Does The New Flux.2 Beat Nano Banana Pro? You Can Try It For Yourself - For Free

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Generated via Flux 2.0 by Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNET

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

  • Black Forest Labs launched its Flux 2 image generator.
  • Benchmarks show that it performs competitively. 
  • Everyone tin effort it for free. 

If you consciousness for illustration AI text-to-image generators person go truthful tin that it's progressively difficult to separate fabrication from reality, that's only going to get much challenging. 

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On Tuesday, Black Forest Labs, a German start-up best known for its suite of Flux 1 models, released its next-generation model, Flux.2 -- correct connected nan heels of Google's astir tin exemplary yet, Nano Banana Pro. Flux.2 features upgrades connected astir each front, resulting successful better-quality images that much intimately adhere to your prompts. 

What Flux.2 offers

The exemplary family includes Flux 2 Pro and Flux 2 Flex, pinch nan erstwhile offering nan highest value and nan second providing much elasticity betwixt velocity and quality.

Some circumstantial improvements of nan exemplary see support for up to 10 reference images, meaning you tin incorporated a batch much elements from different pictures successful your last product; improved photorealism and detail; much meticulous matter rendering, a task image generating models often struggle with; amended punctual following; and a amended knowing of real-world knowledge, according to Black Forest Labs. 

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If these updates each sound familiar, it's because Google's Nano Banana Pro flaunted nan aforesaid upgrades erstwhile it was released past week. In fact, Black Forest Labs published benchmarks that compared its capacity to that of starring models, including Google's. While Flux 2 Pro had an ELO people (a standing utilized for head-to-head exemplary performance) somewhat beneath that of Nano Banana 2 (another word for Pro), nan costs of Flux's exemplary is little compared to nan overmuch higher costs of nan Nano Banana model, arsenic seen below.

Black Forest Labs
Black Forest Labs

The cost-per-quality ratio is peculiarly important for developers who want to incorporated a high-quality image-generating exemplary into their ain projects astatine a little cost. 

My acquisition (and really to effort it yourself) 

All users tin effort nan models for free connected the BFL Playground, pinch a limit of 50 renderings per personification per day. 

For a first stab astatine really nan exemplary could perform, I entered nan prompt: Vibrant realistic surviving turkey. I sewage nan consequence you spot astatine nan apical of nan article, which did a decent occupation interpreting nan punctual pinch vibrant colors, details, and a clear practice of a turkey.

I past compared Flux.2 to Nano Banana Pro, which you tin besides entree for free connected nan Gemini app, albeit pinch limitations, and was impressed by nan comparison -- you tin spot some results side-by-side below. 

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The punctual I utilized for some was: a Thanksgiving meal array dispersed pinch vibrant colors, rich | details, and warm/cozy lighting. Include a turkey astatine nan center, cranberry sauce, and Brussels sprouts. I besides want a paper that lists each of these elements pictured. 

New image models
Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNET via Google Gemini and BFL Playground

The punctual was challenging because it didn't explicitly authorities what I wanted included, but some generators did a decent occupation of assuming what I wanted printed connected nan paper and included each nan elements I mentioned. Notably, nan Flux 2 Pro exemplary was quicker, though nan matter was overmuch amended connected Google's version.  

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