These days, everyone needs professional headshotsâbut especially creators.
There are so many places online where weâre expected to have photos of ourselves, such as our LinkedIn profiles or our bios on speaker pages for conferences.
For those of us building businesses attached to our personal brand, the expectation is even higher. People typically want to see us in action, and the more we integrate ourselves into our content, the better it performs.
But getting professional photos taken is a big undertaking that often looks like this:
Find a good photographer and pay a lot of money to book them.
Stress about choosing the right outfit and spend money on a new one.
Spend time and money on personal grooming like a haircut or makeup.
Spend several hours getting photos taken, and if youâre like me, feel really awkward the entire time.
Wait several weeks for the photographer to edit the photos and send them to you.
What if, instead, you could get professional photos in a couple of hours for only $35?
This is the promise of Aragon.ai! I decided to try it out. Keep reading to see my results!
Table of Contents
How Aragon.ai Works đ¤
My Aragon.ai Headshot Results đď¸
Is Aragon.ai Worth It? âď¸
How Aragon.ai Works đ¤
Aragon.ai is a tool that generates brand-new, professional-looking headshots based on the ârealâ photos you submit.
Itâs quite highly rated, and Iâve frequently seen it recommended as the most realistic AI headshot tool.
According to their homepage, theyâve already generated 25 million headshots, which likely represents around 250,000 customers.
And their Trustpilot rating is Excellent with an average of 4.7 out of 5 after 285 reviews.
Given how much I loathe getting my photo taken, I knew I had to try it!
To generate photos, you first fill in a survey that asks about your gender, age, eye color, hair color, and ethnicity. This probably sets some parameters to ensure the generated images donât get too far off track from what you look like. It may also add some parameters you donât want, as Iâll point out later.
After you fill in the survey, youâll need to upload 6-10 photos of yourself. Make sure you read the photo requirements for the best results. No hats, tank tops, silly faces, weird angles, etc.
I uploaded a mix of professional and everyday photos. The only rule I ignored was no tank tops. I almost always wear a tank top and a hat, so it was hard to find enough photos that met all the requirements. I figured the tank top shouldnât affect how my face is generated, but a hat or side view would. I also hoped it would influence the outfit choices for headshots. Spoiler: It didnât.
Here are a couple of the photos I uploaded so you can see what I actually look like. Professional photographers in Toronto took both. (I highly recommend them both, so let me know in the comments if you need a referral.)
After you upload your photos, youâll be prompted to choose a package. I went with the $45 package to get more photos and variety. When I got my results, I was given 100 total photos (the 60 I paid for plus 40 bonus photos).
It probably doesnât cost Aragon.ai much to generate more photos than you paid for, but it reduces the likelihood youâll be unhappy and want a refund, so itâs a great tactic on their part.
The final step after paying is to choose your outfits. There are three options: professional, casual, and business casual. I chose all three to see all the options.
Your photos are supposed to be generated in 1-2 hours, but mine were ready much faster.
My Aragon.ai Headshot Results đď¸
I was initially pretty disappointed with my results, but in retrospect, I probably set my expectations too high after hearing others talk about Aragon.ai. I did get a few photos that I could see myself using, which I guess is pretty good value for $45.
For example, this one looks like a very touched-up photo of me. The teeth are slightly off if you zoom in, but most people wouldnât. My hair also looks pretty natural, and I could see myself wearing this shirt.
However, most of the images donât look like me at bestâŚand look extremely fake, at worst.
This one looks like a completely different person.
And this one doesnât look like a real person at all!
Even the ones that look like me have issues:
It removed my freckles. Sometimes, theyâre not as obvious in photos depending on the light, but itâs kind of crazy for such an identifying detail of my appearance to completely disappear. I guess this is too hard for AI to generate accurately right now.
It added a pushup bra. As someone with an athletic build, itâs pretty crazy that many of the photos appear as though I moved up a cup size and am wearing a pushup bra. Not only is this completely different from the photos I submitted, but itâs also not whatâs in style right now.
It struggles a lot with teeth. My teeth look really off in many of the photos, and from reading reviews, this seems to be a common experience. The AI clearly struggles to generate this.
It only generated open-mouth smiles. I take a lot of photos with both open and closed-mouth smiles. I made sure to submit both so that I would get both back, but every single image had me smiling with my mouth open. This is kind of surprising, considering how much the tool struggles with teeth!
The outfits are ugly. I really donât like the clothing in most of the photos. Even if otherwise accurate, itâs hard to like and want to use an image of yourself when you donât like the outfit. There should be more input into the clothing choices since this is probably pretty easy for Aragon.ai to generate.
They look like glamour shots. All the images look extremely touched up, even if theyâre otherwise supposed to look casual. They remind me of the glamour shots teens used to get at the mall in the 90s.
Here are a couple of examples of almost useable photos.
This one looks mostly like me, but I would never wear this shirt.
This one almost looks like me, and while I wish I had these cheekbones, I wouldnât wear this bra. And if Iâm being honest, I probably wouldnât wear this shirt either.
Is Aragon.ai Worth It? âď¸
If you donât have any professional photos or you just want to play around, then maybe.
But another option you should consider is editing selfies to look more professional using Nano Banana. It will look more realistic, and youâll have more control over the results.
This was a fun experiment, and I will definitely repeat it in the future to see how the technology improves.
Iâm personally unlikely to use any of the images I generated, but Iâm also lucky enough to have a bunch of professionally shot photographs I can pull from when needed.
If you donât have professional photos, this is a very easy and cheap way to get some. Out of a hundred images generated, you might only get a handful that are good enough to use, but thatâs really all most people need.
If you do decide to try it yourself, Iâd love to hear about the results! Come back and share your experience in the comments so others can learn from it, too!
To endless possibilities,
Casandra
PS. If you found this interesting, please tap the â¤ď¸ below. It helps me out a lot!
cool, you rock, cheers!
Okay, you made me try it đ Let's wait and see what I get.
As someone who doesn't know what you look like, Casandra, I must admit that almost every image you've put here could fool me into thinking it's a real image of you. I think this is a good option for internet personalities (e.g., Substack writers), where 99% of their audience doesn't really know how they look.