Can someone build a classifier that will tell is which of these images was drawn with a living, dead, or (charitably) dissected specimen?
embedding-shape•Jul 16, 2026
I'm looking through https://www.c82.net/naturalists-library/illustrations and all the illustrations seems to be of non-dissected animals/insects, at the illustration themselves. Of course, impossible to know if the illustration was drawn from a dead or alive specimen, but none of them seems based on anything picked apart as far as I can tell.
Unclear from the text: Was AI used in modifying or filling any images in the restoration process?
smallnix•Jul 16, 2026
> Not only did AI tools then help him unearth needed sources and fill in visual gaps
I think that's clear
noduerme•Jul 16, 2026
I took that to mean filling in the gaps on the source data, not literally filling in pen and ink gaps in the drawing. If so, that's a shame. It pollutes the original and isn't what counts as restoration.
Cthulhu_•Jul 16, 2026
More at https://www.c82.net/blog/making-of-naturalists-library, you can see that the source material was actually in pretty good condition, just aged and yellowed; they used Photoshop's AI to stitch drawings that were spread out over two pages together. And probably some upscaling.
ZeroGravitas•Jul 16, 2026
That link has a big section on their use of AI that ends with:
> Overall, AI played a critical role in many aspects of this project for things I couldn’t do myself but the vast majority of the work was done manually the “old fashioned way” from creating the design and writing the code to restoring each plate and formatting all the text to designing the book and posters. I have no doubt that a lot more could have been done with AI but I still enjoy putting in the elbow grease to create something just the way I want.
Ylano•Jul 16, 2026
AI was used to "fill in visual gaps"
ButlerianJihad•Jul 16, 2026
Remember when it was totally controversial that Ted Turner intended to colorize classic films such as Casablanca, and how technology was going to ruin artistry in this way? Good times.
nephihaha•Jul 16, 2026
I don't like most of the colourisations of old films. I try and seek out the black and white versions when I can. B&W is a different medium from colour.
digikazi•Jul 16, 2026
I'm assuming it is quite nice, but terrible adverts popping up all over the place and distracting from the overall experience, so I only skimmed through it before I closed the window (on a work computer hence no adblock!)
Here's something similar from The Guardian, but without the ads:
Slightly off topic, anyone know of any good dinosaur illustration, ideally a large collection?
sreekanth67•Jul 16, 2026
following. for my son
a_c•Jul 16, 2026
I’m also asking for my sons
zkmon•Jul 16, 2026
Colors appear to be added by the restoration process. This kills originality of the works. I would prefer to see an artwork as it was created, not "enhanced" in anyway.
In some ways, publishing this provenance is as valuable as publishing the cleaned illustrations
NetMageSCW•Jul 16, 2026
I don’t need another large book to put on my bookshelf that I don’t have time to read, especially one at this price, but I want one.
OTOH, I have had a couple of book/apps on the iPad that were very nice, The Elements (still available) and one with items from MOMA (unfortunately removed from the App Store). That would be a cheaper way to distribute a book like experience.
Foobar8568•Jul 16, 2026
In France, we have https://citadelles-mazenod.com/ and they publish large and gorgeous books... If only I had the Space to buy them. I bought a few when they were on sales, so two digits instead of 3 was good, but some limited and even larger are often > 500€. And not having the space to buy some of these kills me.
torgoguys•Jul 16, 2026
I've always admired these sorts of illustrations. Botanical ones too. Please forgive the newb questions, but does this gorgeous illustration style have a name and how was it done (I.e., what is the medium -- some kind of colored ink?)
BaseBaal•Jul 16, 2026
Natural science illustration returns reasonable results. I think most are done traditionally in some type of watercolors.
1970-01-01•Jul 16, 2026
I hate to be a contrarian, but I've always hated them. IMHO, the extra-fancy-style illustrations are just that. Now that we have wildlife photography, these seem to regress and appear much worse (again, IMHO) because they are literally an illustration of reality and not a snapshot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwhVJ7cv9B4&t=36s
tiahura•Jul 16, 2026
A while back these we’re getting stolen left and right from libraries.
chis•Jul 16, 2026
I admire the effort but it's hard to get excited about looking at some ancient illustrations which have been partly filled in by AI. I want to see the work of an actual specific artist, and be briefly transported to the times they lived in.
I have this old book of the Audobon bird illustrations and those are truly incredible. Back in the day there was a public audience for high quality, expensive art prints in books and they spared no expense.
mthoms•Jul 16, 2026
The original scans are also available.
lowdest•Jul 16, 2026
If you see the blog about the process linked in another comment, you see that AI was used to stitch 2-page images together that could not be flattened to be scanned together, and to remove the seam where the book binding pinched away part of the image.
Comparing the before and after, they appear to be quite accurate to the originals; almost all of the "restoration" appears to be in color correction for faded ink and paper.
You are correct! Apologies for not doing enough reading myself.
sparklingmango•Jul 16, 2026
Beautiful. I'm going to use some of these to make a coloring book for my toddler.
xgulfie•Jul 16, 2026
Wish there was a catalog of the actual, untouched originals instead of the sloppified ones
billfor•Jul 16, 2026
This belongs with my other Taschen art books.
Can anyone that bought the book of plates comment on the quality of printing (binding, color and paper)? It seems like they use a printing on demand system instead of a publisher.
felineflock•Jul 16, 2026
Wow, why haven't LLMs been trained on the content of this site instead of Reddit and other less reliable/litigious sources?
22 Comments
As an example, all the drawn butterflies seems to be drawn as if they were alive, not dead (https://www.emilydamstra.com/please-enough-dead-butterflies/).
I think that's clear
> Overall, AI played a critical role in many aspects of this project for things I couldn’t do myself but the vast majority of the work was done manually the “old fashioned way” from creating the design and writing the code to restoring each plate and formatting all the text to designing the book and posters. I have no doubt that a lot more could have been done with AI but I still enjoy putting in the elbow grease to create something just the way I want.
Here's something similar from The Guardian, but without the ads:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/18/natural-...
Do you subscribe?
I get “accept all stalky ad-tech or subscribe”. Even the subscription is only referred to as “ad lite” not “ad free”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_William_Jardine,_7th_Baron...
OTOH, I have had a couple of book/apps on the iPad that were very nice, The Elements (still available) and one with items from MOMA (unfortunately removed from the App Store). That would be a cheaper way to distribute a book like experience.
I have this old book of the Audobon bird illustrations and those are truly incredible. Back in the day there was a public audience for high quality, expensive art prints in books and they spared no expense.
Comparing the before and after, they appear to be quite accurate to the originals; almost all of the "restoration" appears to be in color correction for faded ink and paper.
You are correct! Apologies for not doing enough reading myself.
Can anyone that bought the book of plates comment on the quality of printing (binding, color and paper)? It seems like they use a printing on demand system instead of a publisher.