AI vs. Human: CEI Study Shows a 41.7% Quality Drop Compared to Humans in Product Photo Retouching
LEESBURG, VA – JANUARY 27, 2026 – Color Experts International, Inc. (CEI) today announced the findings of its rigorous head-to-head study, AI vs. Human Retouchers: A Comparison in Product Photo Retouching. The study evaluated OpenAI’s latest image generation model, GPT Image 1.5, Google’s Nano Banana Pro, and the earlier GPT Image 1 with CEI’s professional human retouchers across a wide range of product photography categories. These included cosmetics, hair care products, luxury goods, high-gloss materials, detailed labels, and products featuring complex textures.
The central conclusion is that while AI excels in speed and basic edits, human retouchers provide greater quality, consistency, and technical versatility necessary for production-ready output and complex tasks.
Speed and Quality
Nano Banana Pro completed edits in an average of 25.4 seconds, while human retouchers averaged 28 minutes and 39 seconds. Overall, AI tools were about 22.7 times faster than human retouchers, and Nano Banana Pro was 67.6× faster than human retouchers in this test set. However, quality remained human-led: human retouchers scored 8.85/10 on average, while AI tools averaged 5.16/10, or 41.7% lower overall (scored across 11 performance fields.) And Nano Banana Pro ranked highest among the AI tools at 6.00/10, but still trailed human output by 32.2% in quality.
Technical Versatility
The study found that AI tools struggled with technical versatility, often producing errors or misinterpretations on RAW and high-resolution TIFF files. For example, when asked to remove the background from a RAW image of a slingback heel, GPT Image 1.5 produced a white-background image of a stainless steel water bottle. In contrast, human retouchers worked seamlessly across all professional formats and file sizes, demonstrating their ability to meet diverse technical requirements.
The Future is Hybrid: Leveraging AI to Amplify Human Talent
The study’s hybrid tests show that when AI output maintains acceptable reusability score, human retouchers can complete the finishing work faster than a fully manual approach. In one hair and cosmetic care product example, a hybrid workflow took 7.18 minutes, compared to 10 minutes entirely by hand.
The findings also suggest that the effectiveness of a hybrid workflow depends on the specific capabilities and consistency of the AI model used.
“At Color Experts International, we are actively integrating new AI systems into our workflow. And this hybrid approach will allow us to optimize both quality and turnaround time, giving our customers the best of both worlds and enabling them to scale their visual content production seamlessly and affordably,” said Soel Molla, the chairperson and CEO of Color Experts International, Inc.
AI’s speed can greatly accelerate the simple edits, freeing human experts to focus on more complex tasks, refinement and quality control. This hybrid workflow is the emerging solution for meeting production demands without sacrificing quality.
About Color Experts International, Inc.
Founded by Dr. R.K. Molla and led by CEO Soel Molla, Color Experts International, Inc. has been a global leader in photography and videography post-production, graphic design, and multimedia services for over 30 years and has delivered more than 8 million edited images. With offices in the USA, Bangladesh, and UAE, and a team of 250+ skilled designers, CEI provides high-end retouching, video editing, and 3D modeling services supported by a 3-step quality control process, hybrid workflows, dedicated project managers, and 24/7 global support.
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