While surffing reddit I came upon a guide which made a pretty good job explaining some things you should do to detect good ai art.
Feel free to add your 2 cents of knowledge on how to detect good ai art.
Many times it is fairly easy to distinguish human art from Ai art. We simply have to look at the hands or the eyes of the drawing.
![](/uploads/default/original/4X/9/b/7/9b745b08d9c90ff8539d0b46b491ed2d6466fb74.jpg)
Image created on NightCafe with the prompt "Byzantine style portrait of Mary and baby Jesus wearing halos in front of a faded gold background."
But should that be all? Should that be the first thing we look at?
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One of these images was Ai generated while the other 2 were made by human. The Ai generated one was the second image on NightCafe with the prompt "Two elderly men playing cards at a table at an outdoor cafe." The prompt was inspired by Paul CĂ©zanne's painting "The Card Players."
The first image was painted by Jonathan Bentham. While the third image was done by Kelly McKernan.
That was fairly easy wasn't it? But what about the next two images?
![](/uploads/default/original/4X/7/1/0/710d4d09d6433adfbc64bcd28493ffd063054480.png)
![](/uploads/default/original/4X/0/a/9/0a98d8b63e1effd62e5b087d40be6a848ab35a5e.png)
One simple look will not help you distinguish which one is Ai generated. Sure one image has green circles giving away the errors. But what if I told you both are Ai generated?
If I can't just simply look at the hands or the eyes then how can I distinguish if it is Ai generated?
A reddit user created a good guide to identify scarily good ai art. I took both the last images from there. Here is the link https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimeSketch/comments/z9hmgf/how_to_identify_scarilyaccurate_ai_generated/
In that link the user explains why they circled in green those errors but they never really explained which things to look for on the image of the anime girl waving hi.
To further add to what the user said. When detecting if something is Ai generated art you should look for 4 red flags.
1.- The user does not share the credits of the artist. This can mainly be seen with novel covers. Not sharing the credits does not mean it is Ai generated. It just means that you should be watchful of said user.
2.- Look for a watermark. Ai generators often leave a discrete watermark. It is usually small and it can be found at the bottom of the image. But you would have to really zoom in to find it. It could look like letters or a small logo it varies from ai genrator to ai generator. Some don't have a watermark.
3.- Look for things that don't blend in. It could be a style change in the art. Or it could be that the image just randomely dissapears the feet and hands of a character. This can also apply to objects.
4.- Things don't look natural and the artist is making newb mistakes when their art is pretty good. It could be something simple like a kiss looking weird. Instead of a kiss it may look like they are just pressing lips. Maybe a body part is turning in an unatural way. Like their head or feet. Or maybe you found other red flags that make you think something just doesn't belong with the level of art implemented.
There are Ai art detectors that may help us with detecting if something was made by Ai. But are they trustworthy? The answer is... it depends. Each detector works differently. And they work like plagerism detection programs.
On the next example I ran the 3 images found on the reddit link and I ran them through https://huggingface.co/spaces/umm-maybe/AI-image-detector
![](/uploads/default/original/4X/f/2/5/f256046004f923475b1b5739708392c5519dcb58.jpg)
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![](/uploads/default/original/4X/4/3/5/435ba959b55477c59487b5e8bb7b501eed7a413c.jpg)
As you can see only one image gave a high artificial % while the other 2 gave either a 3% artificial or even a 0% artificial.
Well if that detector can't tell if it is artificially made how can I?
The image with the green circles is perfectly explained on the redit link I gave before.
Here I shall explain how to distinguish that the waving anime girl was Ai generated. For that we will need to zoom in and look for the inconsistencies.
![](/uploads/default/original/4X/1/5/c/15c242f1c1a1ae20c5ada2d6f3c6d9e1cf5caff7.jpg)
Between the thumb and the scarf you can find a weirdly placed object. It could be a nail or a hair or something else. But it is nonetheless an error you would not notice without zooming in.
![](/uploads/default/original/4X/2/4/4/244f6489d6778b0095087391ba6b9cc8dbf8442d.jpg)
There is a strangely weird V shape in the hand. And the thumb is strangely pointy.
![](/uploads/default/original/4X/9/e/0/9e06d2e7ba227aaabcc9ad3a750bd25913319060.jpg)
There is a random hair that was generated in the girls bangs. Normally there would be no problems. But on this case it just doesn't seem like something that belongs in the image.
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The lighting on this particular part of the drawing just doesn't belong on the image. Part of the shirt also blends with the color of the skin.
![](/uploads/default/original/4X/d/d/b/ddb19fc6fa3c3066dad46afd3cc7c546b954f3c2.jpg)
Again part of the shirt is blending with the color of the skin.
![](/uploads/default/original/4X/e/e/8/ee86994330987e4cb6a4a76f73fdf8b936b769a2.jpg)
A button that should clearly be there is obviously missing.
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The distance between the buttons is not consistent and if that wasn't enough the shape of some buttons is weird.
![](/uploads/default/original/4X/9/e/4/9e43d849444d7f2684302bb4ac5b89a651832c1b.jpg)
The eyes are not consistent with one another. The eye which got circled has 2 problems. The lower eyelid looks as if someone dragged it a little bit up with photoshop. The most important tell is looking at how squiggly the pupil is.
All of these are very small details that a person can easily miss. Ai art has advanced a lot and you can easily train it to make pretty good hands and faces.
The image I used as an example was generated using stable diffusion.
Hopefully, all that I mentioned plus the reddit link can help you detect scarily good Ai.
Extra: What should I do if I ever get accused of using Ai?
Don't panic. Just save evidence. It could be a timelapse, each version of your art in which you made significant progress, hand made sketches, or just something that solidly proves that you created said image (even other art you have done can help since it proves how consistent you are with your artstyle). Presenting a digital sketch may not be proof enough as Ai can also generate digital sketches plus filters can also be used to create such false evidence. That is why we should always save more definite evidence.
Most comic artists won't have to worry about being accused since their artstyle is very consistent through several chapters. Something Ai is not capable of doing yet.