Debate: Did a harsh critique on my AI art style actually make me better?

I posted some AI-generated portraits on a feedback forum last month and got told they all looked 'too smooth and plastic.' At first I was annoyed, but then I started looking closer at real photos and found they had noise, texture, and rough edges everywhere. Now I'm deliberately adding grain and imperfections to my outputs, making them look more like oil paintings than polished renders. The weird part is some people prefer my old style and say the new stuff looks messy. So which side wins - do you aim for realism with all its flaws, or stick with that clean uncanny valley look that some folks actually like? Has anyone else here changed their whole approach after one piece of feedback they almost ignored?

2 comments

2 Comments

noahward8d ago

Smooth and plastic is never a good look.

faith_schmidt8d agoTop Commenter

Wait, is this about that new building going up on Main Street? Because I walked past it yesterday and literally stopped in my tracks. The whole front is like one giant sheet of weird shiny metal that just bounces the sun right into your eyes. My grandmother would have called it "the kind of place that looks clean but feels like a doctors office waiting room." Reminded me of when my cousin redid his whole kitchen in stainless steel appliances and white cabinets and it looked like a laboratory instead of somewhere youd actually want to cook a meal.