The 10 best A.I. image generators to create art from text

A.I. image generators are becoming a hot topic online, but they are far from new. The technology for these tools has been around for some time. It is just reaching a point where they are more accessible to the everyday user.

Some of these text-to-art generators are free, while some are behind paywalls, and others allow for a trial. There are also many styles of art you can create from different generators. Take a look at some of the best A.I. image generators to see which might match your artistic style.

What is an A.I. image generator?

An A.I. image generator is essentially a tool that uses machine learning to create art. In its simplest form, it will use text prompts to describe the type of art you want to create, and then it’ll do its best job to make it for you. Some tools include additional styles and parameters to their generators to make the results more unique.

Although they have been used to create some amazing pieces of art — and there are many concerned about this taking jobs from human artists — there are some more useful day-to-day uses for A.I. image generators. You can use them to make character art for your tabletop game or to create a funky background for your desktop wallpaper. How about creating a funny meme? Then again, there are meme generators, too.

DALL-E 2

DALL-E 2 is considered one of the best tools for original A.I. image generation. The tool includes a range of options, which allows users, from beginners to experts to find their niche with the text-to-image generator. It also includes features that allow for scaling images up or down without losing quality, and special developer tools that ensure creations are unique to the artist.

The original iteration of DALL-E was invite-only due to customer demand. The tool’s makers, OpenAI claim it supports over 1.5 million active users that create approximately 2 million images daily.

As of late September, DALL-E 2 is now open to the public to sign up for free. The only stipulation is you get 50 free monthly credits to use the service, after which you can buy 115 credits for $15. That equates to approximately 13 cents per four-word prompt.

Jasper.ai

Jasper.ai is considered a go-to tool for overall high-quality A.I. image generation. This text-to-image generator lets you create four copyright-free images from a single prompt that can be used however you like. The brand’s primary service is an A.I. writer and text editor, but it also includes the image generator tool.

The Jasper brand was recently valued at $1.7 billion after raising $125 million in funding, according to TechCrunch.

The Jasper Starter tier for its A.I. writer service and Jasper Art starts at around $40 per month, while the Boss Mode tier starts at about $82 per month. There is also a Business tier with custom plans and prices. Additionally, you can opt for the Jasper Art plan alone, which starts at $20 per user per month.

Photosonic

Photosonic is an A.I. image generation tool that allows you to either create text-to-image prompts or convert an image into another creative style.

You can use any images you create commercially without credit; however, some have critiqued that the resulting artwork often comes out looking more cartoonish than like serious images. Nevertheless, Photosonic is a paid service. Similar to Jasper, it is the artistic arm of the Writesonic tool; however, the two services appear to work independently of one another.

Photosonic uses a credit payment system to charge you for using the tool. You can test it out with five free credits before deciding whether you want to proceed with a sign-up. After that, there is a free trial sign-up tier that offers 15 credits. Then you can sign up and purchase 100 credits for $10 or unlimited credits for $25.

Craiyon

Craiyon is a fascinating A.I. image generator in that it has a website version as well as an app version that is available for Android devices on Google Play Store. Previously known as DALL-E mini, this free service works in a similar fashion to its paid counterpart.

You can derive fairly high-quality images from detailed text descriptions. However, Craiyon is prone to server congestion, which can result in long wait times to get creations, and unfortunate flubs in designs. Even so, images are free of copyrights and can be used as desired.

StarryAI

StarryAI is an A.I. image generator with a focus on turning text into drawing-like artwork. Many of the results have a fantasy style to them with the tool excelling at nightscape images, which inspired the name StarryAI.

The image generator is free to use for commercial purposes and is available on the web and for iOS and Android. You can get up to five artworks per day without a watermark.

Nightcafe

NightCafe is an A.I. image generator that is dedicated to delivering several different styles and higher quality results than many other generators. This image generator has several image algorithms that accept different text prompts and yield different style results, including the Artistic algorithm, Coherent algorithm, and Stable algorithm.

NightCafe is available on the web and also on Android and iOS and grants users permission to use images as they wish, depending on their country’s copyright laws.

Much like some other generators, the tool offers five free credits before any major commitment. Still, a sign-up is required even before testing out the service. Once registered, you also have the opportunity to claim five credits per day to use toward creating artwork. With this system, you can essentially have the service for free if you collect your five credits consistently before 8 p.m.

If you do plan to purchase credits, the tiers include AI Hobbyist at $10 per month for 100 credits, AI Enthusiast at $20 per month for 250 credits, AI Artist at $50 per month for 700 credits, and AI Professional at $80 per month for 1,500 credits.

Signing up also gives you access to an A.I. art forum, where you can chat with other fans of the tool and share your masterpieces.

Broader art

Artbreeder is a great A.I. image generator for abstract art that might be more challenging for other tools to execute. This generator does not automatically delve into the realistic; however, it does include some interesting “gene editing features” that you can adjust for age, gender, and various color aspects, among others.

Users have created projects such as what historical figures might have looked like in real life based on paintings or statues. All services, both free and paid are behind a registration wall and the paid services start at $9. Any art created by Artbreeder is considered free to use under the Creative Commons CC0 license.

Dream by Wombo

Dream is an interesting A.I. image generator that offers several stylistic options such as Steampunk, Psychedelic, Etching, and Street Art to add some flair to the text prompts that you input. The service is free to use and you can preview the art that you make. However, you will ultimately have to register to save and publish your creations.

There are also options to mint as NFT for selling art online, or you can purchase your artwork on canvas. Dream is available on the web as well as on Android and iOS. You also have the option of uploading source images to aid in capturing the style of art you’d like to create. Additionally, Dream has a Discord community for members to share their creations.

Stable Diffusion

The Stable Diffusion A.I. image generator is known for its photo-realistic images though its text prompts can take some work to yield a solid result. The web-based generator is free to use and you can share images under the CreativeML Open RAIL-M license. However, you do not have commercial rights to the artworks you create.

The Stable Diffusion API, which was developed by Stability.ai is also an open-source tool and is the basis and inspiration for other text-to-image generators such as NightCafe.

Deep Dream Generator

Deep Dream Generator is considered one of the fastest A.I. image generator tools with thousands of artistic styles available. The generator includes three main tools, Deep Style, Thin Style, and Deep Dream, which go from more realistic to increasingly more abstract.

Deep Dream was created by former Google Developer, Alexander Mordvintsev, so the service has a technological flare. While it is free to sign up and use, the paid plans offer storage and higher resolution options for the images created. There is also an “energy” and “recharging” system that determines how quickly images get processed. The Advanced plan sells for $20; the Professional plan sells for $40, and the Ultra plan sells for $99.

While you own the art created on the tool, you will have to determine whether you own the full rights to images and styles in order to use them for commercial purposes. Deep Dream also reserves the right to reshare any images you create on the tool on its social networks if you share your artwork on its platform.

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