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this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2026
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Something about this hits the uncanny valley for me.
Touched-up with AI?
Professional photography has been around for a long time. There's lots of it.
AI basically just copies existing things.
Ai copies professional photography.
Photo looks professional.
Therefore, photo looks ai.
Professional digital editors who have existed for decades take days to to touch up photos for press releases.
Fucking morons on the Internet in 2026: is this AI??
I would say inexperienced, not morons. I didn't assume AI, but it did feel edited. To younger people who have more experience with ai edits vs professional editing, they're just going off what they know.
If you assume everything is AI because it's doesn't quite look perfect, even if it's just a picture being taken because professional photography exists... You're a fucking moron and you should be called out for it.
Has nothing to do with inexperience. If you assume everything is AI you're an idiot.
I think it might be the lighting and backdrop. They're brightly lit from one side, with a very dark background, making them really pop out. It reminds me of the lighting that was popular in 1990's formal portrait photos, which I always thought looked odd.
That, and the color of the suits really isn't helping.
The color is so that they aren’t spotted by the space deer.
Not everything is ai
Sounds like something ai would say >.> /s
Please identify all the astronauts in this picture for me?
No one’s looking at the same camera?
Never taken a professional group photo before? Sometimes you're explicitly asked not to look by the camera man.
Professional photographers exist for a reason.
Appears as if three are looking over the right shoulder of the photographer. Only one is looking straight into the lens.
Did you count the fingers?
There's just no way it wasn't touched up with AI.. look at the woman's face and hair. Pretty obvious.
Josh Valcarcel is the photographer of this portrait. He has been working as a professional photographer for close to 20 years. He doesn't need AI to make beautiful portraits like these.
Here is an interesting interview with Josh about this portrait specifically and his background in photography.
Let's give this man the credit he deserves instead of AI.
All professional photos are touched up to some degree. It doesn't mean they used AI to do it.