It works as advertised here, and it does behave like a distilled Nano Banana 2 with respect to certain elements such as good text rendering, which Nano Banana 1 does much worse with. It is definitely not at the level of the base Nano Banana 2 of course particularly with highly-nuanced prompts. My main criticism is that you cannot programmatically force aspect ratios with NB2L but you can with NB2.

That said, the price of $0.034/image is higher than expected since price is generally correlated with generation time, and it takes half the time to generate than a Nano Banana 1 image which costs $0.039/image. Google's assertion that you can directly replace NB1 pipelines with NB2L is fair.

Yesterday, Google announced that the Gemini app will allow free image generations (https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/products/gemini-app/pe...) but did not specify which model would be used: I suspect it's the main motivation for Nano Banana 2 Lite.

So I need to run (AND PAY!) two accounts to have both a nice email address and Banana? Starting to think the correct number of paid google accounts here is zero.

I built an app for my kids that generates illustrated stories for them with them as the characters. I wanted to prioritize likeness while still stylizing the illustrations. I tested a bunch of models but none seem to come close to maintaining likeness when stylized. I find the others generate generic looking characters.

I'm excited to incorporate this into the onboarding of my app since I want the users to experience the aha moment as soon as possible and waiting half a minute+ isn't ideal. I'll still be using the main NB2 for the actual illustrations as this lite version still has slight issues with nuance and consistency as others have pointed out.

However, based off my personal experiences with general images models, Google in my opinion is the best for my workflows. Granted, I haven't tried far-east providers yet.

What does everyone else think?

It tends to generate depressing-looking lighting, but if instructed, it overcomes it. Up close, faces also look pretty decent. I can still tell it is AI-generated, but to an untrained eye, it is nearly impossible to distinguish, especially for regular blog posts and ads.

Nano Banana is head and shoulders above the rest, but still too steep for personal use, and half off doesn't really mean much for enterprise if the results are worse. Hopefully this drives the rest to catch up at least.

gemini.g lets you add a canvas or use image gen, but it isn't clear to me how you stick in the "space lift" prompt and out comes what is demo'd

> Does this pill make me smater?

> No, but it can make you dumb faster!

"In a breathtaking display of surreal transformation, a cinematic moment of pure action unfolds against a textured, golden-brown canvas. From the right, a woman is seen in elegant profile, her lips a startling slash of red. Her quiet composure is violently contradicted by the explosive event taking place: her dark hair is erupting, bursting forth into a chaotic flock of black birds. These creatures are captured mid-flight, a dynamic swarm launching from her mind and sweeping across the frame to the left. The motion is palpable; you can almost hear the frantic beating of a hundred wings as they break free. Some birds are still tangled, emerging from the dark mass of her hair, while others are already soaring into the open space. This is not a gentle release, but a powerful, almost violent, act of creation or liberation. The camera captures this impossible metamorphosis head-on, focusing on the sheer force of the birds' exodus. This highly sophisticated image is a kinetic masterpiece, portraying an internal storm made external, a thought process so intense it literally takes flight in a beautiful, dark, and unstoppable flurry of action."

really? anyone using for more than 10 or so tries these knows how to prompt them, and its not "The motion is palpable; you can almost hear the frantic beating of a hundred wings"

"surreal transformation, cinematic action. Textured golden-brown canvas. A woman in profile, red lips. Dark hair erupting into a flock of black birds mid-flight. Explosive metamorphosis" is pretty much all the actual meaning captured here

Unable to show the generated image. The model could not generate the image based on the prompt provided. You will not be charged for this request. Try rephrasing the prompt. If you think this was an error, [send feedback](https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/troubleshooting).

I mean 3 cents compared to 6 cents doesnt seem like much in my mind-unless youre running a consumer saas