Aria Menon

I remember the first time I watched an AI tool retouch a portrait in front of me. It removed blemishes, smoothed skin, adjusted lighting, and even reshaped a jawline—all in less than thirty seconds. It was jaw-dropping and unsettling at the same time. A part of me thought, “Wow, that’s the future.” Another part whispered,

There’s something almost unsettling about looking at an AI-generated portrait and feeling like the subject is looking back at you. The tilt of the head, the subtle curve of the lips, even the faint tension around the eyes—details that suggest not just anatomy but emotion. And yet, deep down, I know this “person” doesn’t exist.

I have to confess something: I can’t draw. Or at least, not in the way people usually mean. My notebooks are filled with stick figures and lopsided shapes that look like they’re auditioning for a children’s cartoon gone wrong. Yet the first time I uploaded one of those messy doodles into an AI platform and

I’ll be honest—picking a photo editing tool in 2025 feels a bit like standing in front of a buffet table that’s twenty feet long. Everywhere you turn, there’s something new, shiny, and promising to make your creative life easier. But here’s the tricky part: which one actually delivers, and which one’s just another dish that

I don’t know about you, but the first time I saw an AI-generated image that looked indistinguishable from a real photo, I felt two emotions at once: wonder and dread. Wonder, because the detail and artistry were breathtaking. Dread, because I realized almost instantly how this could be weaponized. It’s the double-edged sword of technology—we

I still remember the first time I tried to “edit” a photo. It was on an old Windows desktop, using Microsoft Paint of all things. I had this picture of my dog, and I thought I could make it look sharper by messing around with the contrast slider. Spoiler alert: it ended up looking like

I remember the first time I opened Photoshop. I was in college, staring at an interface that looked like the cockpit of a jetliner. Layers, masks, brushes—so many buttons I was terrified I’d break something just by clicking. But once I got past the fear, I felt powerful. Photoshop was the holy grail for creative