Parents are turning to ChatGPT to create school portraits of their children, cutting out the photographer to avoid paying for picture packages.
School photos can get expensive when there’s more than one child bringing home an order form. Some parents on TikTok have found a workaround: take the pictures themselves and let AI handle the backdrop.
As reported by Futurism, parents have been sharing how they use generative AI to turn ordinary snapshots into portraits resembling the ones they would normally buy through school.
The results have won over some families, although others have questioned whether the savings are worth uploading their children’s photos or ending up with an altered face.
Parents turn to ChatGPT for homemade school portraits
One example came from TikTok creator Carlie Bond, who photographed three of her children against a plain background before uploading the images to ChatGPT.
She asked the chatbot to preserve their appearance while making the shots look like school pictures. It added the familiar gradient backgrounds used in traditional portraits.
“School pictures x3 kids?? In this economy?” Bond wrote.
However, other commenters said their attempts had changed how their children looked, even when they specifically asked ChatGPT to preserve their features. Some also raised concerns about uploading children’s images to an AI service.
Some parents used a different tactic: using ChatGPT to remove watermarks from professional school photo proofs instead of buying the finished images.
One TikTok mom chimed in with her own video showcasing AI photos of her kids, commenting, “no longer getting scammed by the cost of school pictures.”
Parents in the comments shared their own frustrations with prices. One said photos for three children cost more than $100, while another put the price of four digital files at just under $170.
However, according to FastCompany, erasing watermarks from photos that haven’t been purchased could be considered copyright infringement. Should studios seek legal action, parents could be fined as much as $150,000.