# gpt-image-1

79 Hacker News commenters recommended gpt-image-1 and 79 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend it for following detailed prompts, careful localized edits and fun personal image tasks. The most common caveat is that it loses fine details and hallucinates, and it is slow and costly per image.

## Why people recommend it

- Follows detailed prompts closely (3 comments): "SOTA models like NB Pro and gpt-image-1 are really good at adhering to even moderately complicated prompts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46995432)) "Following the prompt instructions more closely also seems better compared to Nano Banana Pro." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46296727)) "gpt-image-1 had the famous "piss filter"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47209871))
- Careful localized image edits (4 comments): "It's leagues better at making localized edits without altering the entire image's aesthetic than gpt-image-1" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46294934)) "GPT-Image 1.5 is clearly a step up as an editing model, but it performed worse in purely generative tasks" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46297440)) "It's absolutely OP at understanding how to turn low-fidelity renders into final draft upscales." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46831211))
- Fun for personal everyday images (4 comments): "Now I can just generate illustrations that fit my use case well, and it takes very little effort." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49623065)) "Having a lot of fun with my son using an image of him and dressing him in all kinds of costumes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49615191)) "You can take the photo, inside the chatgpt app and then talk to it without much effort." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49622459))
- Strong creative style-heavy edits (2 comments): "Best for creative, transformative, style-heavy edits, but it hallucinates a lot and often distorts fine details" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45905463)) "gpt-image-1 absolutely excels at this, though you don't have much control over the style and aesthetic" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46295223))

## What people warn about

- Loses and distorts fine details (2 comments): "Best for creative, transformative, style-heavy edits, but it hallucinates a lot and often distorts fine details" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45905463)) "still the miniscule details are being lost, like the teeth structure of the guy in the middle" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49614999))
- Slow and expensive per image (2 comments): "The latency is still too high, lower than 10 seconds for nano banana and around 25 seconds for GPT image 1.5" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46299467)) "gpt-image 2.5 being great at times, at almost 1 order of magnitude more of the cost per image and way slower" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50107557))
- Often used for fake or misleading images (5 comments): "the examples in OpenAI’s blog post are examples of creating images that have no plausible purpose other than to fake stuff that didn’t happen" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49616439)) "The only use case I can think of for this is for someone who likes to make up stories and lie about what they’ve done." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49615305)) "All I see people using this for is generating slop for work presentations, and misleading people on social media." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46296843))
- Weaker than rivals in consistency (2 comments): "Even from their own curated examples, this looks quite a bit worse than nano banan in terms of preserving consistency on image edits." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46293020)) "GPT-Image 1.5 is clearly a step up as an editing model, but it performed worse in purely generative tasks" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46297440))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Nano Banana](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nano-banana-pro.md): 265 recommend
- [FLUX.2](https://hackerapproved.com/p/flux-2.md): 66 recommend
- [gpt-image-2](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gpt-image-2.md): 63 recommend
- [Qwen-Image](https://hackerapproved.com/p/qwen-image-2-1.md): 47 recommend
- [Midjourney](https://hackerapproved.com/p/midjourney.md): 37 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/models/gpt-image-1)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "gpt-image-1", https://hackerapproved.com/p/gpt-image-1-5/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).