“Viewers are human”

From personal experience, viewers know how hard it is to make a photograph that looks impressive without doctoring it.

“No matter what the subject, the surest way to improve a photograph’s appearance is usually going to be by doctoring or aigmenting it, not by leaving it largely ‘as is’ so that it qualifies as TTG.”

And, thanks to smartphones, viewers know how easy it now is to doctor a photograph to make it look more impressive.

Viewers are understandably curious about “Wow” photographs that they encounter. Viewers are human and naturally want to compare other photographers’ skills to their own.

So viewers who find a photograph to be impressive-looking are usually going to be even more impressed if they find out that it is undoctored with no AI-GC added.

It’s the greatest challenge in 21st-century photography

“The more impressive a photograph looks, the more likely viewers are to assume that it is doctored or aigmented.” —FAQ #919

“Viewers are often disappointed when they learn that what they had thought was an undoctored photo turns out to be doctored or augmented, but that disappointment rarely goes in the opposite direction: viewers are rarely disappointed to learn that what they had thought was a doctored or aigmented photo turns out to be undoctored.” —FAQ #910