Dale May | NY Advertising Photographer, Director & CGI Artist

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A.I. Workflow | Advertising Photography, CGI & AI | Dale May

A.I. WORKFLOW

AI is the newest tool. Not the only one.

Live-action footage with an AI-animated creature

Composited into a finished commercial sequence. Real performance. AI in service of the story.

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The advertising world is changing

Artificial intelligence is rewriting the rules of how advertising imagery and video get made. Production timelines are compressing. Budgets are tightening. The expectation that a single brief might require photography, video, CGI, animation, and platform-specific deliverables is no longer the exception. It is the brief.

But here is what often gets missed in the conversation: when AI is used the right way, it does not diminish the artistry. It expands it. Concepts that would have been impossible on a real-world budget become achievable. Iterations that would have taken weeks happen in hours. Ideas that lived only in the imagination can now be tested, refined, and built. In the right hands, AI is not a shortcut. It is creative oxygen.

However you feel about AI as a creative tool, ignoring it is no longer an option. The industry has already shifted. The question is no longer whether to use AI. The question is how to use it without losing the thing that has always made advertising work in the first place: real human performance, real photography, real ownership, and real craft.

When AI can't, the other tools can.

This is where most AI specialists hit a wall. When a project goes sideways, when AI generates something that isn't quite right, when the creative brief shifts mid-production, when the image needs something AI simply cannot produce, pure AI artists are stuck. They can refine prompts, retry generations, and hope.

Dale May doesn't have that problem.

Because Dale is also an advertising photographer, a commercial director, a photorealistic CGI artist, and a complex compositing and retouching expert, he has four parallel toolsets running in the same head, on the same project, at the same time. If AI can't deliver the wardrobe, photography can. If photography can't deliver the environment, CGI can. If neither can deliver the detail and composition, compositing and retouching can. The brief gets delivered. Always.

This is what no AI-only specialist can offer. It is the practical reason agencies and pharmaceutical clients increasingly call Dale for AI-integrated production: not because he is the loudest AI voice in the room, but because when AI hits its limits, he keeps going.

AI is a tool. Never the author.

Every final deliverable is ownable, copyrightable, and protected. Dale's AI runs inside a closed production pipeline, layered onto original photography or video capture, used selectively and only with client approval. Real talent. Real performance. Real images. AI is brought in at the points where it adds value, and removed at the points where it doesn't.

This distinction is increasingly critical in pharmaceutical and healthcare advertising, where IP, talent rights, and copyright cannot be compromised. It matters in any campaign where the brand's legal and creative teams need clear ownership of every frame and every asset. Dale's hybrid approach delivers that clarity by design.

Studio portrait composited into a photorealistic CGI environment

AI used solely to animate the finished work, never to author it. The artistry is Dale's. The motion is the final layer.

This is what authorship looks like in practice. The photography, the CGI, the lighting, the compositing, all created by Dale. AI handled only the final animation pass that turned a still campaign image into a motion deliverable.

The image and the performance belong entirely to the client, with no copyright ambiguity, no AI authorship questions, and no exposure to the legal grey areas that come with fully AI-generated work.

The AI techniques in Dale's workflow

AI is not one capability. It is a category of tools, each with its own use case, its own strengths, and its own failure points. Dale's hybrid workflow draws from all of them, applied selectively to the moments in production where they make the work better.

AI Concept Development. A brainstorming and visual exploration tool to develop concepts before production begins. The Live Free Or Die series began as an AI-generated chopper sketch that was then built as a full hybrid photography and CGI campaign.

AI Environment Generation. Building photorealistic backgrounds, locations, and worlds when budget, weather, or logistics rule out a real shoot. Real talent stays the focus. The world around them is built.

AI Wardrobe Replacement. Swapping, recoloring, or completely changing wardrobe after the shoot. A single studio session can deliver multiple wardrobe variants without a costume change or a second day rate.

AI Prop and Set Element Generation. Creating props, signage, and set pieces that don't exist or would require fabrication. Custom enamel signs, period-specific décor, branded assets, all built rather than sourced.

AI Background Talent. Generating crowds, secondary figures, and extras around real photographed talent. The hero is real. The world they inhabit is filled in.

AI Animation of Stills. Bringing finished campaign imagery to life as motion deliverables without a separate video shoot. The same campaign image becomes both still and video, same talent, same composition, no second production.

AI Creature and Character Animation. Animating non-human elements and compositing them into live-action plates. Broadcast-quality VFX delivered at a fraction of traditional cost.

AI Custom B-Roll Footage. Generating custom motion footage to support edits, extend sequences, or fill visual needs that would otherwise require a second shoot.

AI-Assisted Relighting. Relighting existing photography for new environments, moods, and applications. Legacy assets become new deliverables.

AI Logo and Design Generation. Generating custom logos, signage, and graphic elements as part of fully realized fictional brands and campaigns.

AI Upscaling and Restoration. Bringing legacy footage and imagery up to current resolution and broadcast standards. The 2025 Director's Cut of Dale's Sundance short Jer-Z Knights was rebuilt this way.

AI Retouching Assistance. Accelerating complex retouching workflows while maintaining hand-finished final-quality control.

AI 3D Asset Generation. Generating starting-point 3D models that get refined, retextured, and integrated into custom CGI production. Faster than building from scratch, more controllable than pure AI.

