Review
Where image generation actually stands across the major labs, April 2026
OpenAI shipped GPT Image 2 today. It is the new ceiling on text + UI mock realism. Google still owns cost. Black Forest Labs owns open weights. Ideogram owns dense typography. Firefly owns brand safety. Here is the honest map of the field after today, and a one-line recipe for picking the right model per job.
#gpt-image-2#nano-banana-pro#nano-banana-2#flux#midjourney#ideogram#firefly#recraft#seedream#image-generation#landscape