My hand-drawn illustration got labeled AI on a print site. Why?
Most likely an automated check flagged it, and it was wrong. I cannot say which check the site ran, because they will not tell me, but I drew every line of this piece in Procreate and I have the layers to prove it. A false positive on real work is possible, and I am now treating it as a process problem rather than a personal one.
Cite
Creatisimo, "My hand-drawn illustration got labeled AI on a print site. Why?", https://creatisimo.net/topic/my-hand-drawn-illustration-got-labeled-ai-on-a-print-site-why/, accessed 2026-10-26.The piece is a children's book spread, soft watercolor texture brushes, a lot of smooth gradients, nothing photorealistic. I uploaded it to a print-on-demand marketplace and within a day the listing carried an "AI generated" label that I did not add. There was no message explaining why. Support replied with a template saying labels come from "automated and manual review".
What I have done so far:
- Asked support which signal triggered the label. No specific answer.
- Sent the layered file and a time-lapse export from Procreate. A person looked at it and the label is "under review".
- Checked whether my export had anything odd in the metadata. It lists the app and nothing else.
What I still want to know:
- What kinds of checks do marketplaces actually run, and could a clean illustration style trip them?
- Is there anything I can attach to the file that proves it is mine without handing over the project each time?
- Will this keep happening on every upload?
I am protective about this because my whole career depends on people believing a human drew these. I am also wary of claiming the site is doing something wrong when I only see my side. If someone has been through a wrongful label, I would like to hear how long it took to fix.
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