How to get AI photos that actually look like you

The model copies what it can see

An image model builds your likeness from the pixels you hand it. If your face occupies two hundred pixels of a group shot taken at dusk, that is the entire budget it has to work with — everything else it produces is invention. Give it a clear, well-lit face and it has enough detail to carry your features into a new scene.

This is why the same person can get an excellent result and a poor one an hour apart. Nothing changed about the model. The input did.

What to upload

The ideal photo is boring: you, facing the camera, in even light, filling a good part of the frame. A normal phone selfie taken indoors near a window is close to perfect.

• Face the camera. Sharp profiles give the model only half your face to work from.
• Even light. Overhead sun creates hard shadows in the eye sockets, which the model reads as part of your face.
• No sunglasses, no hat brim across the eyes, nothing covering the jawline.
• One person per upload. In couple mode you upload two photos, one each — a photo containing both of you gives the model an ambiguous target.
• Recent. A photo from ten years ago produces a likeness of who you were then.

What to avoid

Heavy beauty filters are the most common cause of disappointing output. A filter has already reshaped your jaw, enlarged your eyes and smoothed your skin texture; the model faithfully reproduces the filtered version, and the result looks like a stranger who resembles you.

Very low resolution, motion blur and screenshots of other photos all reduce the detail available. So does a busy background directly behind your head, which can bleed into the edges of your hair.

Use the free generation as a test

Every account gets one free generation before paying anything. Spend it deliberately: upload the photo you think is best, pick any scene, and look at whether the face that comes back is recognisably yours. That question is the whole product. If the likeness holds, the scenes are just wardrobe changes. If it does not, try a different source photo before buying credits.