Photorealistic AI-portrait made for magazine print
Chema Parsanz is a freelance consultant in strategic design. Here he shares his AI-generated colour-sparkling photorealistic portrait, Funny man, made for offset printing in A4 size on uncoated magazine paper. We also bring you some insights from our prepress technician, and let you look at the image in print.
AI helps us expand our creativity
I’m a freelance consultant in strategic design. My real name is José Parra, but I usually sign my AI creative projects with my pseudonym, Chema Parsanz. For some years now, I have been researching new technologies to expand my knowledge and express other types of ideas.
I started working with AI technology to streamline my creative processes and also to have access to other professional fields or personal hobbies. For example, music interests me a lot but I’m not a musician, however AI technology makes it easier to understand and create music in another way.
"Generative AI is under construction but right now it brings disruption to the creative process."
I think that all technologies help us streamline processes, and generative AI in particular helps us expand our creativity. Generative AI is under construction but right now it brings disruption to the creative process. I think that the disruption in creativity is key to reaching scenarios that we have not investigated. Generative AI offers us a secret door to the world of disruption.
I don’t have a preference for a specific type of AI image. My background is in architecture and design, but I also love photography, fashion, cooking and music. One day I can focus my efforts on architecture and another day on product design like sneakers. However, fashion with AI attracts me a lot.
José Parra, @chemaparsanz
Photographic sharpness
The sharpness and level of details make the face of "The funny man" very realistic in print on an uncoated magazine paper. You can almost touch and feel his lower lip, his nose, and his moustache.
The turquoise-blue colours were adjusted in prepress to make sure the print result would be as sharp and vivid as the digital original. And just look at how the strands of hair stand out from the background ...
How the AI portrait image was made and printed
* /Imagine:
Writing "*/Imagine" followed by a prompt initiates the image generation in the program used, and some of the AI prompts for making this image were:
- colourful futurism
- fashion photography
- photo realistic hyperbole
- lively and energetic
- high resolution
- cute
Format and sizes
The image was delivered in a png. format, packed in a size of 54 MB, and opened up in 124 MB to a size of 450 x 689 mm in a 300 dpi resolution. It was offset printed in full page size 200 x 265 mm, on uncoated magazine paper Holmen TRND 80 gsm.
Preparing for print
This AI portrait is both colourful and photorealistic. It transferred exceptionally well to print. The image was delivered in a .png format, which is one of the most common raster image formats for digital graphics on the web. Since the format is uncompressed it can be used for high-quality images, and this image was large enough to function well in print up to a smaller poster size, 45 x 70 cm.
The photographic quality and the strong colours, especially the clarity of the man's eyes, make the image stand out. The man's eyebrows, viewed through his glasses, protrude in detail from the background on screen and in print. The prepress technician made some fine-tuning with regards to colours and contrast, but he has nothing but praise for the print result – which you can examine too, if you order the free printed magazine by the link at the bottom of the page.
The prepress perspective
We spoke to Jens Jörgensen, prepress technician at content agency OTW, about how he handled the details of this AI image with photographic quality. Here are his comments about the process.
What are the challenges with photorealistic images?
When an image has this many details and this level of sharpness, it becomes important to have enough processing power on the computer to be able to handle it. The file size will be big because the image contains a lot of information especially if you plan to print it in a larger size. Read more about image sizes and formats here.
How do you make sure the image will not look flat in print?
The screen provides light behind the image in a way that paper does not. Details such as the thin white hairs may end up less visible if the contrast is too low to define them.
A colourful image may look "flatter" in print if the colour conversion is made with the wrong ICC profile or with no ICC profile. When you convert the RGB colour range to CMYK for printing, make sure you know the paper and printing method that's going to be used. Every time an image is converted, parts of the colour information get lost, and you want to keep as much information as possible. It isn't always easy to know which ICC profile to use, so the best way is to check with the printer and/or the paper supplier. Speak to the printing company about how they want the original material to be delivered, and how to handle the colour conversion.
How do you make the turquoise-blue colours so rich?
In an offset printing press, the colours cyan, magenta, yellow and black are used for the four printing plates. It depends on the exact colour nuance how many of these basic colour plates will be needed to get the final colour. Therefore it may be a good idea to add a small touch of a complement colour to make a specific colour stand out when there are lots of other mixed colours around, because there will be more colour in the image when more of the printing plates are used. Of course, this trick should not be overused.
In this image, a touch of magenta was added to the irises of the man, and to the left part of his head, in order to keep the turquoise-blue colours rich and full. The left eye, which is in shadow, needed some small light retouching to not become too dark. The eyes and the eyelids around them actually look even more real in print than on the screen.
What do you say about the print result?
Incredibly clear details! Get the free magazine and look at the result!
About the images
Learn more about how to prepare AI images in general to get the best possible reproduction in print.
See the images in print in our customer magazine!
Jens Jörgensen works as pre-press professional at content agency OTW in Stockholm, Sweden, with an avid interest in images and print for more than fifteen years. We asked him to share his methods for ensuring the best possible print result in three AI-generated images with different motives.