Wondering how you’d look as a painting or a sketch? AI portrait generators make it easy to transform your regular photos into artistic creations. Platforms like Canva and Fotor offer simple tools where you can upload a photo and choose from various art styles to create a personalized portrait. You don’t need any special skills—just a few clicks, and you can see yourself in a whole new light.
Category: New Images
Goku AI: Bridging Images and Videos with Realism
ByteDance and the University of Hong Kong have introduced Goku and Goku+, AI models designed to generate both images and videos. These models aim to produce high-quality visuals, with applications in content creation, advertising, and marketing. The release includes demos showing detailed animations, cinematic shots, and lifelike video scenes.
While details about their accessibility and broader use cases are still emerging, the technology hints at a growing shift in how AI can assist in producing realistic video content efficiently. They show some of their versions of content that Sora previously produced – to my eye, the Sora ones look considerably better. You can explore more about these models here.
Ideogram’s 2a Model: Faster and More Affordable Image Generation
Ideogram has introduced its latest 2a model, designed to make creating images from text descriptions quicker and more budget-friendly. Users can now generate images in about 10 seconds, with a ‘2a Turbo’ option that delivers results even faster. Additionally, the new model is priced at half the cost of the previous version, Ideogram 2.0, making it more accessible for both personal and professional projects. You can explore these features through Ideogram’s web platform, API, or applications like Freepik, Poe, and Gamma.- Check it out
Generate Unlimited Images, 100% Free with Raphael AI
Raphael AI is a simple, no-sign-up image generator designed for anyone curious about creating visuals with AI. It lets you type what you imagine and watch it turn into an image—without worrying about usage limits or registration. You can even upload a reference image to help guide the result.
What’s nice is that it feels accessible, even if you’re not a designer or AI expert. Great for testing creative ideas, trying new styles, or just playing around—all free. Explore more here.
Bring Your Images to Life with Stable Virtual Camera
Stable Virtual Camera is a new tool from Stability AI designed to add movement and depth to still images. It turns your photos into short 3D videos by creating smooth, dynamic camera paths—making your pictures feel like they’re being filmed rather than just viewed. Instead of a flat image, you get a video that moves around the scene, offering a fresh perspective and more life-like visuals.
The tool gives everyday users a creative way to breathe new energy into their photos without needing complex editing skills. If you’re experimenting with visuals for fun or looking to add simple motion to a project, this update could make your images more engaging. You can check out more details and see examples here: Stable Virtual Camera
Google Lets You Really Edit Your images
Google just introduced a really great new feature to their free-to-use AI Studio called “Native Image Output.” This exciting addition not only lets Gemini create images, but even better, it allows Gemini to edit your existing images!
All you need to do is upload an image and describe what changes you’d like to see. Within moments, Gemini will provide you with your newly edited image. It’s that simple!
Here’s how to use it:
1. Go to Google AI Studio using this link https://aistudio.google.com/prompts/new_chat
2. Sign in with your Google Account.
3. Select “Create Prompt” in the left navigation bar.
4. Set the model to Gemini 2.0 Flash Experimental.
5. Ensure the output format is set to “Images and text” in the right hand settings sidebar.
6. Upload an image that you want edited using the + at the bottom right.
7. Describe the change that you want Gemini to make in your text prompt.
8. Click Run.
See it in action at this great video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDrjlE_ecSw
Image Generation Takes a Quantum Leap!
OpenAI, the company who makes ChatGPT just raised the bar in image generation. And within 24 hours my favorite image generator for the last year, Ideogram 2.0, released version 3.0. Both of these are game changers.
OpenAI played it smart this time, unlike when they announced their quantum leap in video generation, Sora, in February of 2024 and then didn’t release it until December, by which time many other companies had gone beyond it. So its release was kind of like a damp squib.
This time they said nothing and just released it and became the best image generator there is. They have finally retired my least favorite generator DALL-E3, thank goodness. They’re just calling it 4o Image Generation and you can access it by typing “Create Image” (or clicking on the 3 View Tools dots) right within ChatGPT, even the free version (which has limits as to how many images you can create).
What’s special about it? You can refine and edit your image via natural conversations, keeping what you like exactly as it is and only changing what you want changed, it delivers exactly what you ask it to, its handling of text, even long text is phenomenal, it’s photorealistic or whatever you want it to be, you can show it an image as a guide, and more. It can create beautiful promo pieces fully. It can accept a single image of you, or anybody, and you can place you or them in any environment. It will maintain character consistency from image to image, and more.
It uses a similar technology to the Google AI Studio one that I wrote about on Monday, but in my tests, It is better.
You can find out more at https://openai.com/index/introducing-4o-image-generation/
And yesterday Ideogram 3.0 came out, which is also a wonderfully enhanced version, with a lot of similar features. To prevent this post from becoming a book, you can see and read more about it at https://about.ideogram.ai/3.0
And now there’s also Reve, which is also excellent! https://preview.reve.art/app/explore
Image Makeover, Made Easy
A new feature in ChatGPT using GPT-4o now lets users blend the style of one image with another—kind of like giving your photos a wardrobe swap. Want your selfie to match the look of a dreamy landscape photo? This tool makes it easier to play around with visuals in fun and creative ways without needing any design background.
It’s built right into ChatGPT’s image tools, and it works by letting you pick one image for content and another for style. Whether you’re experimenting for a project or just curious about how your vacation pic might look with a vintage film vibe, it opens up a new way to get artistic with your images—no extra apps required. You can explore this feature through the tutorial here: Transferring Styles with GPT-4o
MidJourney’s Omni Reference: A New Approach to Visual Consistency
MidJourney’s latest feature, Omni Reference, offers users a method to maintain visual elements across multiple images. By allowing the inclusion of a specific reference image, users can guide the AI to incorporate particular characters or objects into new creations. This approach provides a level of consistency that can be beneficial for projects requiring uniformity in visual elements.What sets Omni Reference apart is its adaptability. Users can adjust the influence of the reference image, balancing between preserving specific details and allowing creative variation. This flexibility supports a range of applications, from storytelling to design, where maintaining certain visual aspects is important. Learn more
Lights, Camera, AI – Google’s New VEO 3 Creative Tools Step Up the Game
If you’ve ever played with AI-generated videos or images and felt something was missing—like sound that actually fits the scene or more natural camera movement—Google’s latest update might catch your eye. At its recent I/O event, Google rolled out a wave of creative upgrades, including VEO 3, which now lets you generate very high quality videos with synced sound effects, background audio, and even character dialogue. That’s a major step forward from other tools that leave users stitching things together manually.
What sets this update apart is how it brings everything under one roof. Their new FLOW platform combines tools so you can shape scenes, characters, and styles just by describing them in everyday language. Paired with updates to IMAGEN 4 for sharper image quality and text, and tools for consistent video editing in VEO 2, Google’s suite seems focused on making creativity more intuitive—even for those without a film or design background. That’s the good news. The bad news is that while VEO 3 has been released, it is proving to be rather inconsistent (buggy), many of the key features are not yet implemented, and worst of all, it costs $250 per month! Learn more here