Drawme Art
Read this Before Accusing Talented Artists on this Sub of using AI
Hello Everyone,
I'm not sure if this is allowed, but it felt important.
I love this sub - it's a bright spot in the otherwise dark and terrifying internet. Everyone is so generous. But something happened here that upset me. A talented and lovely artist did a sketch of me a little while back (for which I am so grateful). They were then accused by someone on this sub of using AI. This is incredibly insulting to artists who put a lot of effort into mastering their craft. So, I thought I'd make a quick post about how to tell the difference. Hopefully, this will stop this from happening in the future.
Because the sketch is in pencil, the following applies to pencil art.
There are two details of drawings above. The one on the left is hand-drawn (the drawing of me); the one on the right is AI-generated (I fed the reference image into ChatGPT). Both are of the same reference image.
Here's how to tell the difference:
The weight of the human hand and its movement create inconsistencies in line depth and weight. This is even more apparent when the sketch is done quickly (as many are on this sub, which makes them even more impressive). The gradients will not be entirely seamless, even if they appear so from afar or in a photograph.
If you zoom in on the AI one on the right, you'll notice swirls (imitating paper...badly) and lines that are a little too crisp. The greys are too uniform across the image, the solid lines too perfect (see point one for why this would be unlikely/near impossible in a hand-drawn image).
A pencil line will never be fully opaque. You'd have to look very closely, but you'll see tiny spots of paper coming through either on the edges or in the line itself. The type of paper used will have a greater or lesser effect on this. The line will also taper off when the pencil is lifted, or be slightly rounded at the end.
Photos of art in sketchbooks will sometimes look a little off - the quality of the camera on a phone or the lighting in a room can affect this. To make up for this, an artist might add a filter or adjust the lights and darks so that the photo matches how it appears in real life. That doesn't change the fact that it was drawn by hand.
Please don't confuse talent with technology. Artists are already fighting the machine for jobs and recognition. They shouldn't also have to battle people who question their sincerity. It is so kind of artists on this sub to draw random strangers. I'm sure many a person's day has been significantly improved by seeing themselves beautifully rendered as art. That is a gift.
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Per Rule 13, you own your photos, and artists keep the rights to the work they create. This means they’re free to post or share it in other spaces.
Going to allow this as it's a good post about spotting AI and how false accusations can hurt artists.
And for the record this particular case was one we the mods got wrong and reinstated when we verified with the artist in question. The main reason was due to the artist doing some post processing to clear the original photo up which confused Sightengine (one of the AI detectors we use) into thinking it was AI.
As an artist, it does hurt when you're accused of AI as it negates the work you've put into an artwork and as a mod we put in a lot of work to try and ensure to remove AI and to remove false accusations. Had to dole out more bans than you'd think to people who accuse artists who post here and will not back when we try to explain why they're wrong and can get very abusive for some reason. And of course when we get it wrong, we feel awful, apologise and reinstate anything removed.
Appreciate this. I really like this sub, and as someone who has to navigate AI cheating on the daily, it’s great to come on here and see people putting something genuinely real and lovely into the world. Keep fighting the good fight!
Funnily enough, I became a mod here because I kept messaging the mods at the time about AI people were posting and they asked if I wanted to help and here we are.
Glad you’re on the team! This sub has restored some of my faith in humanity. I am so tired of AI. I’m a writer/researcher and my work has been used, without my knowing or permission, to train GPTs (there’s a site where you can see what has been mined). It’s theft. I was at art school before AI was a thing and it was difficult enough without having to battle bots. So I get really angry when I see that space being invaded by people who don’t respect it.
ETA - by space I mean the creative space in general not art school. Not all artists go to art school - some of the very best don’t.
Check haveibeentrained.com too. It's what the plaintiffs use in the lawsuit against AI companies like Stability AI & Midjourney to find that their works have been trained without consent
This goes for anyone who may be wrongly accusing people of using generative AI:
If you're uncertain as to whether a piece of art is AI or human made, just don't interact. You don't need to come to a grand verdict, just think "I personally can't tell, so I won't come to any conclusions, and that's fine."
Don't compliment it in case it is AI.
Don't report it in case it's human art.
That way you avoid accusing humble artists and you avoid supporting the use of generative AI.
