My answer builds off of rdb's answer.

My understanding is that ～そう　for usage of "seems" cannot be used for actual information that is apparant.  I.e. you can't say "she looks cute" using そう for someone you are looking at.  Though, you get on the slipperly slope when you want to say something like "she sounds cute" after you get off a phone conversation. But then i think you'd use the "～く/に　聞こえる" grammatical pattern for that.

In terms of using "~く/に　みえる", rdb is right in that gives a completely different meaning to what you are looking.  I have always though about みえる as saying "She looks cute (but normally doesn'y/shouldn't)" connotation built in.