The differences between an AI “painting” and a real one

Can AI really replicate the “feel” of a painting created by a human being?

I don’t think so. Not without a lot of input from the person writing the prompts. I’ll sound like a snob, but I don’t think a person inexperienced in real painting would easily be able to do this.

You’ll probably be able to tell immediately; the picture on the left was generated by MidJourney, while the painting on the right is by fantastic oil painter AJ Alper.

The differences I see? Right off the bat, the MidJourney image is too “perfect.” It looks like a blend of a photo with some impressionistic “strokes” randomly painted.

AJ Alper is an artist with excellent technical skills, so I’m not saying his painting is more flawed, but it has more irregularities, more unpredictable marks. Like the bright green brush stroke (middle bottom edge, in her scarf), that “jumps out” a little bit. Not in a bad way. But in a way that I don’t think AI would anticipate. Other brush strokes are more erratic, not as tidy and neat as in the AI piece.

I’m not seeing many proportion irregularities in this painting by Alper, but many artists, including ones with very good draftsmanship, will occasionally get something a little crooked, a little “off.” AI can do this too but it more likely makes creepy-looking errors (like with the weird hands), not just things a little crooked or off-center.

There’s a “feel” to a genuine hand-painted, traditional piece that I don’t see in AI. Granted, I’m primarily referring to AI images that are mostly prompted, not painted over or tweaked a lot. (I can’t speak about the highly-tweaked AI pictures, either for or against, at the moment. I need to research further.) The brush strokes are the part that bother me the most. AI can’t seem to replicate the unpredictable way real artists paint, how they move their brushes.

Another thing I see is, the people in portraits have an “Instagram model” look to them, which the genuine traditional paintings often don’t. Why? Because usually the traditional paintings are depicting real people, not an amalgamation of many people that were fed into AI and regurgitated out. (Ironically, the AJ Alper painting above is of a person on Instagram!)

Bottom line, real traditional paintings have more “flaws” or “irregularities”, and “unpredictable” parts—which are the beautiful result of real people being behind the brushes, making ALL the decisions about EVERY brush stroke. It can make an immense difference.