It sounds like you're subjective experience of visualization is wildly different than the average, then. I think I have an excellent imagination and visualization ability, but it doesn't compare to just looking out my eyeballs in terms of resolution or cognitive load.
Look up aphantasia on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia they have a sidebar describing the spectrum of the ability to visualize images. The highest level is considered photographic. The other side is the inability to visualize anything.