Apr 93 min read

What about Quality AI?

I would like to emphasize that my experiments with AI will in no way affect the publication of my original digital painting art, as before, digital art remains the main content of this site.

Dear friends, currently neural networks are actively developing and have already become a part of our lives, filling the world of design with both a lot of beautiful images and a lot of low-quality material. Therefore, in this article I will talk about my own study and experience of working with neural networks and, what is most important, about the post-processing of such material, because we are all tired of multi-fingered hands, poorly cut hair with a white halo around it, etc., which makes it difficult to use them in design, and sometimes it makes it downright impossible. Mainly, I switched my attention from image generation to its post-processing. I tried to make the faces not look like popular AI tubes, and the hands and other parts of the body as physiological as possible, not limiting my tools to just cutting out a picture from the background, but also doing retouching, collaging and painting.

(Click on pictures to enlarge)

Many people use AI programs to cut out objects from the background, but in most cases such programs do not work well, leaving behind “artifacts” (pieces of the background) and torn edges. Therefore, I consider it extremely important and necessary to process and remove all artifacts manually yourself, and not shift all the work and responsibility to AI. And what’s even more important is to invest your time, skill and vision into the picture. I'll show you a few examples of how I see it.

I really love working with light. Light is the first thing neglect when cutting a subject from a background, which is why I always paint it.

The thing that spoils almost every picture is torn edges and artifacts. I always remove the excess by hand and test the image against a dark and light background to make sure it looks good in both settings.

And this is just working with elements. When it comes to people, the work becomes much more difficult. AI has learned to generate beautiful images, but it still often has big problems with physiology. In most cases, the AI makes mistakes with the number of fingers, the limbs look like “sausages” without bones, beautiful girls often have slanted eyes, and if the AI was still able to make five fingers, it will definitely ruin the nails, or even forget about them. And then I remembered such a profession as a professional retoucher who processes photographs for fashion magazines. Fortunately, I have experience in such work, which prompted me to apply it in this area. This is a lot of work that can change the picture and bring it to a completely new level of quality. Shall we try?

First of all, of course, it is the face. Although the faces in the AI are quite cute, they are poorly detailed. When I draw my art, I always pay a lot of attention to the fine details of the skin, and I thought that AI images should also be highly detailed. I want the eyes to sparkle, the lips to shine, the skin to be velvety, and the face to be alive - and all this is noticeable.

The next important point is the hands. I love drawing hands; I love giving my girls a beautiful manicure. Therefore, I was faced with the task of not just making five fingers, but making five beautiful fingers.

Now that all the important details have been changed and I'm happy with it, there's one last thing left that no one likes to work with, but I see as a challenge. Let's cut out the hair!

Thus, I am opening you up to a new perspective on working with AI, and introducing you to the now popular concept on the Internet as a “neural artist” (not to be confused with a “traditional artist” or “digital artist”!) - a person who specifically WORKS with AI images , rather than just generating them. I hope this article was useful to you and broadened your horizons a little and helped you begin to better understand the quality of AI products.

FREE GIFT KIT

For those who read the article to the end, I want to give a nice gift - this is a small set of AI elements, so you can personally see the quality of my products and have a good time designing. You can download the gift in the Free Gift section.

List of AI materials used in this article:

Dark Beauty tubes, Hot Dark Beauty tubes, Midnight Dreams kit, Witching Autumn kit, Longing for Land kit, In Elven Land kit, Dark Secret Love kit.