There are a lot of AI image generators out there right now. From DALL-E and Midjourney to Adobe Firefly and Stable Diffusion, we’re currently in a serious boom when it comes to technology that generate images from a single prompt.
Still, the technology is far from perfect. Whether it be illegible words on a sign or the mangled hands of uncanny valley residents, AI image generators are very much still getting their sea legs.
However, we had a chance to test Ideogram, the new image generator from Ideogram AI, and we’ll be the first to admit: We’re pretty impressed.
Ideogram Can Generate Lifelike Portraits
One of the hardest things for AI image generators to generate is people. Given all the detail of the human body, combined with the uncanny valley effect, makes it hard for robots to pull it off.
Ideogram really excels here, though. In fact, with my very first prompt testing out Ideogram, the AI image generator popped out a shockingly accurate and impressively realistic picture of a guy in a purple flannel wearing a dog on his head.
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This continued to be the case across my testing. Ideogram seems built to create effective and realistic portraits of humans that don’t have weird hands, scrunched faces, or any of the other AI faults that have become so common in the industry.
An AI imagine made with Ideogram from the prompt, "a guy wearing a purple flannel shirt carrying a large, hairy dog on his head."
An AI image from Ideogram made from the prompt, "a portrait of a tall guy with gold earrings in front of a donut shop."
An AI image from Ideogram made from the prompt, "a portrait of a short woman in a gown brushing her hair back in front of the Home Alone house."
Click the images above to see the prompts that generated them.
Ideogram Still Struggles with Complex Prompts
Of course, Ideogram is far from perfect. Given the AI image generation technology is still basically in its infancy, mistakes are all too common, and Ideogram isn’t so impressive that it evades this trend.
In fact, as soon as you go beyond the portrait shots, Ideogram get a little dicey. Group shots, for example, showed some truly horrific faces, while animal shots showed everything from slight imperfections to full-on disembodied frames. Even food pictures still have this oddly glossy finish that makes it far from appetizing.
Still, when you compare it to some of the errors from other AI image generators, it’s fairly par for the course, so we can’t hold it against Ideogram too much.
An AI image created by Ideogram from the prompt, "a low sunset on the beach with swaying palm trees and a dolphin doing a flip."
An AI image created by Ideogram from the prompt, "a group of people eating pizza with a fork and knife."
An AI image created by Ideogram from the prompt, "a group of people smiling and having a good time on top of a ufo."
An AI image created by Ideogram from the prompt, "a city skyline full of tall buildings but there are giant ants crawling on the windows."
Click the images above to see the prompts that generated them.
Will AI Image Generators Ever Be Perfect?
Yes, AI image generators are still finding their footing when it comes to nailing prompts, but as with any technology, it will evolve. Ideogram is proof of this, since it can handle realistic human shots much better than many options on the market today.
Still, the idea that AI image generators will ever be flawlessly perfect is hard to swallow. After all, they seem to struggle with so many basic images right now, and true realism is going to be just as unsettling as it is difficult to achieve.
If you want the best results from AI image generators, though, it’s all about the prompts. Check out our guide to some of the best prompts for AI services, so you can start utilizing these services to their full potential.
