{"slug": "openai-just-launched-chatgpt-images-2-5-and-heres-how-it-compares-to-googles-2", "title": "OpenAI Just Launched ChatGPT Images 2.5, and Here’s How It Compares to Google’s Nano Banana 2", "summary": "OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Images 2.5, a faster, sharper, and smarter image generator with new tools including templates, precise editing, and a Sketch feature that converts doodles into images, rolling out to all users across web, desktop, and mobile. In hands-on comparisons, ChatGPT Images 2.5 produced slightly more realistic food images than Google's Nano Banana 2, though Gemini's sketch interpretation was preferred, and the new editing precision was highlighted as a key improvement.", "body_md": "In among the maelstrom of [__everything else__](https://lifehacker.com/tech/gemini-38-flash-mostly-lives-up-to-hype) that's happening with AI right now, OpenAI has pushed out ChatGPT Images 2.5, which [__it describes as__](https://x.com/OpenAI/status/2097394956457623964) faster, sharper, and smarter, with \"better tools for creating whatever you can dream of.\" Those new tools include templates, more precise editing features, and a way of converting your on-screen doodles into fully realized images.\n\n        [This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.](https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/2097394956457623964)\n    \n\nDoes all of this mean ChatGPT Images 2.5 will save us from the scourge of bad AI food images on menus and posters? Can it replace a traditional photo editor? And how does it compare to [__the impressive Nano Banana 2 update__](https://lifehacker.com/tech/testing-google-gemini-nano-banana-2) that Google pushed out in February?\n\nTo answer all these questions and more, I fired up the new image generator in ChatGPT to see what it was capable of. Everyone is getting it—it's rolling out for all users across the web, the desktop apps, and the mobile apps now—though as usual there are varying usage limits (which ChatGPT [__only vaguely defines__](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/9275245-chatgpt-free-tier-faq)) on each plan.\n\n## How food images in ChatGPT Images 2.5 and Gemini Nano Banana 2 compare\n\nThe sameness and uncanny look of AI-generated food on restaurant signs and menus is [__becoming a real issue__](https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/03/the-sameness-problem-behind-those-unappetizing-ai-generated-menus/), so this seemed like a good place to start. It's fair to say that promotional images of food have always taken some artistic license, but AI is making the problem worse. Can ChatGPT Images 2.5 help?\n\nHere's what I tried: \"Create a 1:1 aspect ratio image with four squares inside it for a fast food restaurant display. The images should show (from top to bottom, left to right) a cheeseburger, six nuggets, a box of fries, and a Coke. Make the pictures look as photorealistic as possible with natural lighting, but add variations and imperfections to give the impression of real food.\"\n\nChatGPT is on the left and Gemini on the right. Both do a decent job of producing menu items that look realistic and actually edible, albeit with the usual AI tendency towards the generic. Personally, I'd say the ChatGPT images look slightly more like real food, though Gemini has done better on the backgrounds and wider scene (the Burger King logo would cause trouble, though).\n\n## How ChatGPT Image 2.5's Sketch tool compares to Google Nano Banana 2\n\nOne of the key new features in ChatGPT Images 2.5 is a new Sketch tool, which lets you turn your basic scribblings into full pictures. Click or tap the **+** (plus) button in the prompt box to find it—if you're on mobile you'll also have to choose **Plugins** from the sub-menu that pops up.\n\nThe tool lets you play around with colors, shapes, and text, and when you're done you can add a text prompt to it—something like \"turn this sketch into the sort of illustration you might see in a high-quality children's book, complete with stars and distant planets\" (which is the prompt I used here).\n\nGemini doesn't have a Sketch tool per se, though it's easy enough to add an image to a prompt for inspiration. Google's AI went far more traditional with its illustration and decided to drop in an alien astronaut, whereas ChatGPT used a touch more realism. Both do the job well enough, but if I had to pick, I think I'd take the Gemini one.\n\n## ChatGPT Image 2.5 offers more precise edits\n\nOpenAI [__is talking up__](https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-images-2-5/) the improved precision in editing with ChatGPT Images 2.5, so I gave it a go after submitting the following prompt: \"Create a photorealistic picture of a cabin sat deep in the woods, in its own clearing, with trees all around. It's early morning and the sun shines through the foliage, while the cabin itself looks modern and welcoming.\"\n\nClick on a ChatGPT image and you can add comments about specific aspects of the image, mark up sections of the picture to change, and quickly erase parts of it or the entire background. I tried getting it to remove some cabin furniture and change the time of day from early morning to dusk, and it completed the brief with aplomb—with the rearranged shadows a particularly clever touch.\n\nGemini gives you a simpler set of editing tools when you click on an image, but the basics are the same: Use text comments or scribbled annotations to specify the changes. Again, I got the AI to remove some cabin chairs (there must be a lot of chairs in AI model training data), and switch the scene to dusk. Gemini did fine as well, but ultimately the ChatGPT effort looked a little more lived-in and a little less artificial.\n\n## Both ChatGPT Images 2.5 and Google Nano Banana 2 perform well\n\nThese two AI bots are very close in performance when it comes to image generation. Gemini is no slouch, and Nano Banana 2 is excellent at almost everything, but I think ChatGPT Images 2.5 has a slight edge at the moment—particularly if you add in the extra features for sketching and saving prompts as templates.\n\nThe debate over when and why to use these tools continues, and I think there will always be more value in actual human art and photography, no matter how good AI gets at making pictures. A real forest is always going to beat an approximation of one stitched together by AI. For visualizations and ideas where you wouldn't employ an artist or have the design chops to do it yourself, though, both Gemini and ChatGPT are at a higher level than ever.\n\nIt's the editing tools that are potentially the most useful at this point: Changes to pictures that would usually take professionals hours can now be done by anyone, in seconds, and the capabilities are only going to improve in the future.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openai-just-launched-chatgpt-images-2-5-and-heres-how-it-compares-to-googles-2", "canonical_source": "https://lifehacker.com/tech/how-chatgpt-image-2-point-5-compares-to-gemini-nano-banana-2?utm_medium=RSS", "published_at": "2026-09-09 13:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-09 13:42:21.110816+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "generative-ai", "ai-products", "ai-tools"], "entities": ["OpenAI", "ChatGPT Images 2.5", "Google", "Nano Banana 2", "Gemini"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openai-just-launched-chatgpt-images-2-5-and-heres-how-it-compares-to-googles-2", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openai-just-launched-chatgpt-images-2-5-and-heres-how-it-compares-to-googles-2.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openai-just-launched-chatgpt-images-2-5-and-heres-how-it-compares-to-googles-2.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/openai-just-launched-chatgpt-images-2-5-and-heres-how-it-compares-to-googles-2.jsonld"}}