A photographer friend told me my AI images were 'too perfect' and it clicked

I was showing off some AI portraits I made, feeling pretty good about them. My friend, who shoots film portraits in Portland, looked at them and just said, 'They're clean, but they feel empty. There's no grain, no weird light flare, no happy accident.' At first I was annoyed (like, come on, it's art). But I went back and looked at my favorite real paintings and photos, and he was right. They all had little flaws that gave them character. So now, when I make a picture with the AI, I always add a step. I run it through another program to add a tiny bit of film grain, or I tweak the colors to be a little off, just to break that 'perfect' look. It takes more time, but the pictures feel more real to me now. Has anyone else tried adding flaws on purpose to make their AI art feel more alive?

3 comments

3 Comments

nathan_foster602mo ago

Your friend nailed it. I've started feeding the AI weird reference photos, like a blurry polaroid or a picture of a scratched negative. It picks up on those messed up textures way better than adding them after.

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wesleyjohnson2mo ago

Interesting. So you're basically using the messed up photo as the style guide, not the subject?

the_sarah1mo ago

Wait, but isn't the messed up photo still the subject in a way? It's giving the AI both the style and the broken content to work from. If you feed it a scratched negative, that damage is part of the subject it's trying to copy. The style and the broken subject are all mixed together in that one reference.