AI Retouch (Yay or Nay?)

Billie Stroope

AI makes better hair. However I worry about the future of it.

TGedNathan

Agreed. If you could combine the ai hair result and the original skin, you would get something interesting

Hi Chi Jose

The AI renders the hair ends better, but removes the skin texture. Mixed results, but the originals have more detail

Surody

I don't fully rely on AI in post, I combine it with photoshop editing. The inconsistency is relative. When I use lower values I get more realistic faces and bodies without altering the original idea of the image. Expressions are sustainable the same way. I'm not using some AI service, I have it locally on my PC which I can modify. There's something called "controlnet" which gives a bunch of tools to preserve the input image. I'll make a newer post with a few more images soonish.

Mercurius

Results are inconsistent. Whatever settings you are using tends to increase realism of anatomy (assuming AI 'understands' what you are depicting). AI is quite good at making hair more detailed and realistic. On the other hand some details are lost, especially textures (skin, etc.) and facial expressions (which look more mild and generic). Three dimensionality sometimes breaks down a bit giving a sort of blob look.

Andy M

I’m on the fence

Luis Javier Morgado

I don't know... They both look the same to me, barely.

Surody

Like mentioned, the skin detail was caused by using a wrong upscaling model. The AI retouched image before upscaling had some nice skin texture. I think I'll need to post some newer examples. :D

The faces look better but skin detail is far better in original

Surody

The smoothness is caused by having used a wrong upscale model. I can preserve more details for future images.

W C Purdy

It looks good in some places and worse in others. In the first pic, all it seems to have done is sanded off the edges and effectively removed the texture of the woman's skin, leaving it smooth in a very uncanny looking way, which is kind of endemic to AI, and a bit of a Pavlovian turn-off, at least to me. In the comic, though, there are a couple panels where it actually does look a bit better, specifically the shot of the final transformed vagina, which looks shiny, slick, and appealing, where the original doesn't have those lighting effects. I feel like maybe the AI stuff, if possible, should be limited to lighting and shading effects like that.

stger

The AI images look smoother with a loss of detail. I prefer the originals.

Surody

I still would have the same workflow as before, AI retouching is just supposed to be a extension. Either for pre-production like concept art for inspiration or post-production to adjust, fix and enhance some things. To preserve consistency I've to do most of the work myself anyway. AI isn't that magic as some people may think.^^

Ferdinand Martinez

Not gonna lie, the touch ups do look a bit better, but I honestly don't think that your work really needs an AI touch up. Besides, how would you know what to tweak with if an AI does all the work? Could possibly lead to reliance on it. We all know that you are striving to be better at your work with how you're constantly experimenting. Kinda feel like AI could ruin that. These are my ramblings.

Motophoto

Hell yeah that’s awesome. I think the retouching opens the door for alot of possibilities.

Surody

It can be extremely consistent, it depends on how much I use the AI but there's also extensions to help with consistency. On those examples I used tools to make the poses almost pixel perfect compared to the original.

Motophoto

I like the retouch. Hope they can be consistent.