Quick answer: don't regenerate the whole image. Upload it to the AI Anatomy Fixer, name the defect ("the left eye sits lower than the right, teeth are fused") and ask it to keep the person, expression and scene. If the face is right but the skin looks waxy, run Real Skin instead. If you have a real photo of the same person, the HD Face Restorer uses it as a reference. Upscale only after the face looks right. Every tool shows its credit cost before you run it.
Why AI distorts faces
A face packs the most detail people notice (eyes, teeth, lip edges) into a small area. Generators get it wrong most often when:
- The face is small in the frame. In a full-body or group shot, each face gets only a few pixels, so features blur and merge.
- The angle is extreme. Profiles, looking down and tilted heads have fewer good examples to draw on.
- Something covers the face. Hands, hair, glasses and props crossing the face confuse where features belong.
- The prompt asks for too much. A long list of features, emotions and styles pulls the face in several directions at once.
- The output was upscaled first. Upscaling a broken face makes the break sharper, not better.
Which fix for which distortion
| What you see | Use | What to write |
|---|---|---|
| Eyes at different heights, drifting pupils, mismatched irises | AI Anatomy Fixer | "Align both eyes at the same height, matching pupils, same eye colour. Keep everything else." |
| Fused or extra teeth, a mouth bleeding into the cheek | AI Anatomy Fixer | "Natural closed-lip smile, clean lip line. Keep the face shape and expression." |
| Melted or undefined features in a small face | AI Anatomy Fixer, after cropping to the face | "Rebuild a clear face with defined nose, eyes and mouth. Keep hair, lighting and pose." |
| The face drifted away from the real person | HD Face Restorer with a photo of them | "Restore the face from the reference photo. Keep the pose and lighting." |
| Closed eyes or a flat expression | Eye & Smile Fixer | "Open the eyes, soft natural smile." |
| Plastic, poreless, uncanny skin | Real Skin | No prompt needed. It rebuilds pores and stubble. |
Before and after from the Real Skin demo: the face, pose and light are unchanged; only the skin texture is rebuilt.
How to fix a distorted face, step by step
- Start from the original file, not a screenshot. Compression hides the detail the fixer needs.
- Crop closer if the face is tiny. Give the tool a frame where the face is a real part of the picture, then place the fix back into your layout.
- Name one defect at a time. "Fix the face" is vague. "The right eye is larger than the left" gets a targeted fix.
- Lock what should stay. End the instruction with "keep the same person, expression, hair, lighting and background."
- Compare at 100% zoom. Check eyes, teeth, ears and the hairline against the original.
- Fix the skin last. If the repaired face looks smooth or plastic, run Real Skin or the Plastic Skin Fixer.
- Upscale at the end with the 16K AI Upscaler if you need a bigger file.
How to prevent warped faces next time
- Frame the face larger. "Head-and-shoulders portrait" or "waist-up" gives the face room. For group shots, generate fewer people.
- Keep facial description short. Age, hair, one distinguishing feature and one expression are enough.
- Name the camera, not "perfect face". "85mm portrait lens, eye level, soft window light" works better than "flawless, symmetrical, beautiful".
- Avoid hands on the face unless the pose needs them.
- Keep one person consistent with a Character ID. A reference sheet of the same face stops drift across a series.
For more on making AI portraits read as real, see make AI images look real. Hands have their own guide: fix extra fingers in AI images.
What it costs
Face fixes are ordinary image edits and use credits. The Starter plan is $19.99/mo for 380 credits, and credit packs start at $39.99 for 350 credits. See pricing.
