AI Image Generation: Pick the Right Text-to-Image Tool for the Job
AI image tools sorted by use—social media visuals, e-commerce product shots, illustration and anime, commercial design, and local deployment—covering Midjourney, Nano Banana, ChatGPT image generation, Flux, Jimeng, Stable Diffusion, Adobe Firefly, and Flair AI, with notes on free tiers, licenses, and AI content labeling.
Text-to-image tools now fall into three groups: subscription platforms like Midjourney, assistants like Gemini's Nano Banana and ChatGPT that generate and edit images inside a chat, and open models like Flux and Stable Diffusion whose weights you can download and run yourself. Start from the use: social visuals need to be fast and easy to revise, e-commerce shots need your real product placed in a scene, and commercial design needs clear copyright terms. Also note that publishing AI-generated images on platforms in China requires labeling them.
Who is this for?
Recommended tools (12)
Midjourney
Finished images without parameter tuning; web and Discord; no free version
Nano Banana
Default image model in Gemini and Search; edit images in plain language
ChatGPT
Multi-turn revisions and text rendering in images; not offered in mainland China, Hong Kong, or Macau
Flux.1
Run locally and fine-tune; licenses vary by version
Jimeng AINew
Text-to-image, image-to-video, and a smart canvas with Chinese prompts; works directly in China
Stable Diffusion
Huge ecosystem of derived models and plugins, good for batch generation
Duiyou AI
Chinese prompts, with a community for sharing work and prompts
NijiJourney
Tuned for Japanese-style illustration, characters, and scenes; included in a Midjourney subscription
Flair AI
Places real product photos into generated scenes for store and ad images
Adobe Firefly
Built into Photoshop and other Adobe apps for commercial design workflows
Krea AI
Canvas edits and prompt changes show up in the output as you work
Leonardo
Train custom models; free plan gives 150 tokens a day and work is public
How to choose an AI image tool
| Tool | Type | Cost | Chinese prompts | Good for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Midjourney | Subscription platform | Paid, no free version | English recommended | Professional work with consistent aesthetics |
| Nano Banana | Built into an assistant (Gemini) | Free tier | Supported | Quick visuals, plain-language edits |
| Flux | Open weights + official API | Free to self-host; API billed per image | English recommended | Photorealism, text in images, your own pipeline |
| Jimeng AI | Online platform (China) | Free tier | Supported | Chinese-language work, image-to-video |
| Flair AI | Product-shot tool | Free tier | Mostly English interface | E-commerce product scenes |
Free allowances and license terms follow each tool's website, checked October 1, 2026.
FAQ
- Q: Which tool should I use for which job?
- A: For quick visuals and edits, try Nano Banana in Gemini or ChatGPT—revising in plain language over several turns is the least effort. For consistent aesthetics, Midjourney produces finished images without parameter tuning. For anime styles, NijiJourney is included in a Midjourney subscription. For e-commerce shots, use a tool like Flair AI that places real product photos into generated scenes. For access in China and Chinese prompts, look at Jimeng and Duiyou.
- Q: Are there free AI image tools?
- A: Yes, but most offer a free allowance rather than unlimited use: Nano Banana has a free tier in Gemini, Bing Image Creator gives a daily allowance of fast generations and then continues more slowly, and Leonardo's free plan gives 150 tokens a day. Truly unlimited use means running open-weight Stable Diffusion or Flux locally, which takes a GPU and some setup.
- Q: Can AI images be used commercially, and what applies when publishing in China?
- A: Commercial rights depend on each platform's terms: paid Midjourney users own their images, but companies with over $1M in annual revenue must be on Pro or Mega; open-weight model licenses vary by version—FLUX.2 [klein] 4B is Apache-2.0, while FLUX.2 [dev] is non-commercial. Separately, China's Measures for Labeling AI-Generated Synthetic Content took effect on September 1, 2025, so AI-generated images published on Chinese platforms must be labeled as each platform requires.