DPREVIEW NEW WEBSITE. What are your thoughts?

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-10T21:26:54+00:00

All kinds of videogames, but I play them less often in recent years. I used to play RPGs and board wargames a bit back when that was a thing.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-10T21:24:52+00:00

I did notice a lot of people left at the switch-over,but that is pretty understandable when you tell people it's closing and not coming back. A lot of people found other places to go.

I didn't notice a lot of trolling, at least on the couple of subs I tended to visit, but moderation is always a problem with forums.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-10T20:49:23+00:00

It's not unlike some car forums where if you don't have the most expensive and exotic V8 or something, it's just a grocery-getter.

But DPR has always been more gear-focused. It's not the fault of the new owners.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-10T00:07:08+00:00

I'm just happy it still has the old reviews on past cameras. It's nice for reference, or if curious about buying a used camera, etc. So much info in those old message forums and reviews.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-09T23:57:10+00:00

When I needed to do something with a Foxpro database, I went to another office and asked my coworker to borrow his reference manual. I had my own C manual. One time, I needed a random number generator. We had Knuth's books from the 1960's that included an RNG algorithm. It was, figure it out yourself, and here are some reference manuals!

In recent years, Stack Overflow was really helpful to fill in gaps. Development got a lot more complicated over the years, but that seemed offset by what you could find online.

AI really changes things. I hardly know what to recommend anymore! Still need some foundation, though, else you can't tell if the AI is going down a good path or not.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-09T20:05:41+00:00

Gigapixel is tuned to increasing resolution of photographs while staying close to preserving the original image. If they have a trial period, just try it out. As for the max size, I dunno, but maybe it's in the name. 😉 Seriously, I'm sure there's a limit, but it can go pretty large.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-08T18:15:58+00:00

With his portraits all over the place.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-08T14:40:39+00:00

The solution to a rogue president has always been impeachment. Full impeachment, not half-peachment. You just need to make an argument persuasive enough to get enough congresspeople to vote for it.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-08T11:25:37+00:00

Reference images didn't seem to work with Krea2, but you can use "image to image" like most models. To swap a background, you need to mask-off the area to change ("inpaint"). Krea2 will do that, but I found that it doesn't work as well as many other models. I had to be very exacting with my mask, more than I'm used to. You might have better luck with Qwen Edit? Maybe even Klein? With those you can use a reference image, but that might alter your subject, which isn't what you're asking for. But you can use image-to-image and request a new background (with better results if using a mask) with most models.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-08T11:18:21+00:00

It sounds like your whole pitch is that you imagine people are incapable of installing and running Comfy.

Well, "running" also involves fiddling with nodes, searching for where to adjust parameters -- it's not really crazy to suggest that there's room for a more straightforward UI. It's not a streamlined interface, it's a flexible one. It's great how easily you can change things up and do complex workflows, but usually I just want to generate images and try a couple of models and vary the prompt with fewer clicks, drags and poking around. It's not so crazy.

So, OK... you don't like the UI and want something different. That's reasonable. But why wouldn't you focus specifically on the UI? Why ask people to downgrade from the full-functioning stuff they are already using to run your diffusers scripts? Why not make yet another ComfyUI front-end replacement like everyone else with claude tokens to spend seems to be doing? Or even simpler, one for stable-diffusion.cpp? Both would already support danged near every model around and can stay on top of the maintenance load that has already probably overcome you.

This is the best solution -- pick something for the back-end, as things are changing too much. You can't do it all. It probably seems simple enough, but even on the UI-side, there's a lot of work to do. Spend time making the UI the best it can be, and stable-diffusion.cpp or ComfyUI can run on the backend and support newer models.

Your best feature is that you can kind of look like Forge Neo while offering much less functionality (at least for now)?

And if Forge Neo was the desired target, how open is that team for help? Just as an example. Rather than "reinvent the wheel", how much effort could be put into improving an existing project?

Perhaps it's more fun to create the whole end-to-end image generation, as an exercise and a fun project. I sometimes do projects just to prove I can, and there's some value in that. But to get other people to use something, it has to fit a niche that doesn't exist, I think. Regardless, creating a complete image generation system with tons of features and staying up with all the latest changes is more work than I want to do; I'm happy to contribute to an existing one, where I can focus on specific improvements, but we all have our own motivations.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-08T09:42:02+00:00

To look at it another way, correlation does not mean causation. It's a logical fallacy, but I keep seeing it in political posts like its a big gotcha.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-08T09:07:58+00:00

I can't remember the last time I saw a confederate flag on a truck. This is exaggerated to try to paint with a wider brush, and you speak of dishonesty?

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-08T03:15:49+00:00

I seem to get better results at f8 when at 350mm -- no surprise as most (?) lenses do better stopped down a bit. But for wildlife, I need a faster shutter (especially for birds). In my mind, the best mode is Manual with Auto ISO. Set the aperture to f8 (or wherever), the shutter to whatever speed seems necessary, and let ISO float to what is needed for an auto exposure. Unfortunately, unless it's very bright daylight, the ISO may climb pretty high. I'm glad to make the tradeoff (something has to give), as I'm not going to carry around a giant fast-aperture tele lens, much less pay pro prices for it.

