AI Image Generators
This list is not exhaustive. These are the apps that are currently powering most image generators out there. Some can even generate video now, but it's still fairly early on in development and often videos have a number of strange "hallucinations" or unwanted artifacts.
All images use this simple prompt: A rainbow colored giraffe painted in the style of Monet standing in a field of cotton candy flowers.
Updated 8/1/2024
DALL-E 2 via Bing Image Creator
DALL-E
This is OpenAI’s image generator (the same company that makes ChatGPT). DALL-E is a powerful image generator that can translate plain writing into complex images. It is built into ChatGPT 4 and powers Bing Image Creator. It is simple to use and creates great images, but is not widely accepted as the “best” one out there. It is not available for free.
Visit openai.com/index/dall-e-2/ to learn more and try it for yourself.
MidJourney
This image generator is unique in that it primarily operates through the chat program Discord - usually associated with online gamers. It is fairly easy to use, fast, and robust. But there is no free version. This one is often considered one of the best image generators out there. A benefit to using Stable Diffusion is being able to see other people’s images and the prompts they used to generate them.
MidJourney often produces some of the most interesting generated art out there. (Note how it looks much more painted than the others)
Visit midjourney.com/home to learn more and try it for yourself.
MidJourney via Discord
Stable Diffusion 3
Stable Diffusion
Stable Diffusion is another image generator that is probably the most commonly used across the internet - the reason being that it is an open-source application that can be downloaded and used for free operating on a local machine (like a home pc). The free version requires a decent amount of technical know-how but once it is set up it is fairly straightforward. There is also a paid version through StabilityAI’s ClipDrop - which allows internet-based interaction; it is not too expensive and allows access to a suite of tools for interacting with Stable Diffusion. Its most recent version Stable Diffusion 3 has just released and is far more sophisticated than the other image generators out there at the moment.
Visit stability.ai or clipdrop.co to learn more and try it for yourself.
Adobe Firefly
Adobe sets itself apart in a different way - all of its images used to develop its image generator are legally owned by Adobe. Firefly has the convenience of being fast, built into free apps like Adobe Express, and pretty accurate. Its text-to-image generator isn’t the best, but where Adobe Firefly shines is in its “generative fill” features which can add to preexisting images quickly and easily. It is also has a text-to-vector art feature in Illustrator which is a unique use of images that isn’t seen in many other apps.
Visit Adobe and try it out, or find it in any Adobe image software.
Adobe Firefly 3
Canva Magic Design
Canva Magic Media
Canva is known for its easy to use graphic design toolset, Magic Media is their suite of tools powered by AI. One of their features a Text to Image generation of word art turning words into designs using a given phrase and text to image prompt. Many of their tools are very easy to use but they do not match the quality of dedicated image generators.
Visit Canva and play with Magic Media on your next design. Canva also has text-to-video generation that uses Runway AI to create videos from a prompt.
A rainbow colored giraffe painted in the style of Monet standing in a field of cotton candy flowers.mp4Craiyon
Craiyon is a lightweight AI tool that is free to use indefinitely with watermarks and a somewhat slower speed. It is nowhere near as advanced as the other tools, but it is accessible and simple to use compared to some of the other tools and can perform basic tasks to add images to slides or projects.
The watermark is a small orange crayon in the bottom right corner (pictured) this can help identify an AI generated image as most generators will not identify themselves when used.
Go to craiyon.com to learn more and play with this simpler tool.
