AI has become a big part of photography and video today. Many creatives now use it to clean up photos, fix lighting, remove small flaws, and speed up their editing. Used well, it is a helpful tool. It saves time and can make good work even better.
But there is a line we should not cross.
Not long ago, a photographer was called out for how he used AI in his edits. The problem was not that he used AI. The problem was the result. The editing changed the subject's face so much that she no longer looked like herself. To many who saw it, it looked like a photo of a completely different person. For the woman in the photo, that is not a small thing. A portrait is meant to show who you are, not turn you into someone else.
What made it worse, at least from my point of view, was how the photographer responded. Instead of listening and owning the mistake, he seemed to brush it off. To me, it didn't feel like he took responsibility. And I think that's where trust starts to get lost. In my opinion, clients don't only pay for nice photos. They trust us with their faces, their memories, and their moments.
Now compare that to a good example. In the Miss Bogo 2026 pageant highlights video, AI was used to add smooth transitions between clips and to build up the look of the stage. The result was clean and exciting to watch, and it made the whole production feel bigger. But here is the key part. The candidates still looked like themselves. Their faces were not changed. AI was used to lift the video, not to fake the people in it. That is the right way to do it.
Click here to watch the Miss Bogo video.
So how do we use AI the right way?
First, keep the person recognizable. Enhance, do not replace. It is fine to soften the light, clean up the background, or add nice transitions and effects. It is not fine to reshape someone's face until they disappear. If your edit makes the subject look like a stranger, you have gone too far.
Second, be honest about your process. If a client asks how much editing was done, tell the truth. There is no shame in using AI. The shame is in hiding it and pretending otherwise.
And when someone raises a concern, listen. Owning a mistake does not make you a worse photographer. It makes you a better one. The photographers people keep coming back to are the ones who are humble, who fix what they got wrong, and who respect the person in front of the lens.
AI is here to stay, and that is not a bad thing. Used the right way, like in that pageant video, it can lift our work and give our audience something special. But the tool should serve the person in the photo, not erase her. If we keep that in mind, we can enjoy the good of AI without losing the trust our work is built on.
A quick note: this post was written with the help of AI. The thoughts here are mine. I simply used the tool to help put them into words.
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