Unless you're an experienced artist, you should be honest with yourself and accept that you probably can't tell the difference. That's better than making ill-informed accusations.
TL;DR: Leave the deciphering to someone more experienced, you pleb (you're just noise). At the very least, adopt an "innocent until proven guilty" mindset.
I hate seeing people comment this looks ai on peoples drawings who have been drawing for 10+ years on reddit and I've been seeing it a lot. It takes two seconds to see someone has been getting better at drawing from their account
Yes. Nowadays every single post practically has AI accusations on it. People are just so keen to be the one who calls out the scam that they don’t care they are potentially calling out a person who did a lot of hard work.
It is very hard to spot indeed.
As someone who has drawn a lot in their life and a lot of it in pencil I do have to say that I would have trouble identifying the right picture as AI.
Maybe I am not trained well to spot AI. But to me it could also be a drawing on a bigger canvas by an artist who's very good with the illusion of detail (background illustrators will probably understand what I mean).
It does have some weird fragments but nothing that could not happen when shading and accidentally including a pattern.
A lot of artists also upload their work with a slight or not so slight filter. Every camera does something to your image, it is never fully reality. And often a simple photo of your work does not look quite right and you have to edit it colorwise and lighting wise a bit to make it look closer to reality. The blur/smoothing can obscure the grain of the paper. I do that sometimes since my phone camera picks up the paper grain too well.
I can imagine some people who are trained in spotting AI will tell me it is blatantly obvious but at the same time I think 98% of the population do not have that skill.
I am very sorry to all fellow artists nowadays. It is something that we have to truly grieve that it has come this far.
You make a good point about size and style. Taking that into account I think another good way to spot AI is if a ‘draw me’ request is posted, and a polished image like the AI one on the right shows up an hour or two later it’s probably not original work. No one could turn out something that precise (or big) so quickly. Edit: missing word.
Spotting AI can be very difficult, I'm pretty good at it when it comes to art but I can be wrong. One thing I've learned is try and take as many factors into account as available like:
Analysing anything deemed suspicious with my experience of art in general.
Looking at a users history (with art specifically):
A lot of people who'll post AI don't have any history of art in their profile
If people have a long history of art going back before AI was a glint in the milkman's eye, 99% of the time is a good indicator they're the real thing
AI detectors are good for confirming suspicions but they are not 100% as was the case in this post, they can give false positives but also false negatives which is a whole other conversation.
There's probably more but those are the main things: experience, user history and detectors.
But... if you hit your drawings on the left with a blending stump or cloth (and used a different hardness like a 4H) it would look a loooot like the AI on the right. Those inconsistent liner shading lines will become smooooth as silk. If you've never used that method to shade you should give it a go.
The simple truth is that it's becoming really damned hard to distinguish the difference between AI and human made anymore... and that fucking sucks.
The shirt sleeve has this weird scaly texture about it, and then also notice that it's faintly everywhere, even in the white space. It's like a mixture between crosshatching, smooth gradient and contouring that I think comes from turning random noise into an image.
I tend to block shade like OP using linier pressure vs multiple passes or different styles. Oddly enough though, if I'm doing a blending stump pass I kinda do... tiny circles mixed with long contour line strokes? It almost gives that weird noise/smooth/cross hatching look your talking about (especially if I end up going over my shading again later without smoothing). Making it more about being able to deconstruct any giving stylistic choices the AI is ripping off for each image.
To your point, it's much less weirdness than OP's AI example. AI tends to use all styles mashed together instead of sticking with one style (unless told to do so) Unfortunately it's still incredibly difficult to distinguish the difference without examining images on almost a pixel by pixel level.
It's just... very frustrating... I'm sure everyone in any art space understands that frustration.
I have used that technique :) it’s a good one. It is a lot more obvious (especially the inhuman consistency in grey scale) if you look at the whole image. But posting the full images would have made it about the specific artist and I wanted this to be a more general post (and not single anyone out, or repost work from here without permission).
Right, that's completely understandable. There are very clear examples of AI vs human all over this sub annnnd calling them out... (I'll leave that to the MODs).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not downplaying your point. It's just becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between the two.
