Made with PaintBox

Three real jobs, done in the production editor at paintbox.bike4mind.com. Each recipe lists every step, what the AI did and how it was run, the calls of taste, and every credit spent. One credit is $0.0006.

The original photo: Quartz Lake in Glacier National Park at dawn, fog over a forested ridge and a flat, hazy sky.

The finished print: the same lake with a warm and cool split-tone, a taller sky, and the masthead QUARTZ LAKE, Glacier National Park, Montana.

Quartz Lake: a park photo developed into a 12 x 20 in print

Asked: Develop a flat, hazy park photo into a 12 x 20 inch, 300 ppi travel print with room for a masthead.

AI: Generative Expand, which extends a picture past its edges with AI-painted pixels, added 612 px of new morning sky above the frame for the masthead. An earlier try on a cheaper model repainted the whole picture and was rejected.

Your calls: The split-tone grade, a hand-dragged graduated mask, where the AI seam disappears, the type, and the print size.

300 credits (18¢)

Photograph NPS / Jacob W. Frank. Public domain.

The original: Ogata Kōrin’s Rough Waves, curling green and cream waves on gold leaf, inside a black lacquer frame.

The key art: the screen widened into four panels with thin hinges, and the title GILDED TIDE, A game of wind, ink and water.

Gilded Tide: a Steam capsule set from a 1704 gold screen

Asked: Turn this key art into the full Steam capsule set. Extend the screen for the wide ones and keep the logo readable.

AI: Generative Expand painted new wave panels to the left and right, widening the nearly square screen to 3:2.

Your calls: Toning the new panels down to the 300-year-old gold, drawing hinges at the joins, and making a logo-free copy and a big-logo copy for the hero and the small capsule.

77 credits (4.6¢)

Ogata Kōrin, Rough Waves. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0.

The original photo: rippled sand dunes at dusk below a snow-dusted peak catching the last light.

The graded master: deeper ripples and a vignette, with the headline Chase the last light and the line Little Sahara, Utah.

Utah dunes: one photo to a five-piece social kit

Asked: Turn one desert photo into a matching set of social cards with the same headline.

AI: Nothing. No AI step ran: every step used hand tools, which cost no credits.

Your calls: Clarity, vignette, vibrance and contrast, the headline and where it sits so every crop keeps it, and the X header crop.

0 credits (0¢)

Photo: Bob Wick, Bureau of Land Management. Public domain.

Run on 2026-11-06. Sources are public domain or CC0; each recipe links its license. See also How AI works and Pricing.