An Acceptance Checklist: Telling a Good Generated Frame From an Almost-Good One

A generated frame is not assessed the way a photograph is. In photography, defects are uniform — noise, missed focus, a tilted horizon. In generation they are local and they hide: the frame makes an excellent overall impression, and on closer inspection there are six fingers. So checking has to go zone by zone, in a fixed order.

Order matters more than attentiveness

Looking at the whole frame lets perception fill in the gaps — the same mechanism that hides typos in your own writing. A sequential zone check defeats it: each time you look at one thing and attention cannot slide off.

1. Likeness

First and most important. Do not judge "similar or not" as a whole; check three anchors: eye spacing relative to face width, the profile shape of the nose, the jawline. If two of the three feel like someone else's, no retouching will save the frame.

A useful trick: open the source and the result side by side at the same size. Discrepancies invisible from memory become obvious in comparison.

2. Eyes

The commonest zone for subtle defects. Check whether both eyes look the same way, whether catchlights are symmetrical, whether the pupils match in size and shape, whether the iris edge is natural.

Divergent gaze is the defect a viewer registers as "something is wrong with that face" without being able to name it.

3. Hands and fingers

The famous weakness. Count the fingers. Check the direction of the joints, the length relative to the palm, the position of the thumb. If hands are not needed in the frame, the best move is to pick a frame without them.

4. Small details near the face

• Earrings: frequently asymmetric or merged with the earlobe.
• Glasses frames: check that the temple arm goes behind the ear rather than ending in mid-air.
• Buttons and collar: asymmetric fastenings are a classic generation tell.
• Teeth: with a wide smile, check the count and the edges.

5. Text and logos

Any lettering in frame is a near-guaranteed defect. Text on clothing, signage in the background, writing on objects all turn into pseudo-letters. If text is present, either crop it out or reject the frame.

6. Light and physics

Check that shadows fall in one direction and agree with the visible light source. Second, the person's shadow on the background: it should either be there and correctly directed, or absent entirely; the half-measure looks wrong.

Third, reflections — in glasses, in a window, in metal. A reflection that does not match the scene reads as an error even in peripheral vision.

7. Display size

The last check is the most underrated. Shrink the frame to the size it will be seen at: a messenger avatar, a feed card, a list thumbnail. Defects critical at full screen may vanish; but so may the virtues — a complex composition turns to mush.

When to rerun and when to fix

Problems with likeness, light and composition call for a rerun with a different source or style. Local defects (a finger, an earring, a button) are sometimes cheaper to crop away: trimming a hand out of frame beats chasing correct anatomy through repeated runs.

If a frame fails three or more zones, fixing is pointless: it is not "almost right" but a different result that happens to resemble the one you wanted.