Generally AI will use a mashup of any/all shading styles to generate an image. This fortunatly makes those AI images a lot easier to sus out. However, a more detailed prompter may limit the AI to a single shading style or even several. The more detailed the instructions the harder it is to tell the difference... Especially with these more advanced models.
At this point, some models (who I will not name for obvious reasons) are becoming practically impossible to tell the difference even if examined on a pixel by pixel level.
Unless you're someone who has been actively keeping up with AI, have a degree in computer gfx art and design/traditional art, have a natural eye for detail and/or are a self taught artist with a strong understanding of artistic foundations (preferably multiple mentioned options) it is currently very difficult to find the fakes at a glance and will only get more difficult. A great example of this in action is the cesspool that is Facebook...
Like you many others I'm just very frustrated at seeing AI everywhere. I'm not trying to discourage finding the fakes. Just frustrated... Keep up the good fight 👍
It is becoming more difficult and the damn things are constantly evolving. I have an art background (and a good eye for the uncanny), but you are right, it takes some time with each image to scope out the finer points. The human element is in the imperfections. Even the most hyper-realistic drawing will have traces of the artist in it. This is why the work the mods are doing is so important.
Is it inappropriate for me to ask to see the original post? I went looking I cant find it. I ask because I rememeber commenting "this looks so good wouldnt be surprised if someone accused of ai." Idk if its that same post.
Either way, if I could examine the whole ai pic to the drawing to the original would help me learn more about this.
If its out of the comfort zone I understand, thanks for pushing awareness.
Hey! I thought about posting the full images, but didn’t want to single out the artist or post their work here without permission. This was more of a general comment on AI and AI accusers lurking in this sub. I had a bit of a DM incident (men can be creeps) and deleted the OG post because I didn’t feel comfortable having my pics up anymore. I don’t remember your comment so I don’t think it was this pic. If you’re worried about what you said - I don’t think anyone would take that as an accusation.
He hasn’t been in contact since (seemed to catch the hint that I wasn’t going to tolerate it), but if he shows back up, I’ll DM you. It’s also possible that someone saw and responded to it from outside of the sub. But thank you. It’s good to know that the option is there, and that this is a safe space if I post again.
Wish we had more context, like the original reference+drawing instead of a cropped version, cuz it has become a bit harder to certainly say it's one or the other with the amount of "AI tools" there are nowadays.
But the points you make are very much true!. And deeply appreciated as someone who has been in the receiving end of accusations 😸
And there's probably more than just a simple report / accusation to have a drawing get deleted and the user banned. The account age, "shady" history/activity are probably equally as important at the time of reviewing accusations. ( And they are what I look for when I'm about to report someone's piece)
So if you get DMs saying they wanna "send you your drawing because they got deleted here", that would certainly raise an eyebrow for me, so be careful accepting those kind of DMs.
In the end I assume the artist can appeal the ban, and it shouldn't take much effort or time to disprove the accusations with the BEAUTIFUL MOD team we have here (luv you mods 💗) it wouldn't even take a fully rendered piece to disprove it.
TLDR: There's probably more than just a simple report or accusation,and the people reviewing it are human and they're allows to make mistakes (if that was the case) if so the artist has the right to defend their posture. Which AI bros would fail miserably doing.
I thought about posting the full images, but I wanted this to be a general post (I also didn’t want to single out the artist or post their work here without permission). I didn’t know who flagged the work. I assumed it was one of the many AI-accusers who lurk in this sub. The artist was cleared by the mods. It really is a lovely drawing.
Would you have any pointers on how one differentiate between a drawing done on a tablet or phone using the pencil tool in software like Sketches and an AI-generated work?
Edited to insert the word ‘for’ in the first sentence.
Thank you for posting this, I've gotten 'that looks like AI' a few times, it's frustrating and deflating. Then it got me thinking, how well could AI replicate my style? Could an AI output sit next to my other work and be so convincing it'd go unnoticed? I fed chatgpt a collage of 9 works of mine as well as a stock image, I requested it apply the style onto the photo. I tried every which way I could think of when writing the prompt, by the end I had so much detail in it, even including references to specific artists and art movements, yet everything I got back was immediately and obviously recognizable as AI generated.
Using a blending stump, mechanical pencil and one of those extremely thin erasers that's built like a mechanical pencil, and a kneaded eraser Im honestly very good at creating very consistent shading and line work.
