Living on the far extreme West of the landmass of Europe, we Irish often get forgotten when it comes to Great Things.
Claude 2 is still not available in Ireland, despite being available in Burundi, and the Ivory Coast and other places, and that really bugs me. I have no issues with those two beautiful countries, but I must admit I am perplexed as to why Anthropic haven't made Claude available in Ireland. But that's another story...
What I would like to share and enthuse about today is how Dall-E 3 has passed the John Hinde test.
What is the John Hinde test? John Hinde postcards captured an idealised Ireland dating back to the 1950's and used to be on sale all over the island. It's sufficiently random to put those big AI generators to the test.
I try not to use the prompt "in the style of..." for living artists on image creation tools. 'In the style of John Hinde' sits with me ethically and is random enough to test an image creation AI's ability.
It's all very well getting Dall-E, Mid Journey, Stable Diffusion and the like to create images of cute pugs or globally recognised landmarks, but can it create something based on an Ireland of long ago?
The answer now is yes. 🤩
I have previously run the John Hinde prompt in Mid Journey and didn't get great results.
I tried it last night on Dall-E 3, OpenAI's latest version of image creator - and one I fear might mark the end for much loved Mid Journey....and the images created are just great!
The one above was for a prompt for "Ireland holidays boy girl donkey 1950's". Don't you just love the way it's appearing as a frayed postcard? The one below is what it came up with for 1986.
See how it changed the clothes to match the new decade!
I could play around with lighting and photography style prompts to really make this look more 80's and yes there is a typo in Holidays which can be sorted in no time using the new Canva Magic Tools text isolator. But this is great.
Here's how it rendered for 2026....with a slight change of prompt to include 'a little more development in the background'.
Looks like the outskirts of Galway city right?
And yes, that spelling.
Here is an original John Hinde postcard of a boy and girl and a donkey.
If you remember this in summer holiday shops that sold buckets and spades and ice creams, yes you are old!
I will be including Dall-E 3 in my upcoming course, starting on 7 November. I hate to say move over Mid Journey, but Dall-E 3 is so much more accessible. I will give it further testing to see where it produces the best and where maybe MJ still reigns supreme.
If you are a self-employed business person, freelancer, or contractor, there is plenty more to see in my AI Course starting next week. A couple of places left. Join me and fill your Tuesday evenings in November with learning that will stand to you for the next generation.
