- OpenAI has released a faster and smarter image model called GPT Image 1.5 inside ChatGPT
- The new tool allows users to make detailed and precise edits to photos and create personalized images based on prompts.
- The new Images tab adds presets and filters without the need for written prompts.
OpenAI has updated and improved ChatGPT’s AI imaging capabilities. The improvement comes shortly after the release of the ChatGPT-5.2 model for everything else the AI chatbot offers. The new GPT Image 1.5 model is up to four times faster than its predecessor and is designed to be better at editing and more reliable at following instructions.
In its announcement, OpenAI presented the new ChatGPT images as a serious creative tool, with professional-grade results. With all the caveats about the limits of AI imagers, it’s a bit like a slightly buggy but high-powered visual production studio, with someone in charge who understands normal language, so you don’t have to mess with sliders and layers.
The new model also includes some changes to ChatGPT. There is now a dedicated “Images” tab within ChatGPT that serves as a hub for creating images, with pre-designed filters and curated options based on current trends. There are also templates that allow you to generate or edit images without even writing a message. You can click on “retro magazine layout” or “futuristic food style” and see what it looks like without having to find the best wording for a message, part of OpenAI’s efforts to make the tool as accessible as possible.
There are also many other subtle improvements in the new model. It can produce denser text without falling into nonsense, display a multitude of small faces without producing too many weirdos, and it can keep track of elements across multiple edits, so you can change one aspect of an image without the AI deciding to alter other bits. Previous models were easily confused with chain edits or overlapping instructions.
The update also allows you to better combine and transform images. You can ask it to combine styles, move a look from one image to another, or remove everything except one component and move it to a new configuration. You also don’t have to worry as much about the space between people or objects getting confused.
Image enhancement with AI
Still, it’s not perfect. Some results miss the mark. Sometimes the model will misinterpret a sentence or translate something too literally. But the difference now is that those moments seem like exceptions and not the norm. Or at least that’s what OpenAI claims.
There’s more than just what you can do with the OpenAI model. Adobe recently revealed that it is integrating Photoshop and Acrobat into ChatGPT. That means we’re approaching a future where multiple publishing platforms live side by side. You can ask ChatGPT to design a poster and then click Photoshop to refine it, without having to leave the same window.
ChatGPT isn’t without AI image competition from the likes of Google Gemini and Midjourney, but casual access to ChatGPT Images means you can turn to it to produce things like an enhanced LinkedIn photo before opening Midjourney specifically.
The most positive interpretation of the updated ChatGPT images is that another level of high-quality visual creativity is no longer dependent on technical skills or expensive software. But that comes with all the caveats and uncertainties about how much of what ChatGPT produces is simply remixed content pulled without the consent of human artists, not to mention how much its use takes away opportunities for professionals in the field. As fun and impressive as the results may be, it still means that users have to decide what exactly it means to “do” something in the first place.
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