Featured AI work

The work below illustrates these techniques applied across real projects. Each piece pairs traditional craft, photography, direction, CGI, compositing, with AI as a production accelerant. None of these images could have been made by AI alone. None of them rely on AI as the author.

1984: AI wardrobe, props, background talent, environment

Studio portrait of Natasha King with AI-generated wardrobe, props, background characters, and a fully composited 1980s arcade environment.

Wardrobe and props can be swapped, recolored, or replaced after the shoot, giving agencies the iteration speed to respond to client feedback in hours, not weeks.

Oprah Daily holiday cover: AI animation for editorial

Commissioned by Oprah Daily for the 100 Favorite Things Holiday issue.

Original portrait by Ruvén Afanador, set inside a CGI snow globe environment, with selective AI animation of Oprah's arm and a stuffed bear bringing the still cover to life on a short deadline.

Christina Aguilera: AI environment built around existing photography

A career-spanning portrait series, revisited with fully AI-generated environments built around Dale's original photography of Christina Aguilera. Real performance, real photography, AI-built world.

Couch scene. Personalized props added to enrich the storytelling.

Studio singing scene. Same project, same approach, entirely new world built around real performance.

Inner Peace: legacy photography, reimagined

Originally created as a composite for Prevention Magazine in 2011, this image was rebuilt in 2026 using new AI and compositing techniques.

AI-generated background talent. AI-assisted relighting of the original photography. A fully built creature integrated through traditional compositing.

The result is something that could not have existed when the original photography was shot. It was selected for Lürzer's Archive 200best Digital Artists Worldwide 2026/27 (Edition 8).

The pharmaceutical advantage

Pharmaceutical and healthcare clients are increasingly open to AI-assisted production, but the regulatory and IP requirements in this space leave no room for ambiguity. Dale's approach addresses those concerns directly. Original photography or video capture anchors every project. AI is layered in selectively, within a closed production pipeline, and only with client approval. Every final deliverable is ownable, copyrightable, and legally protectable.

Dale's pharmaceutical and healthcare clients include Shingrix, Voranigo, Intellia Therapeutics, Camcevi, Genentech, and EDIMS, spanning oncology, vaccines, gene therapy, and healthcare technology.

This is not a future capability. It is how Dale already works.

How AI fits into the production process

AI is layered into Dale's production pipeline at the points where it adds value, and pulled out at the points where it doesn't. A typical project might begin with AI-assisted concept development, move into a real studio shoot of real talent, integrate CGI environments built in 3D, use AI selectively for wardrobe variation or background generation, and finish with traditional retouching and compositing under Dale's hand. No part of the process is dictated by the tool. Every part is dictated by what the image needs.

Clown Time Burger: every AI layer in one project

A fictional brand built from scratch. AI logo and poster design refined in Photoshop.

AI 3D model conversion

The kids' coin ride, generated as a starting-point 3D model, then refined and integrated into the photorealistic CGI environment.

Clown Time Burger BTS: AI 3D model creation of the clown coin ride by Dale May. Hybrid photography, CGI, and AI workflow for advertising production.

AI wardrobe replacement on real studio photography

One studio session, multiple wardrobe deliverables. The real photography, the real talent, and the real performance stay intact. AI handles the variation.

The finished image

Real studio photography composited into a custom-built photorealistic CGI environment, with every supporting layer designed and built by one artist.

That is the practical meaning of single-artist production. It is not just one point of contact. It is one creative mind moving fluidly between tools, choosing the right one for each moment, and never being trapped inside any of them.

Looking forward

AI capabilities are evolving every month. New tools emerge, old ones get refined, and the boundaries of what is possible continue to expand. Dale's workflow evolves with them. As new techniques become production-ready, they get folded into the same single-artist model that already exists. Clients don't need to chase down new specialists every year as the tools shift. The hybrid approach absorbs them.

A personal note from Dale

I want to be honest about something. AI is not a perfect technology. It was trained on the work of artists who were not asked, including artists I respect. It carries a real environmental cost that the industry has not yet been forced to address. These are serious problems that deserve serious answers, and the pressure on governments and corporations to provide accountability, regulation, and meaningful guard rails has to remain.

But the technology is here. The flood gates are open. Refusing to engage with it does not undo what has already been taken from artists, and it will not slow what is coming. AI will move forward with us or without us.

What I can do, as an artist, is choose how I use it. I use my own photography, my own CGI, my own direction, and my own creative authorship as the foundation of every AI-assisted project I take on. I reject the slop. I reject AI as the author. I use AI as a tool, in service of work that begins with real performance, real talent, and real craft. That is the version of this technology I am willing to put my name on.

What I did not expect was that working with AI in this way would make me more creative, not less. Concepts I would have shelved as impossible are now reachable. Ideas I would have abandoned in pre-production now get built. AI has not replaced the creative process for me. It has expanded it. The artist still has to bring the vision, the eye, the taste, and the standards. Without those, AI is just noise. With them, it becomes one of the most powerful tools an image-maker has ever had.

The conversation about AI in advertising is not going to slow down. Neither am I. But the work I make with it is going to keep being mine, and it is going to keep being the kind of work I would have been proud to make without AI in the first place.

Working with Dale

For agencies, brand teams, and pharmaceutical clients exploring AI-assisted production, Dale's hybrid workflow offers a single-artist solution that delivers AI's speed and flexibility without sacrificing ownership, performance, or craft.

To discuss how this approach can streamline your next project, get in touch or read about the hybrid production process in detail.