My Review of Aragon.ai

Like everything I do, my quest for a decent headshot was a winding one. If you're interested in discovering my roadblocks, you can read my post here. 

I've read reviews of various AI headshot services, and each of them has plusses and minuses. My two determining factors in going with Aragon.ai were price and the number of source images required. Some sites require an inordinate number of source photos, which is something I don't possess; in fact, I barely scraped up enough to meet Aragon's requirements. And Aragon's price is reasonable. Its starter package costs $35.00 for 40 headshots, which turns out to be misleading, in a good way. The details also list one choice of attire and a 45-minute processing time, neither of which turns out to be true, nor does the "40 headshots" statement.

After applying its new user discount code, I spent $31.50 and not only got multiple clothing results, but 80 different headshots in about thirty minutes.

The app asks several questions in order to apply the appropriate edits, such as ethnicity, age*, hair and eye color, build. But its overall customizability is limited. It presents three background settings and asks you to choose three that you want (?). I guess you can rule out one or two, but that's not exactly what I expected. I assumed there would be an array of backgrounds, or at least more than three. The three choices are standard ~ city, nature, and, I guess, office, but there does turn out to be a tiny bit of variation within those backgrounds in the final output. It also presents three poses and asks the customer to select three. I'm not a fan of the "arms crossed" posture because it doesn't convey a very welcoming demeanor, but I just went with all three (because I really didn't know what I was doing). 

*I made the decision to choose the age range of 41-50, which was a compromise, really. The main characters in all my books are in their mid-thirties, and I don't want to be known as the old lady who writes about "young'uns". As I wrote in my earlier piece, I'll never be invited to appear on a podcast and I'm never going to be famous, so my choice is to present myself as an author who isn't far removed from the characters she writes.

One of my unfortunate decisions was to allow half and half ~ half images with glasses and half without. I do wear glasses in real life, but they're not as obtrusive as the eyeglass style Aragon went with. Really, that decision ended up cutting my "possibles" in half, so I essentially had 40 images to consider, which is still a lot. And once my results were available, I was asked a couple of survey questions, and since I couldn't honestly award the results a 5, I was granted something like 40 additional images. 

Bottom line price-wise, you get a lot for $31.50.

Now, to the images themselves. Some of them clearly look like AI, especially the full-body shots. The proportions are odd, like an exaggerated drawing of a cartoon character ~ kind of an hourglass figure, except the waist is absurdly tiny in comparison to the upper and lower torso. Also, many of the shots gave me the shoulders of a linebacker, or the David Byrne look.

 

Others have my neck too skinny to support the weight of my head. While AI has come a long way from the days of a woman with three hands, one of them disembodied, or six fingers, it's yet to be perfected. 

I'm not concerned that someone will suspect my headshot of being AI-generated; I just don't want the image to scream it. 

Now to the outfits. Perhaps there are customers out there who are going for the clown look, which requires Aragon to cater to that demographic. Somehow I doubt it. Most people generate AI headshots for professional purposes, and these ensembles don't cut it:

Trust me, no female Aragon employee came up with these suggestions. 

If there is an image for which you like everything except one element, you can edit it, but unfortunately with the basic package, you can only edit one photo, and only one time. If you are still dissatisfied with your edit, you're out of luck. 

And in response to the question I posed on my earlier thread, no, you cannot designate a different hairstyle, so I'm stuck with the short bangs and the overall lifeless cut. 

Out of the 120 images I received, I either sort of like or like about 19 of them. That's not a great percentage, but in reality I only needed one or maybe two acceptable photos. And for $31.50 it was worth it to me to have a professional headshot that I wouldn't or couldn't get through any other means.

Of course anyone taking the time to look at it will know right away that it's AI, but it's an AI depiction of me, not of someone else; say, a five foot-nine twenty-something bleached blonde. 

The first time I found a need to use an image, whether for a social media account or my author site, I used a royalty-free stock photo:

I convinced myself that it added to the "mystery" of my identity, when in fact it likely put people off (not that many people looked at it). Potential readers like to know if the author seems approachable. Having one's back to the camera doesn't exactly scream, "Welcome!"

Later, I graduated to the one (of two) barely acceptable photos of me in my possession. I may technically be an amateur, but I sure don't want to look like one, and these two cropped home-snapped photos of myself, both a bit out of focus, instantly gave my status away.

Now I can replace my bio photos on all the sites that ask for one with an actual, sharp, in-focus representation of me; one that makes me appear as if I know what I'm doing. 😜

Here is the Aragon image I'm now using for my website (note the shoulders ~ I hope no one else does):

I'm okay with it. "Okay" has less to do with Aragon's results than with my extreme self-consciousness about my looks.

If you're an author who's looking to portray a more professional image, Aragon.ai is pretty good. And the price is right.