AI Art Detector: Checking Artwork Without Wronging Artists

An AI art detector is a model trained to spot the statistical traces image generators leave in pixels. It returns a score, and our checker turns that into a likely answer with a range and a list of reasons. What it can't see is how the picture was made: no brush history, no sketch, no hours of work.

That matters more for art than for anything else, because a judge or teacher who treats a score as a verdict can disqualify someone who drew every line by hand. The checker above is our free AI image detection tool with wording set up for artwork; it reads Content Credentials and metadata first and calls a model only when those can't settle it.

In our test, Sightengine recognised every Midjourney, Nano Banana, Seedream and Stable Diffusion XL image we gave it, all 10 GPT Image pictures and 8 of 9 FLUX images. Hive missed a few more, most clearly on FLUX, where it caught 6 of 9.

Midjourney deserves a note: none of its 7 original files carried Content Credentials, so a Midjourney piece is never settled by the credentials step and always goes to the model.

One honest limit: most of our AI test images were photo-style, only a few were illustrations, and none of our real images were hand-made artwork. We have no measured false-alarm rate for human drawings and paintings, so read any answer on artwork with extra caution.

An AI art detector is useful for deciding whom to ask for more evidence, and harmful when it is used to decide whom to disqualify. These five rules keep a contest or a class on the right side of that line.

• Write the rule before entries open: what counts as AI use (generating, AI fill, AI upscaling, AI references) and what proof you may ask for.
• Use a detector to decide whom to ask, not whom to disqualify. A Likely AI-generated answer is a reason to request process evidence.
• Ask privately and give a fair deadline. A time-lapse or a layered file answers the question better than any score.
• Never post a score or name an entrant or student on the strength of a detector alone.
• Keep a short record of what you asked for and what you received, in case the decision is appealed.

The cheapest time to gather evidence is while you draw. Turn on time-lapse before the first stroke: Procreate records it by default on new canvases, Clip Studio Paint has a Record timelapse option in its File menu (switching it off deletes the recording, so leave it on), and Krita's Recorder docker saves snapshots as you paint.

Keep the layered file, not just the export, and save or post dated work-in-progress images. None of this proves anything on its own, but together it builds a timeline that is far harder to fake than a finished picture. The checklist above ranks each kind of evidence.

If an AI art detector flags your work, the score is the start of a conversation, not the end of it. Stay calm and answer with process evidence, strongest first.

1. Ask which tool was used and exactly what it reported.
2. Send your strongest evidence first: the time-lapse and the layered file.
3. If the dispute continues, offer a live redraw of a detail.
4. If you run the piece through our checker and get Likely AI-generated, don't panic. As explained above, we haven't measured how often hand-made art is misread, and we would rather tell you that than lean on a number we can't back up.

Plenty of artists use AI for part of the job: generative fill, upscaling, a quick reference. The IPTC vocabulary that photographers and newsrooms use for image metadata keeps that apart from full generation, with one term for "Edited using Generative AI" and another for "Created using Generative AI".

When a file's credentials or metadata say it was edited with AI, our checker gives a fourth answer, Edited with AI, instead of forcing a yes or a no. Whether that is allowed is for the contest or class rules to say, which is one more reason to write them down first.

No. It can only say how likely the pixels came from a generator. Proof of process comes from your own files: a time-lapse, the layers, dated work-in-progress.

A time-lapse of the whole piece, then the layered working file. Together they show the picture being built, which a finished image can't.

Yes. Adobe's free Content Authenticity app lets creators attach Content Credentials to their work. They show that you signed and published the file, not how you made it, so keep your process files as well.

We didn't test that, so we can't say. A detector judges the finished pixels; for mixed work, process evidence is what settles the question.