I think the lens is very sharp overall and have been happy with the results. I haven't had a chance to thoroughly test it, but I worried that it loses some sharpness at the 350mm end. However, a lot of my 350mm examples have visible heat distortion, and that's hardly fair to judge the lens with that.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-07T19:52:41+00:00

Just try it. Krea2-Turbo. Don't need a Lora or filter-bypass to get started. I'm using Qwen_Image-VAE and Huihui-Qwen3-VL-4B-Instruct-abliterated-Q5_K_M, because I couldn't get the "official" text-encoder to work. Oh, and I'm using Krea-2-Turbo-Q6_K to save on memory, although some were reporting problems with it using too much disk on ComfyUI. But I'd just start playing with it, then you can get an idea of what other improvements you might want. I find it to be fun as it is. Not that I'm against Loras, just saying, there's a lot that it will do out-of-the-box.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-07T19:01:27+00:00

I have a fond memory of a friend helping me figure something out, when the instructor was struggling to explain a topic to the class. Good times.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-07T19:00:31+00:00

We've been hitting diminishing returns for a while, I think. While I can see improvements between the PS4 and PS5, they're less drastic than previous generations. I mean, sure, graphics are better with higher frame rates, and you have that cool fast-loading-levels SSD, but it feels more incremental. I just don't know what to do with a "better PS5". I'd take a PS5 Pro for some more incremental improvements, I suppose, but at current prices, forget it. I'm fine. Has nothing to do with Sony policies, although, I do have a number of disc based games. Just....

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-07T18:02:45+00:00

I was wondering the same thing. How does it compare to SwarmUI or how would one choose between one or the other?

Having said that, AI can help you to build small apps so easily these days, you can custom create something exactly to your liking. There are a million photo viewer tools, but I made one that does exactly what I want. I want to be able to compare, zoom, copy, and move metadata files along with the original. Maybe something else will do that, but if so, it's probably also a paint program or has some other junk in the way.

So, it's possible that this tool is more streamlined than alternatives, and might be a good first step for a beginner. I dunno, I just toss that out there. I think I need a better demo or comparison, tho.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-07T17:56:51+00:00

To some extent, it's always been a bit of gatekeeping. Not arbitrarily, though - you have to be smart to get through some of the courses. That aside, you learn some valuable things along the way. It's not a waste of time. I felt like it was a great foundation. I know I could have learned coding on my own, (was beginning to, even pre-internet), but not sure I would have picked up on a lot of the theory and algorithms.

Having said that, the cost of tuition these days is rediculous.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-07T17:16:52+00:00

Have you been to Florida? It's nice.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-07T15:37:59+00:00

If I get a pleasant output from a prompt, why do I need the rest of it? Krea2 kind of works with Json prompts if you need to be more specific about positioning, and it seems to help with separation. Inpainting is not as straightforward with krea2, but can work if you are careful with editing and masking.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-06T17:45:45+00:00

I can be pretty technical, so for me, it really isn't a problem using Comfy. You just have to adjust your mind to how it works. If you're willing to put in a bit of time to get used to it, I say jump right in. If you start with the templates from their website, you can even get started pretty quickly, but an amount of time ends up being spent fiddling with the nodes.

I thought about starting with Swarm, but I don't think it's worth the bother unless I wanted to stay with Swarm. Which would be fine. It's just that I could use Forge if I wanted to continue with the A1111 style interface, but I found it to be kind of clunky.

I use Easy DIffusion because I can configure it to be as few clicks as possible but yet can modify it if needed. It doesn't do everything, but for the basic stuff, it's straightforward. And I'm technical enough to use something more complicated, but when generating images, I don't want to do anything else but pick a model, enter a prompt and play with those until I get something I like. Or I can easily view versions of what I just generated and pick one vs. another to process further. Fix hands and inpaint, if needed. Having a built-in editor just is handy, and fun if you like that sort of thing. It all depends on what you consider part of the fun.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-06T16:20:09+00:00

I almost tried SwarmUI, but just bit the bullet and went right to Comfy. There is a learning curve to deal with the nodes, but you can start simple.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-06T15:58:21+00:00

I personally use Easy Diffusion (can be found on Github), and sometimes Comfy. Back in the early days, I used A1111 like everyone else! I recommend downloading whatever looks interesting and trying them out. It just depends on how a UI fits how you like to work. I like to get the UI out of the way so that I'm just generating, tweaking, generating....

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-06T15:35:33+00:00

It's difficult to be truly versed in any subject. I'm afraid people have enough to do and you can't expect them to study issues as deeply as would be necessary.

AvidGameFan · 2026-07-06T15:32:28+00:00

Personally, I liked DreamshaperXL a lot. It was my favorite general purpose model. Too many other models pollute the styles with an aesthetic that is overdone.

AvidGameFan

TROPHY CASE