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Victor Kuznetsov
567f3ae729
Empirical conclusion from the 2026-06-04 - 2026-06-08 cert sweeps: every shipped face-restore method (GFPGAN-on-cleaned, PhotoMaker-V2, InstantID txt2img, InstantID img2img-on-cleaned at three parameter settings) regenerates the face from an ArcFace embedding via SDXL diffusion. Output face pixels are diffusion-fresh, which makes the regenerated face look MORE AI-generated than the cleaned image (gloss, symmetric pores, SDXL "clean skin" aesthetic) regardless of license. The cleaned image from the main controlnet 0.20 removal pass is the LEAST-AI state we can reach without re-introducing SynthID; any restore on top trades original-look for embedding-driven regeneration. The fundamental issue is structural: ArcFace encodes "general look" at 512 dimensions, SDXL decodes that into pixels with the inherent SDXL aesthetic. Stronger identity push (higher strength + IP-Adapter scale) makes the face closer to the embedding but more AI-looking; weaker push leaves identity to drift further. No parameter setting recovers original identity AND looks less AI than cleaned. Production conclusion: do not ship `--restore-faces` in any monetized deployment. The extras (`instantid`, `photomaker`) stay in the library for research / personal use where users explicitly want regeneration. Documented at every entry point: - CLAUDE.md: new "Face restore trade-off" bullet + every restore mention rewritten to "REGENERATES, does NOT recover"; controlnet bullet updated - README.md: feature bullet + callout + secondary mention all updated - docs/synthid-robust-identity-research-2026-06-08.md: appended "Empirical follow-up" section documenting the InstantID sweep phases (Phase 1 txt2img v1/v2/v3, Phase 2 img2img defaults + stronger params) - docs/controlnet-removal-pipeline-research.md: updated restore-faces bullet to reflect the empirical conclusion - CLI help: `_restore_faces_options` docstring + `--restore-faces` / `--restore-faces-method` help text all updated Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>