Nasty AI food posters

[saltshaker99]

I went into town today and to a touristy bit with a lot of food stalls, I hadn't been in a while so this took me by surprise. The sheer amount of food places that have really terrible looking AI images on them. The better ones looking like plastic food and the worse ones looking like trypophobic brain surgery. There's a cheapie pizza place that used to have a poster of a nice looking pizza in the window and I used to always crave pizza when I walked past. They've changed it to a picture of a pizza looking like it's made out of play-doh and doesn't have cheese on it. Well I'm not going to crave pizza anymore when I walk past! I'm wondering, truly wondering, what is going through the owners heads when they put these up. Do they think it looks nice??? These places had normal pictures up before so it looks like they've made the active decision to take down their old pictures and replace with AI. Maybe it was a little while ago and they saw this new thing that can make a picture for you, and thought that's sooooo cool I want this modern thing for my shop! And now they regret it because everyone else did the same thing and it just looks cheap and embarrassing now.

It's all bollocks anyway.

Even going back decades have you ever seen a McDonald's burger that looks like the actual photo?

It's the same with KFC and most places really.

Now they've just replaced photoshop with AI images.

I saw a documentary once where they showed how supermarkets stuff their turkeys with newspaper and paint them with wood stain and varnish, to get the 'perfect Christmas dinner' magazine shots.

I can't stand these awful flat-looking muddy-coloured AI posters in coffee shops and online for events. All with the same awful font. It's an immediate no from me.

If the old posters were absolutely fine, why would they change them? That makes no sense.

They are everywhere! I just completely ignore them all.

AI slop. foods probably worse. avoid

10 years ago, the outlets Photoshopped their images to make that burger look bigger.

The term AI is so over-used now. It's only AI if it uses machine learning / neural networks. Chances are, these images are still using Photoshop with the tools built in that are marketed as "AI" but aren't.

I don't think it's really the same thing, the purpose of editing the photos was to make the food look better than it is. This is making the food look worse than it is/not like an edible object.

If they're generating images then it's AI surely. I'm not taking about edited images here.

There's always been plastic looking burgers and lettuce though.

I think they've just modernised the way they lie.

I know what you mean, Im not sure why people are talking about photoshop. AI is so obvious and fake looking, in a different way to photoshop.

Can’t stand the instant created AI posters. Especially for independent local businesses, who used to have personal looking posters and adverts now have these incredibly tacky things with words and images all over the place.

Always with random value-type slogans:
“Eat enjoy love” 😂

trypophobic brain surgery
It looked like what now?

I hate them too. They all look the same. Surely you want your advertisement to stand out from the rest?

The issue is that before AI, food photography took a lot of skill and was probably quite an expensive investment by the business. As above poster mentioned, a food photographer has to essentially "fake" the food item in order for it to look presentable. For example, most dairy products you see in commercials and posters (you know, the ones with berries floating on top) are not yoghurts or mil at all but PVA glue because it has the right viscosity for a nice shot and objects sit on top of it rather than sink into it. The correct lighting, the editing... all takes time and skill and, therefore, money. I am fairly certain that most little independent places used stock images in the past anyway. Now, they don't have to bother with any of it. If their posters need updating (as they often do when the price changes or posters themselves deteriorate over time), it's far cheaper to use AI. Obviously, that doesn't mean they do a good job...but I can understand it from the cost-saving perspective.

On a similar vein, I am in various Facebook groups for my (fairly rare) health condition and people are constantly spamming them with shit AI posters about the condition. It is so annoying!

Yeah it's the AI event flyers/birthday party invites that I loathe. Soulless, flat and always with an edge of uncanny.

Well you walked past before they were using AI posters and you are still walking past so the posters aren't making any difference to how much you are spending there.

I see plenty of places with these posters now and they generally seem to be doing good business - if it saves them money and doesn't impact their sales why wouldn't they use them.

I know the trypophobia-alert image, I think. Or maybe there’s lots of it about.
There’s something on posters dotted around my city masquerading as a filled sarnie roll, and every time the damn ad crosses my screen here I flinch, my brain squirms horribly, and I almost vomit. At stage I’m fear of encountering it again. Yeuuuch.

(Since public reaction to AI in this sphere is so negative, why do they persevere? It’s like those artificial voiceovers on many a YouTube thing: very, very lifelike until they make a catatsrophic and hilarious error in pronunciation, then the entire info video is ruined. Why not use the nearest idle human to read the script? Doesn't have to be Greg Wise, fgs.)

Yeah but if you see those ones on holidays abroad they always look disgusting

This is what I’m thinking…

Frozen food boxes the contents bear no correlation to the lovely photo on the out
Big flakey bits of cod/haddock white gorgeousness

Reality insipid grey shite.

These AI slop posters are awful - they’re all over Facebook advertising events or services. Lots of the local businesses in my town are using them too.

If a business can’t be bothered to put at least some time (or a small bit of budget) into their marketing, I can’t be arsed to spend any money there. No marketing = no sales. At least try and use a Canva template for some sort of variety - most are free. Or whatever happened to paying a local graphic designer, who actually has skills, to produce some eye catching branding/marketing materials.

I think this is the opposite of what I'm talking about. You're describing misleading images that make a product look better. That has its own problems but I understand why manufacturers do it. This I don't understand because it makes the food look inedible. You don't get AI food images that look gorgeous.

Thanks I will Google can't say I've saw any tbh.