DALL-E was one of the first widely accessible AI image generation programs to pose a technological breakthrough. This generative model can create completely new digital art based on prompts you send, like "create a futuristic car with a cat driver inside." By using machine learning and diffusion models, it can give you results within seconds, and it understands natural language, so you don't need to learn specialized vocabulary.
Whether you're a content creator, marketer, teacher, student, or just a casual user, DALL-E lets you test your imagination and visualize your concepts. It can also use photos you send it and work off them as the basis for new creations. You can ask it to create a photorealistic portrait, a surrealist painting, or a cartoon-style illustration and then iterate on the results.
DALL-E can generate brand new images, edit existing ones with painting, or expand the image through outpainting, so you are able to modify parts of a photo or illustration, or get more context on a cropped photo. It supports multiple styles, can understand nuance, and pays attention to details, to give you more accurate images. You can use DALL-E through ChatGPT apps or through your browser, and there's a limit to how many pictures you can generate for free.
Why should I download DALL-E?
With DALL-E, you can provide long, detailed, and complex prompts where you describe multiple characters or different actions as well as specific compositions, and it will be able to give you an image that includes all of them. You can ask it to create a watercolor painting of a sushi dish or a Pixar-style illustration of your dog. Because of that, you have more control over the output that matches your intent, the context you give it, and the style, which isn't something all visual AI models can do. Your prompts can also be very abstract and provide concepts more than specific descriptions, and DALL-E will try to generate something based on that.
Since DALL-E is integrated into ChatGPT, you can use natural language and iterate on the output rather than just accept the initial version. It's like having a conversation where you ask the "painter" to fix or change specific parts if they got it wrong. This results in an iterative creative process, and you can ask for any change you want, whether it's changing the style from a drawing to a 3D model or using different colors. You can even ask it to generate text on images or create various logos with DALL-E.
Another benefit of using DALL-E is that you can send it a picture or illustration and ask it to, for example, remove parts of the image or replace them with something else. You can also expand your image and make it bigger, and DALL-E will add more background elements based on the existing file so it matches the context. Those features are called inpainting and outpainting, and they are built in by default into DALL-E.
To use DALL-E, you don't need to know how to use design software or how to code, which would usually be a blocker if you wanted to create custom images. Because DALL-E is integrated into ChatGPT, it's as easy to use as writing with a friend on an instant messaging app. Though it's easy to use, DALL-E supports a wide array of styles, like photorealism, pixel art, watercolors, cartoons, sketches, technical drawings, 3D renderings, impressionism, pop art, and much more.
Because of that, you're not limited to one specific aesthetic and can quickly get and compare results. You can also ask DALL-E to mimic the style of a particular artist or design studio. DALL-E works as part of ChatGPT and follows a freemium model that limits the number of images you can generate for free.
Is DALL-E free?
No, DALL-E isn't a free tool, but it does offer a freemium version as part of the ChatGPT offering. Once you run out of free prompts, you must get a paid ChatGPT Plus subscription. Even with a subscription, you don't get unlimited credits, so remember that when generating images with DALL-E.
What operating systems are compatible with DALL-E?
You can use DALL-E either through your web browser when you open ChatGPT or download the ChatGPT desktop client or mobile app. It works on all major browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and Microsoft Edge.
You need at least iOS 17 or Android 6.0 on mobile devices to download and use the ChatGPT app with DALL-E.
What are the alternatives to DALL-E?
Midjourney is another groundbreaking AI image and video generator that can create detailed and high-quality images. It's a great and reliable tool that uses advanced machine learning models to make the best and most accurate work based on your prompts. Midjourney is a paid tool you can use on your browser or Discord.
NightCafe Creator is an AI generator for web browsers that can transform your text prompts into art. It combines different AI models, like DALL-E or Stable Diffusion, so you can choose the one that gives you the best results. It offers a limited number of credits for free, and then you can get a paid subscription and choose the number of prompts you need. It is also a wide community sharing their creations et offering daily challenges.
Adobe Firefly is an AI generation tool that's built into the Adobe Creative Cloud suite of tools. It uses its own models, Adobe Stock database, and other public domain sources, and creates brand new content to avoid any copyright issues. You can use it to automatically fill in your images or illustrations in Photoshop or Illustrator, or edit parts of photos in Lightroom. You get a free number of credits for Adobe Firefly even when you don't have an Adobe subscription, but to get more, you need to subscribe.
