Got told my AI art was 'too perfect' and it bugged me

I posted a fantasy landscape I made with Midjourney, and a commenter said it felt sterile because every leaf was flawless. I started adding specific flaws in my prompts, like 'slightly smudged paint' or 'uneven lighting'. Does that actually make it feel more like 'real' art, or am I just overthinking it?

3 comments

3 Comments

dianab682mo agoMost Upvoted

Stop trying to please people who just want to hate on AI. Adding fake flaws is like putting scratches on a new phone to make it look used, which is silly. The whole point of the tool is to make beautiful, detailed images, so why fight that strength? That commenter probably just has a bias against the tech itself, and no amount of digital dirt will change their mind. You are definitely overthinking it by letting one opinion dictate your creative process. Just make the art you want to make.

loganhart2mo ago

Make the art you want" is the only rule that matters.

the_mason4d ago

Wait, isn't art basically just a conversation between the artist and the viewer, though? By adding those little flaws you're literally telling the viewer "hey, this thing was touched by a human hand" which is exactly what your commenter was probably missing. You're not adding scratches to a new phone, you're painting brushstrokes onto a canvas that was just a digital print before. The whole point of using a tool like Midjourney is to make something you couldn't otherwise, and that includes making it feel lived in and personal. If you just type "beautiful castle" and hit go, you're letting the machine do all the creative work for you. But tweaking the prompt until it has that wonky roof tile or that single dead tree in the corner? That's you putting your own eye into the piece.