How do you maintain product accuracy when using AI to improve e-commerce images?

I say what I always say: If you do the original photography with a little care, you won’t need Photoshop much at all, and you certainly won’t need any AI.

Setting up the shot properly is much faster than trying to salvage a poor result later in Photoshop - AI or no AI!

Set up a good clean background. Then the critical part: use diffused soft light. A very simple and efficient way to do this, is to bounce a camera flash unit off the ceiling/nearby walls. Do not use direct  lamps or spots. This creates harsh, ugly shadows.

You do not have to spend a lot of money on this, just a bit of thought and consideration. I have to illustrate this with a more elaborate setup, but that’s not important; what’s important is the basic principle.

Note the flash on the left pointing up at the ceiling. This can sometimes be all it takes:

I have to be a little careful what images I post, but this one should be safe. This is straight out of the camera, no edits whatsoever - just a few global tonal/color adjustments:

I had mystery today. I’m selling a collection of lighting, reflectors etc. and use Gemini to sharpen.  A while later I was looking at the image and struggling to work out what this box was.  There’s a Bowens TravelPak to the left of it, and while it made no sense, it’s there, so WTH was it.

Then the penny dropped and I went back to earlier layers, and of course the AI had added it!  I love that I can pretend that I can actually draw now thanks to Gen AI, but by heck, you can’t trust it when dealing with reality.

Hi! The reliable rule is: never let the AI redraw the product itself — let it work on everything around the product, and keep the original product pixels untouched. A workflow that holds up well in Photoshop:

• Cut the product out of the original photo (Select Subject or the Object Selection tool, refined on a layer mask) and keep that layer on top, unedited. Its colours, materials, patterns and logos are then guaranteed to be the real ones, because they are the original pixels.

• Do all the AI work below that layer: select only the background area and use Generative Fill to replace/extend the scene, or generate the full background as its own layer. Put contact shadows/reflections on separate layers again, so they can be faded without touching the product.

• Blend by adjusting the background to the product, not the other way round — curves/colour adjustments clipped to the background layer — so the product's own colour values don't shift.

• For consistency across a set, reuse the same background/template file and the same adjustment layers for every shot, and only swap the product layer.

• Final QC at 100%: toggle the generated layers on and off against the original photo, and zoom into labels, stitching and logos — small text and fine patterns are exactly where generative results drift, and anything inside the product's outline should be original, not generated.

Hope that helps!