Gemini’s ‘Nano Bananas’ AI Image Editing Is Fun, but I Ran Into Too Many Slipups

I have been attempting out the picture enhancing capabilities in Google’s newest generative AI mannequin, and you may, too. Named Gemini 2.5 Flash Picture, it upgrades the power to edit your images natively in Gemini. AI lovers have referred to it because the “nano bananas” mannequin, spurred on by a sequence of teasers from Google execs. Google has been investing closely in its generative media fashions this yr, dropping up to date variations of its picture and video generator fashions at its annual I/O builders convention. Google’s AI video generator Veo 3 shocked with synchronized audio, a primary among the many AI giants. And creators have made greater than 100 million AI movies with Google’s AI filmmaker software, Movement. I’ve spent numerous time testing AI inventive software program, and I used to be excited to see Google’s newest drop amid all of the banana fanfare. However my testing of two.5 Flash Picture confirmed that simply because one thing has a flashy entrance doesn’t suggest it will all the time lives as much as its hype. This is how my expertise with Gemini nano bananas went: the great, the dangerous and the irritating.What workedThe Gemini bananas mannequin is spookily good at including parts to current pictures, mixing AI-generated parts properly into any image you snapped. It additionally maintains a decently secure stage of character consistency — which means the individuals in my images weren’t too distorted or wonky after going by means of the AI processing. These are each essential distinctions for AI picture packages, and one thing Google mentioned it had labored to enhance.You possibly can see each of those traits on this image of my sister and me. Our basic appearances are unchanged within the edited model (proper), exhibiting off that character consistency. I requested Gemini so as to add a 3rd sister who appeared just like the 2 of us, which it did scarily properly by including a 3rd girl in between the 2 of us. Welcome to the household, scarily accurate-looking AI sister. Katelyn Chedraoui/GeminiI was additionally fairly impressed with how rapidly Gemini might spit out accomplished pictures. Anyplace underneath a minute will get a gold star from me, and Gemini was frequently dealing with requests in underneath 15 seconds. I additionally appreciated the way it added a watermark to all the photographs it created and edited — even when I do not love how tech corporations have corrupted the sparkles emoji for AI, it is extraordinarily essential to have some markers of AI-generated content material. Google’s SynthID and behind-the-scenes work additionally assist differentiate AI content material from human-created imagery.Gemini is nice at wholesale AI picture creation, too, however I like to recommend utilizing its Imagen 4 or one other AI picture generator as an alternative — they’ve extra hands-on controls and settings that get you nearer to what you need with much less work.What actually did not workThere are critical limitations to Gemini bananas. It mechanically generated sq. pictures, and follow-up prompts asking for pictures to be tailored into different dimensions had been ignored or failed.I additionally seen that Gemini diminished the decision of lots of my images. I primarily take images with my iPhone 16, which has stellar cameras, however after going by means of the Gemini bananas mannequin, these wonderful particulars had been typically blurred. That is annoying and will not win over any photographers. Regardless of my request to brighten up the goal’s rings, the unique photograph (left) has extra richness and texture than the AI-edited one (proper). Katelyn Chedraoui/GeminiI tried repeatedly to get Gemini to deal with photograph edits that will’ve been troublesome for me to do manually. That is one space in photograph enhancing the place AI is meant to excel — automating mundane however detail-intensive edits. Sadly, Gemini actually struggled with immediate adherence right here, which means it did not do what I requested. I attempted many occasions to get Gemini to take away reflections from a snap of a Freakier Friday film poster, however they stubbornly remained. And the extra I attempted to get it to take away the reflections, the poorer the standard of the picture turned with each immediate. As soon as-clear textual content was in the end illegible after I lastly gave up, to not point out the unintentional, scary-looking injury finished to the faces of Lindsey Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis.Gemini nano bananas struggled to generate pictures in several dimensions. Resizing and cropping pictures is a core photograph enhancing course of, however Gemini did not — or could not — deal with easy sizing pointers in my prompts. All I needed was for Gemini to take away the reflection within the upper-right nook of the poster, however as an alternative it warped the film tag line and faces. Katelyn Chedraoui/GeminiI reached out to Google concerning the decision and dimension points and a spokesperson mentioned the tech firm is “conscious and actively engaged on each points. It has been an enormous replace from our earlier mannequin however we’ll proceed to enhance on the mannequin.”Total, Gemini nano bananas proved to me that Google is critical about persevering with to dominate in generative media. However it has important pitfalls, with too huge a deal with producing new parts moderately than utilizing AI to enhance and tweak widespread photograph points. For now, the nano bananas mannequin is finest fitted to Gemini followers who wish to make huge edits rapidly. For these of us searching for extra exact instruments, we’ll have to attend for Google’s subsequent huge replace or discover one other program.Gemini nano bananas availability, pricing and privacyYou needn’t do something to entry the brand new mannequin; it is mechanically added to the bottom Gemini 2.5 Flash mannequin. Gemini is on the market without spending a dime, with extra fashions and better utilization caps accessible in Google’s AI plans beginning at $20 monthly. In the event you’re a paying subscriber, you might also be capable of entry the mannequin by means of Google AI Studio. From there, all it’s important to do is add a picture and kind out your immediate. Every immediate makes use of wherever from one to 2 thousand tokens, relying on the extent of element required. Adobe Categorical and Firefly customers can even entry the brand new mannequin now. Google’s Gemini privateness coverage says it could possibly use the knowledge you add for enhancing its AI merchandise, which is why the corporate recommends avoiding importing delicate or non-public info. The corporate’s AI prohibitive use coverage additionally outlaws the creation of unlawful or abusive materials.For extra, try one of the best AI picture turbines and every little thing introduced on the Made by Google Pixel 10 occasion.