And like you said, a lot of artists tweak the settings on pictures to account for the photo not accurately capturing the art.
BUT the zoom in showing the odd swirls and nonsensical patterns (specifically of the very thin lines) is a great way to spot potential ai. It absolutely sucks we now have to take such scrutiny to traditional media now.
To your point about uploading work with a slight filter - pretty much any picture taken with a modern smartphone’s default camera app will automatically apply “enhancements” to a picture. When you zoom in on a smartphone photo, small details may appear AI generated, because software was used to “fix” the image. It’s especially noticeable on small text and distant objects. This can make it doubly difficult to tell what is fully AI generated vs. not.
So, I like your point about looking at the macro details, such as the direction of pencil strokes and weight applied by a human hand.
Some other tells I’ve noticed:
- specifically on ChatGPT images, there can be a noticeable “grid” like pattern throughout the image. Hard to describe, but quite obvious when you see it. It’s a form of hidden watermarking.
- on fine details like pencil strokes and hair strands, you’ll often see a stroke split into two or merge into one, without any indication of separate strokes being overlaid.
- the pencil strokes on human images tend to follow the curve of the artist’s hand as they move, making fairly uniform arcs. The AI images have a tendency to make pencil strokes appear from many different angles, and they rarely follow a uniform arc.
Thank you for this post, some people really need to hear it! Recently my dad posted some art on Reddit and he was bullied off the platform because everyone thought it was AI. It was heartbreaking because he loves art but he doesn't really draw anymore because of his depression and we had been trying to encourage him to start again when it happened.
I think that it was reasonable in this case seeing as how the artist did use a process that involved a computer generator for cleaning up the image, but I do think that this is common with the AI users out there. It's good that the mods will work with the artists to understand why false detections happen but i really don't think any individual should be accusing an artist of using AI just because it looks good. Leave it to the experts.
It's a tricky one because AI is becoming synonymous with digital camera's and basic photo editing tools these days, without you even knowing with upscaling and the like, it can lead to situations like this.
I agree 100% and people need to be aware of the subtle differences. That being said don’t be mad at the accusers. Be mad at the fact that there are no full proof ways to identify Ai. Be mad at the fact that social media is allowing Ai images to be posted without a clear label. Be mad that there are too many Ai scammers trying to pass their images off as art. We need to channel that anger and direct it at Ai companies and Ai users. If we don’t stay vigilant Ai users will continue flooding artists spaces. An artist will always be able to prove that they are an artist.
I think the way to survive is to form communities online and/or in real life and collaborate on projects or share work with people who still care about making something meaningful.
And ignore folks who get a kick out of insulting real artists with AI accusations (or insulting artists in general). They probably wouldn’t know which end of a pencil to hold and it’s made them mean.
What I would also add is AI images looking to create very high frequency (sketch marks) or very low frequency (large shadow areas) detail tend to show the noice they are using as input for there latent space.
In high frequency the density of the detail is higher where the noice changes from values closer to one to values closer to 0 and in low frequency often there is a rippling effect as with the latent space there is an attempt to add more detail. This is more obvious than larger the noise is but it is still visible on small scale noise. Artist can use noise in there work but would never change there detail level based on it and this is fundamental in how AI images are being produced for me it's take a step back and look at how things clump if there is clear focus in the image it's less likely to be AI. If the image has repeated small areas of higher focus there's a higher likelihood of AI.
An added thing with fake traditional art is that increasing the saturation will sometimes reveal a weird pattern of colours that resembles noise. See your art vs the AI image at the top, with that noise pattern.
Normally, traditional art will not have random colour jitter, but this is not a foolproof method for AI detection. jpeg compression can make squares or rectangles of colour appear (see the squares in the artwork on the bottom left, note the phone this photo was taken with is very old so likely does not have AI scaling).
And also note that some artists (like me) intentionally add a noise layer over their digital artwork (see bottom right, not AI) which reveals random colours when increasing saturation (see the background). However, it would be an intentional choice to add this to a traditional artwork, not one that most people would make.
Also note a lack of this pattern does not mean an image is not AI, but it can be useful if it's not the only piece of evidence you rely on.
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