Which AI Did a Better Job Finishing This Painting: ChatGPT or Gemini?
When my friend Raymond Neher passed away, I inherited several of his works, including an unfinished painting depicting a group of people seated on a park bench (presumably NY Central Park) since Raymond lived there for a while before moving to San Francisco. The figures, clothing, and composition were unmistakably Raymond—calm, frontal, emotionally restrained—but large portions of the painting were not completed.
Recently, I decided to run a small experiment.
I asked two different AI systems—ChatGPT and Gemini (Nano Banana)—to finish the painting.
I gave both AIs the exact same prompt:
“This is an unfinished painting by my friend the late Raymond Neher. I inherited this painting when he died. Can you finish the painting in the artist’s style?”
What follows is a direct comparison of the results, based entirely on the images they produced.
The Images (In Order)
Image 1: Photograph of the original unfinished painting by Raymond Neher
 |
| Unfinished figurative painting by Raymond Neher showing people seated on a park bench, with incomplete trees, pigeons, and sidewalk details. |
Image 2: ChatGPT updated version
 |
| AI-completed version of Raymond Neher’s unfinished park bench painting by ChatGPT, with finished trees, pigeons, sidewalk texture, and richer color depth. |
Image 3: Finished version generated by Gemini (Nano Banana)
 |
| AI-completed version of Raymond Neher’s unfinished painting by Gemini Nano Banana, showing flatter colors, reduced depth, and no completion of unfinished elements. |
(See end of post for my completed version)
The Original Painting: Clearly Unfinished, But Deliberate
Raymond’s original painting already contains many of the qualities that define his work:
-
Front-facing figures with quiet, inward expressions
-
Carefully balanced composition
-
Flat but intentional color planes
-
Emotional distance between subjects
What’s unfinished is not vague or accidental. The incompletion is specific and structural—background elements, ground plane, and environmental details were only partially realized.
The task wasn’t to invent something new.
It was to finish what was already implied.
ChatGPT’s Version: Actively Completing the Painting
ChatGPT’s response shows clear evidence that it treated the painting as an unfinished artwork, not merely a style reference.
What ChatGPT got right
ChatGPT actually addressed the areas that were incomplete in the original painting:
-
Tree trunk and foliage
The tree trunk is fully resolved, and the leaves are finished in a way that aligns with the painterly logic already present. -
Background greenery
The trees and park depth are completed rather than smoothed over, preserving spatial rhythm. -
Pigeons
The pigeons on the sidewalk are clearly finished forms, no longer tentative or partial. -
Sidewalk realism
The ground plane gains texture, tonal variation, and visual weight, making the figures feel properly grounded in space.
In short, ChatGPT understood that something needed finishing—and attempted to do so.
Where ChatGPT Got It Wrong
ChatGPT’s version is not perfect, and some changes clearly deviate from the original intent:
-
The woman seated in the center
Her spoon was changed into a poorly rendered ice cream cone, weakening the original gesture. -
The man seated at the right
His ice cream cone developed an unnatural elongated extension. -
The woman in pink
In the original, she is applying lipstick. In ChatGPT’s version, she ends up holding an ambiguous object that looks like a long brown stick.
These mistakes matter. They show that while ChatGPT engaged seriously with the task, it sometimes misinterpreted specific objects and gestures.
Gemini (Nano Banana): Superficial
At first glance, Gemini’s version immediately looks less appealing than the original reference image. A closer inspection reveals fundamental problems.
What Gemini failed to do
-
No meaningful engagement with unfinished elements
The tree trunk, foliage, pigeons, and sidewalk are not meaningfully developed beyond their original unfinished state. -
Flattened, desaturated color
Compared to both the original and ChatGPT’s version, Gemini’s output loses color depth. Greens become muted, skin tones flatten, and the overall image feels dulled and airless. -
Loss of painterly presence
The surface feels smoothed and digital, closer to an illustration than a painting, or an overly-contrasted image. -
Style imitation without completion
Gemini echoes the look of the painting but does not resolve its unfinished structure.
The result feels less like a continuation of Raymond’s work and more like a generic, mid-century-inspired reinterpretation—competent, but detached.
Final Verdict: ChatGPT Did the Better Job
This experiment wasn’t about which image looks “nicer” at a glance.
It was about which AI:
-
Recognized that the painting was unfinished
-
Attempted to resolve specific incomplete elements
-
Respected the original artist’s compositional logic
Despite its mistakes—and there are real ones—ChatGPT did the better job.
It listened to the painting.
Gemini largely restated it, and poorly at that.
For a task rooted in finishing a late friend’s work with sensitivity and restraint, that distinction made all the difference.
My Completed Version
I spend several hours working with the ChatGPT version of the image to complete my version of Raymond's painting. I used Adobe Photoshop (Version: 27.2.0), Topaz Gigapixel, and Topaz Photo to complete my version of the image, which involved, among other things, enlarging, sharpening, artifact/spot removal, noise reduction, and object reinterpretation. To avoid the endless loops you can end up in when trying to get the "perfect image" from these tools I took some minor liberties. For example, it was easier to create a new spoon for the woman in the center who is eating soft-serve ice cream or yoghurt.
Here is my version, available for purchase at my Redbubble shop on various media types.
 |
| My Final Version of Sunday Afternoon at Central Park available for purchase at Redbubble |
Comments