OpenAI
The most believable photographs here — for triple the time and money.
OpenAI / 1:1 / openai/gpt-5.4-image-2
The images
Same standard set, same framing, same model comparison surface.
I · Through the ages
Same eleven eras, two life stages, side by side: a group of fresh-faced nineteen-year-olds doing what the young did — hunts, dances, mosh pits, raves — next to middle-aged forty-year-olds doing what the settled did — harvests, workshops, offices, backyard parties. Different people, different lives, one timeline. Watch how each model handles youth vs. age across history.
II · Fashion & portrait
Editorial polish, neon glamour, old-Hollywood and couture, and a 1950s centerfold — faces, skin, fabric, and styling.
III · Product
Reflections, materials, and one duck modeling everything — the commercial-shot test, with a surreal closer.
IV · Pets
Small animals, soft light — the “make-it-adorable” test.
V · Food
A six-patty monster, two models eating it, and a humble popsicle dressed up like luxury perfume.
VI · Worlds & abstract
A neon-cyberpunk country town and a geometric color explosion that melts — imagination over realism.
The model
The most believable photographs here — for triple the time and money.
Its people look like actual photographs. Natural skin, real un-airbrushed faces, believable mall-and-garage light — the 1990 food court could pass for a film still. If the bar is “could this be a real photo,” GPT clears it highest.
The most convincing ages. Its nineteen- and forty-year-olds both look like real photographs of those ages, in fully distinct life-stage scenes — the realism makes the youth/age contrast land hardest. (Text still weak.)
Like the base Nano and Seedream, in-image text is weak — the toolbox comes back blank, no “MISS JULY.” Grok and Nano Pro are still the only two here that actually spell.
Slow and expensive. ~$0.23/image, $9.21 for the set, and 30+ minutes — roughly 5–6× the cheap models. You pay for the realism in both time and money.
Its filter never tripped on this clothed, tasteful battery, so the full 40 rendered. On spicier prompts it remains the model most likely to decline outright.