Online Reporter
Fashion 263 Correspondent
A photograph does not have to be made by artificial intelligence to look like it was.
Nicole Kidman’s latest British Vogue cover has become a good example of how make-up, lighting and retouching can create an AI-generated face effect, leaving people questioning whether they are looking at a real photograph at all.
The cover image prompted plenty of reaction online, with some people saying Kidman looked “AI-generated” and that they would not have recognised her, while others thought she looked stunning.
But the bigger question is not really whether they used AI.
There is no evidence that the Vogue photographs were generated using artificial intelligence.
Instead, the reaction points to something increasingly interesting about the way we look at faces in the age of AI.
We have become so accustomed to seeing synthetic faces online that we are beginning to recognise the aesthetic.
What makes a face look AI-generated?
According to plastic surgeon Dr Omar Tillo, Medical Director and Senior Plastic Surgeon at CREO Clinic in London, the reaction often comes down to a combination of visual cues rather than one particular feature.
“When people describe a face as looking ‘AI-generated’, they are often responding to a combination of features that feel almost too polished,” he says.
That can include exceptionally smooth skin, very clean facial contours and an unusually uniform appearance.
Real skin has texture. We have pores, fine lines, tiny variations in colour and all sorts of small imperfections that are barely noticeable in everyday life.
Take many of those details away in a photograph, and the face can start to look strangely unfamiliar.
Research into facial perception has also found that skin texture and surface characteristics influence how we perceive faces, while symmetry is another factor our brains are sensitive to.
This helps explain why an image can still clearly be a photograph of a real person yet look less human.
Why does AI skin look so smooth?
The ultra-smooth complexion associated with an AI-generated face is not exclusively an AI phenomenon.
Beauty filters, professional retouching and high-definition photography have been smoothing skin for years.
The difference is that generative AI has made the look so familiar that people now associate extreme smoothness with computer-generated imagery.
As Tillo explains, when natural skin texture is softened or removed, particularly in a close-up portrait, the result can feel synthetic.
“In Nicole’s cover, the complexion appears exceptionally uniform, with very little of the natural skin texture, fine lines, pores and subtle tonal variation that we subconsciously expect to see in a close-up portrait,” he says.
Lighting can make this effect even more pronounced.
A professional studio photograph can be carefully lit to minimise shadows, emphasise particular features and create a very polished finish.
Add sophisticated make-up and digital retouching, and a person’s appearance can change considerably without any AI being involved.
Make-up can change more than you think
When someone looks dramatically different in a photograph, it is tempting to assume that cosmetic procedures or artificial intelligence are responsible.
But make-up is capable of changing the perceived proportions of a face quite dramatically.
Brows can alter the apparent shape of the eyes. Contouring can change how prominent the cheekbones and jaw appear. Eye make-up can make the eyes look larger or more defined, while a different hairstyle can alter the proportions of the entire face.
This is particularly noticeable in fashion photography, where the aim is often not to produce a straightforward representation of what someone looks like in everyday life.
In Kidman’s Vogue shoot, the styling itself is highly transformative, with bleached brows, dramatic make-up and a deliberately exaggerated hairstyle contributing to a very different visual impression.
That is important when looking at photographs of celebrities.
A red-carpet photograph, an unfiltered candid image and an editorial fashion portrait can all feature the same person and look remarkably different.
Why we are getting better at spotting synthetic faces
There is another layer to this conversation.
A few years ago, most people would probably have struggled to explain why an image looked artificial.
Now, after seeing millions of AI-generated images across social media, advertising and the internet, we are becoming more familiar with the visual language of synthetic imagery.
Tillo believes this is changing our instincts.
“What I find particularly interesting is that audiences are becoming much more sensitive to this aesthetic,” he says.
“When a real image removes too much of the natural irregularity and texture that makes a face look human, people can recognise that something feels different even if they can’t immediately explain why.”
It is a little like hearing an artificially generated voice. You might not immediately identify what is wrong with it, but something about the rhythm, tone, or delivery can feel slightly off.
The same thing can happen with a face.
The synthetic face is changing beauty standards
This is where the conversation becomes bigger than one celebrity photograph.
AI-generated images are increasingly presenting people with faces that do not exist in the real world.
They can be extraordinarily polished, symmetrical and free from the small variations that make individual faces recognisable.
At the same time, conventional beauty photography has long moved in a similar direction through lighting, make-up, filters and retouching.
The result is that the line between an edited photograph and a synthetic image is becoming harder to see.
That does not necessarily mean that every highly polished photograph is misleading.
Fashion photography has always been about creating an image rather than simply documenting reality.
But it does mean we should be more conscious of what we are looking at.
A photograph is not necessarily an unedited record of someone’s appearance, particularly when it comes to celebrity and fashion imagery.
And perhaps that is what makes the Nicole Kidman reaction so interesting.
The debate was not really about whether people could recognise one of Hollywood’s most recognisable faces.
It was about how much visual manipulation can happen before a familiar face starts to feel unfamiliar.
The technology may be new, but the desire to create an impossibly polished image is not.
What has changed is that we now have a new word for the look: AI-generated.
And sometimes, a face only needs to look synthetic to trigger the reaction. It does not have to be synthetic at all. – IOL Lifestyle
