5 Best AI Image Generators

The search for the best artificial intelligence image generators is tough. The AI image editors below are rapidly developing their unique language models while consistently delivering photo-realistic results.

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DALL-E 3

What We Like

OpenAI offers ChatGPT-4o and DALL-E 3 in the same subscription.
Doesn't generate violent, adult, or hateful content.
Easy to customize images with the chat.

What We Don't Like

It can generate images that are not realistic.
It's relatively basic (and restrictive) for those who need advanced image creation.
There is no standalone subscription separate from ChatGPT Plus.

DALL-E 3 is developed by OpenAI for advanced text-to-image generation. You can access it from ChatGPT Plus and Microsoft Designer on Bing. You can give it a simple text description called a prompt, and it will generate a highly detailed image. Like any other prompt, you can fine-tune it, and DALL.E 3 will make corrections and output four variations for you to pick from.

The latest version, DAL-.E 3, can understand far more and edit existing images or expand them beyond the original. You can use it in Bing with Microsoft Designer for free, alongside ChatGPT Plus. It's also part of the Copilot app on Android and iOS.

These platforms are ideal for beginners learning how AI image generation works with chat prompts.

Price: Part of the ChatGPT Plus subscription, which costs $20 per month.

Note

DALL.E is named after Salvador Dali, the famous Spanish surrealist painter, and Pixar’s 2008 movie, WALL-E.

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Midjourney

What We Like

High-quality and realistic images with more controls for upscaling and tweaks.
Feedback and collaboration through Discord helps improve prompts and final results.

What We Don't Like

There is no free plan.
You have to be familiar with Discord.
The open-by-default community may not be ideal for business use of images.

Midjourney is one of the best artificial intelligence image generators because it is an independent research lab tightly focused on AI image generation.

Midjourney is unique in two aspects: All images are public domain and visible at midjourney.com. Midjourney works with Discord.

While most AI image generators have native apps, the Midjourney bot works through the Discord app on your browser, mobile, or desktop. Then, you have to use Discord slash commands to start creating images. Then, Midjourney starts generating four unique images with each prompt. You can choose an image and use the control buttons below the image to upscale or manipulate your image further.

Price: The basic plan costs $10 per month.

Note

Each user is granted specific GPU time on the server per the subscription plan. Expect the image generation to take about a minute.

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Stability.AI

What We Like

The flexibility it offers as an open source tool.
You can use negative prompts to eliminate details you don't want.
Upload an image and use inpainting and outpainting to change the details.

What We Don't Like

Self-hosting is a technical barrier for newbies, though they can use the web tools.
As an open source tool, it may not have any in-built features to prevent misuse.

Stable Diffusion is an accessible and flexible generative AI technology you can host on your PC. The open-source tool can run on graphic cards on consumer PCs because of its unique "diffusion model."

As the code is public source, you can easily use it in different ways to generate photorealistic images, videos, 3D renders, and animations. You could start with two beginner-friendly AI image editors, Clipdrop and DreamStudio. Both web platforms use Stable Diffusion's generative models under the hood and differ only in the controls they offer you.

Clipdrop is simpler. You don't need an account to start with Clipdrop, though results can have watermarks. There is a generous free tier to avoid paying for the Pro plan.

DreamStudio is the official Stable Diffusion web app, which gives you more options to control. You can try different style presets and work with layers for advanced image editing.

The text prompt is at the heart of both. Craft it with enough context, remove unessential details with the negative prompt, and choose a Stable Diffusion model in the Settings to generate your first AI image.

Price: The basic Clipdrop plan is free. Start on Dreamstudio for free and receive 100 tokens, which can create up to 500 images. Additional tokens can be purchased.

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Adobe Firefly

What We Like

Integration with Adobe's Creative Cloud.
The potential uses of Generative Fill and Generative Expand in Photoshop.
It's copyright friendly as the model was trained on licensed images and public domain content.

What We Don't Like

The free Adobe Firefly is limited as a standalone web app.
It's not suitable for artists who don't use the Adobe suite.

Adobe has long been the last name in image editing, so it's no surprise that it is striving to rank among the best AI image generators. Adobe Firefly runs on their AI platform, Adobe Sensei, and is available for all Creative Cloud subscribers (select plans have generative credit limits). You can also try it in the Firefly web app.

Like all generative AI image models, you create images with text prompts. Adobe Firefly's features depend on the Adobe app you are using. Common areas covered include image and text effects, vector artwork, Generative Fill and Generative Expand in Adobe Photoshop, Text to Image in Adobe Firefly, Generative Recolor in Adobe Illustrator, and Text Effects in Adobe Express.

Price: The Firefly web app is free with 25 credits. Purchase the right Creative Suite plan to access Firefly in the Adobe apps.

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Nightcafe Creator

What We Like

It's a Swiss knife for AI image generation with support for multiple generative models.
You keep the copyright of your generated image (provided the original photo is copyright free).
Try out different AI image generation models in one app.

What We Don't Like

It's easy to use but not versatile for advanced creators.
The free plan only allows unlimited base Stable Diffusion creations for free (these are at thumbnail resolution).
There's no desktop app.

Nightcafe Creator doesn't use a generative AI algorithm of its own. However, it does give you access to text-to-image models like Stable Diffusion, DALL-E 2, Neural Style Transfer, VQGAN+CLIP & CLIP Guided Diffusion, and the Real-ESRGAN algorithm.

The AI art generator gives you nine AI generator modes, ranging from photorealistic images to fantasy-style images and abstract art. Then, with Style Transfer, you can transform images in the style of a favorite artist, like Van Gogh or Picasso. Both the web and mobile apps support bulk creation and bulk downloads.

Price: Higher-resolution photorealistic images cost credits, but everyone gets a free credit top-up every day. You can purchase tokens with the Nightcafe Pro plans.

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