing yoga in a studio, elevated on one leg. Three others watch, sitting or lying on mats. Bright, airy room. Credit: Chris Gampat via VSCO Canvas.

This time around I tried the Variations option.

Three images of a person practicing yoga in a sunlit room with plants and large windows. Credit: Chris Gampat via VSCO Canvas
Three images of a person practicing yoga in a sunlit room with plants and large windows. Credit: Chris Gampat via VSCO Canvas

Le Sigh

I’m not quite sure that I’d use these poses in my shoot, either. The thing is that the shoot is very personal for every one of the teachers that I’m photographing. And so, my inspiration comes from the people that are in front of my camera and my communications with them.

We encourage you to go have fun with VSCO Canvas. Currently, it’s free and available to use on the desktop.

assistive ai chrome generative AI photographers privacy VSCO vsco canvas
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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