Summary
If you haven’t been following the development of AI image generation tools, you may not be quite up-to-date on what they are capable of. The truth is that AI image generators can in fact create photorealistic images, and that’s both amazing and deeply problematic.
AI Photos Fool Millions of People
Before we even get to the question of whether AI can create realistic photos, it’s worth pointing out that the images created by AI don’t even have to be anywhere near realistic to fool people into thinking the image is real. Facebook, in particular, is flooded with terrible AI images, with people in the comments clearly accepting that the “photo” is real.
Now, I accept that some of the comments are from chatbots, but I’ve looked through a few of these profiles before, and there are definitely real people who are completely taken. I’m not trying to mock people who don’t apply a critical eye to every one of the images theydoomscrollpast, but just making the point that AI images can fool people already without being objectively realistic.
It’s All About Asking for the Right Things in Your Prompt
If you’re wondering how to make realistic “photos” using AI, it comes down to two factors.
First, the image generation model that you’re using needs to be capable of creating high-quality, sophisticated images. So, most of thefree AI image generatorsyou can find online are simply not good enough to do the job. After all, AI image generation needs quite a lot of processing power, so making the images isn’t cheap!
My image generator of choice is Midjourney, where I have a basic paid subscription for 200 images per month, with the option to top up if I need to. If you have a powerful GPU, you can also run image generators like Stable Diffusion on yourlocal machine.
Having capable hardware and a good AI image generation model is crucial, but the other half of the equation is writing a good prompt. A “prompt” is the instruction you give to the image generation model so that it knows what you want it to generate. There’s an art to prompting, and so you’ll have to experiment until you find a form of prompt that works reliably for you, but I’ve also put together someMidjourney tipsto help you get the image you want.
In general, however, you want to use words like “photograph” or “photorealistic” in your prompt, along with other keywords that let the model know you’re looking for something that looks real. It’s also a good idea to browse the gallery of generated images on sites like Midjourney, and study the prompts of images that look real in the way that you want to achieve.
You Can Still Spot AI Photos Sometimes
While the very best AI-generated photos can be indistinguishable from the real thing, it’s sometimes possible to tell if you look closely, or apply a little common sense to nonsensical elements of an image.
Sometimes there are obvious issues like a deformed body part, too many fingers, or just a general feeling of uncanniness. Humans are extremely adept at picking up issues with faces. Something known as theuncanny valley. While it’s becoming harder and harder, you’re able to look for certaintelltale signsif youknow what to look for.
My Best Photo Attempts (With Prompts)
Well, it’s time to put this idea to the test, so I’m going to generate a few images using Midjourney, to see how good the results can be using the latest AI technology.
Vintage photograph of a young man and woman on holiday in the 1970s.
Professional photograph of a male model with avant-garde makeup.
Photo of a mermaid sitting on a rock next to the seaside.
While mermaids probably aren’t real, you have to admit that at the very least it looks like a photo of someone in a mermaid costume, but none of the people featured in these photos exist. It’s all completely made up.
Now, if you didn’tknowbeforehand that these photos were AI-generated, could you tell?
