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As a CNET reviewer of AI-powered photo and video generators, one of the greatest perks of the job is dealing with the very bad, very weird, and sometimes creepy images these Generator tools Spit.
Don’t get me wrong, creative AI software has come a long way in a short period of time. You have created beautiful sci-fi scenes in Mid-flightRealistic looking product images with Stable spread And AI-ified myself with ChatGPT. But no AI service is perfect, and I noticed some notable trends during testing.
There are things that, despite constant updates, AI image generators can’t handle well on the first try.
Some AI photo software gives you tools to correct for these errors, which is great. I highly recommend taking advantage of it whenever possible. For programs that don’t provide these tools, or more likely, when these tools don’t fix the problem, this is what you should do next.
Based on my experience, I’ve put together my tried-and-true tips for tweaking prompts and settings to improve your photos. For more, check out Best AI image generators And our guide to Fast typing of effective AI images.
Human faces and expressions
Subtle facial expressions constantly challenge AI generators. Strange eyes, teeth and eyebrows are some of the strongest indicators that the image was created by artificial intelligence. In this case, the result was very funny to me, though also completely unusable. The girls are wearing some Halloween-like vampire teeth, and the guy in the back is having more than one bad hair day.
Even with cartoonish or unrealistic characters, memes struggle to smooth out emotions and expressions. This image – created by our top pick, Dall-E 3 – exaggerated the vector amplification, and the end result was quite dramatic. I’m a geek, but I can’t imagine anyone being bothered by what seems like hundreds of dollars worth of cleaning supplies. Even the best software can fail and produce shaky results.
How to fix it: I recommend asking the service to reduce the number of people you’re trying to view – thus reducing the chances of error – and using post-creation editing tools to identify specific parts of the image that need to be recreated or fixed. Choosing a milder adjective (“angry” instead of “angry”) may help point the service in the right direction.
Distinctive characters, well-known brands and logos
For many reasons, AI image generators are rarely able to produce accurate logos, recognizable brands, or otherwise recognizable characters. This is usually because there are significant legal concerns about a company allowing its brand material or intellectual property to be used in AI services. It may also be because the logo or branding you want to include is not present in the generator training data, so the generator will not understand your request.
The last two exceptions to this are the new image creation features on Google Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 XLthanks to Gemini AI, which our mobile experts have become accustomed to Create images Featuring accurate looking renditions of Mickey Mouse and Pikachu. The other exception is that some paying X (formerly Twitter) users are reporting that they can use the social media site’s Grok chatbot to Realistic looking Mickey And humanitarian political figures. These still aren’t perfect, but they’re pretty close.
How to fix it: You can’t, but on the plus side, you’ll likely avoid lawsuits for copyright infringement. If you encounter this problem, I recommend revisiting your design concept to see if you can get the same point across without using a specific company name or logo. Do you really need a TikTok logo, or do you just need a phone with vertical video playback, for example.
Intertwined and complex elements
Sometimes, you may find it difficult to create a generator if you have too many overlapping or complex elements within an image. The best AI photo software won’t have this problem very often, but even the best software fails at some point. With this picture of Leonardo, my dream library is destroyed by the escalator that disappears in the middle of the road.
Likewise, this realistic photo of a kitchen looks good at a glance, but a second glance or quick zoom in shows meaningless letters printed on the cookbook, and the book itself appears to have two spines and three sections. Images like this show how frustrating it can be when creating AI images – even when you think you’ve got a winner, small flaws render them unusable.
How to fix it: Try simplifying your prompt or use post-editing tools to highlight the problem and fix it. Sometimes changing the aesthetics can help too; These issues usually arise when you are trying to create photorealistic images or stock images. If your service offers a specific zone editing tool, try using it to identify the questionable zone and have the generator remove what’s inside it.
Over-editing and hallucinations
The mark of a great AI image generator is its ability to produce an image with few errors or hallucinations while giving you the right tools to fix those issues when they inevitably arise, but not all services do that. In this example from Midjourney, I went through several rounds of edits on this image of a soccer team celebrating a victory, and I have no idea what happened to arrive at this final result — or any idea what’s going on with the dot that’s supposed to be a player on the right side of the image. Honestly, I don’t think Midjourney knew either.
How to fix it: With AI photo editing, sometimes less is more. Don’t be afraid to scrap your current set of photos and start over. You can often proactively fix big problems by optimizing the claim so that you only have to worry about fixing minor problems later.
AI generators still need human labor
I have no doubt that the companies behind these AI generators are working to eliminate these problems and upgrade their models. For now, the incomplete images show us once again that although this technology is improving, it is not without flaws. I hope that since many of these services face similar challenges, they will all look for solutions to these problems.
As a final note, I will remind you that it is a best practice to acknowledge or acknowledge that an image was created by AI when sharing it. As AI images become better and more realistic, it is more important than ever to differentiate between AI-generated art and other types of media.
For more, check out our tips for Write the best AI-guided image Our top picks for AI image generators.