Image Generation Checklist

Check the survey responses and IT discovery results for image generation tools. Common shadow AI tools to look for: MidJourney, DALL-E (via ChatGPT), Adobe Firefly, Stable Diffusion, Leonardo AI, Ideogram, free online generators.

Few users, occasional use: Built-in image generation from your General AI Assistant likely covers this. Don't add a tool for a handful of use cases.

Multiple users, regular use: There's real demand. Continue through this checklist to determine the right solution.

Marketing/design team is a primary user: They likely have specific quality and style requirements. Involve them in the evaluation -- their needs are different from someone generating a quick presentation graphic.

Internal presentations and documents: Quality bar is low. Built-in image generation from ChatGPT (DALL-E) or Gemini (Imagen) is more than sufficient. No separate tool needed.

Social media and blog content: Quality bar is medium. Built-in tools work for most social content. If you're publishing daily and need consistent brand style, a dedicated tool may help.

Marketing campaigns and client-facing materials: Quality bar is high. MidJourney consistently produces the highest-fidelity output for photorealistic and artistic styles. Consider whether your design team should be using this alongside (not instead of) tools like Adobe Creative Suite.

Product mockups and prototyping: This is specialized. MidJourney and Ideogram handle this well, but your design team may prefer tools that integrate with their existing workflow (Adobe Firefly inside Photoshop, for example).

Yes, strict brand guidelines: MidJourney offers style references (--sref) and style consistency features. You can create a "brand style" that new images match. Built-in tools in ChatGPT and Gemini can be guided with detailed prompts, but consistency is harder to maintain across sessions.

Loose consistency: Detailed prompt templates can maintain reasonable style consistency in any tool. Create a shared prompt library with your brand colors, style descriptors, and composition guidelines.

No brand requirements: Built-in tools are fine.

Web and social (1080px-2048px): All tools produce sufficient resolution. Not a differentiator.

Print (300 DPI, large format): MidJourney produces higher-resolution outputs natively and supports upscaling. Built-in tools typically max out at lower resolutions, though AI upscaling services can compensate.

Specific aspect ratios (stories, banners, thumbnails): MidJourney has precise aspect ratio control (--ar). ChatGPT/DALL-E supports common ratios. Check if your most-needed formats are supported before choosing.

Yes, frequently: Text rendering in AI images has improved significantly but still isn't perfect in any tool. GPT-4o (ChatGPT) and Ideogram are currently the best at rendering readable text. MidJourney struggles more with text. If text-heavy graphics are a primary need, consider whether Canva or a design tool is a better fit than AI image generation.

Rarely: Not a differentiator.

Yes: Verify commercial usage rights for each tool:

• - ChatGPT Team: OpenAI grants commercial usage rights on paid plans.
• - Gemini Business: Google grants commercial usage rights on Workspace business plans.
• - MidJourney: Commercial usage rights on paid plans. Free trial images cannot be used commercially.
• - Adobe Firefly: Designed for commercial safety -- trained only on licensed/public domain content. Included with Creative Cloud subscriptions.

Terms change. Always verify the current terms of service for your specific plan.

Yes: Adobe Firefly offers the strongest IP indemnification for generated images -- it's trained exclusively on Adobe Stock, licensed content, and public domain materials. If your legal team requires indemnification, this is the safest option. Check current indemnification terms for other tools as this is evolving rapidly.

Not a concern: Move on.