On Exactitude in Art

…In that time, image generators had attained such perfection, that any set of directions provided in natural language could be pefectly translated into an image. The need for drawing or painting had disappeared, as these new tools reached widespread dominance, and the creation of new art was done almost entirely with software. However, the most perceptive users had noticed minor discrepencies between the imagine they had imagined - rendered in their mind - and the machine’s output. Although the initial instructions were sufficient for an approximation, further instructions for tweaking the image were always necessary.

Those who wielded this technology adeptly had developed skills of instruction refinement that went far beyond explaining the content of the page, but also the style, the color gradients, the placement of shadows, and the texture. The dedicated often toiled for months, providing instructions for every minute detail in the scene: the density of the grass in the lawn of a wrecked building, the exact color of silverware shown in the reflection of a bystander’s eye, the orientation of the hind feathers of a falcon, mid flight. The artistic vision was matched in importance to the exactness with which the wielder could communicate it. In time, an especially secluded and scholarly group of artisans had emerged. They were the most dedicated, and their instructions were the most specific. They would labor over every pixel, providing the most exact of instructions of color and opacity, to the machine.