I have been playing with AI photo editing lately, and this time I decided to try something with my own photo. Not to create a new person, not to change my face, just to see what AI would do with a simple request.
I had a photo of myself wearing a salwar. Nothing special about the photo, just a regular picture. I wanted to use it for my Facebook profile, so naturally, I started thinking about editing it.
I have been using Lightroom for years. I enjoy photography, and editing photos is something I like doing myself. I know how to adjust the lighting, colors, shadows, and skin tones. Sometimes I spend quite a bit of time on one photo, making small changes until I feel happy with it.
So I edited the photo in Lightroom, the way I normally would. That became my second photo.
Then I thought, why not give the same original photo to AI and see what happens? I didn’t write a long prompt or explain every little thing I wanted changed. I simply typed:
“Make it better for fb profile photo, don’t change my face or person.”
That’s it. One sentence.
And AI gave me the first photo.
Now, looking at all three photos together, I started noticing the differences. The last photo is the original, with no editing at all. The middle one is my Lightroom version, where I made the adjustments myself. And the first one is the AI version.
One thing I noticed immediately was my under-eye area. I have always had this issue, mostly under one eye. I have tried to find that magic cream that is supposed to make everything look better, but I still haven’t found it. Apparently, AI didn’t need a cream. It just fixed the appearance in the photo!
Of course, that doesn’t mean my under-eye problem disappeared in real life. I still have the same face when I look in the mirror. But it was interesting to see how easily AI could make those little changes in a photograph.
What surprised me wasn’t just the under-eye correction. It was how quickly AI did the whole thing. When I edit a photo manually, I make decisions about the brightness, shadows, colors, and every adjustment. With AI, I gave it one instruction and let it decide what would make the photo better.
But that also made me think about something. When we ask AI to make our photos better, what does better actually mean? Is it better lighting? Better skin? Fewer wrinkles? Or does AI have its own idea of how we should look?
I specifically told it not to change my face or the person. That part was important to me. I didn’t want to look like somebody else. I wanted the photo to look like me, just with a few improvements.
I kept comparing the three versions. My original photo was simply me, exactly as the camera captured me. My Lightroom version was how I wanted to edit myself. The AI version was how AI interpreted my request.
And after all that comparing, guess which one I picked?
The AI version.
Yes, I already updated my Facebook profile photo with it.
Does that mean I’m going to stop using Lightroom? No. I still enjoy editing my own photographs, and I don’t think AI replaces everything we do as photographers. Sometimes I want complete control over an image, and sometimes I just want a good result without spending too much time on it.
What I found interesting was that I could get a result I liked with such a simple prompt. I didn’t need to learn another editing technique or spend time moving sliders around. I just told AI what I wanted.
At the same time, I know the AI photo is still an edited version of me. It’s not exactly what the camera captured, just as my Lightroom photo isn’t exactly the original either. The difference is who made the editing decisions.
Looking at these three photos made me think about how much photo editing has changed. We went from darkrooms to Photoshop and Lightroom, and now we’re simply talking to AI.
And I’m sitting here wondering how many more things we’ll be doing this way in the next few years.
For now, I’m happy with my new Facebook profile photo. And I’m still looking for that magic under-eye cream. AI can fix my photo, but I need something that works when I’m not looking at a screen!
So tell me, looking at these three photos, which one would you choose?
Photo 1 – AI edited
Photo 2 – My Lightroom edit
Photo 3 – Original, without editing
Would you choose the original, do your own editing, or let AI do the work?
