Guide to Creating Images with AI

01How Does AI Image Generation Work?

Most image generation models are trained on millions of image and caption pairs. They turn your text into a representation of its meaning, then start from random noise and refine it step by step into an image that matches that meaning. The common name for this method is a diffusion model.

As a result, the model does not "find" a photo; it generates a new image from probabilities. That is why the same prompt gives a different result every time, and why details that do not exist in reality (extra fingers, unreadable text, odd reflections) can appear. In AI image generation, selecting and editing matter as much as the generation itself.

02Which Tool Should You Choose?

Tool capabilities change quickly, so looking at how a tool works rather than its brand name gives you a longer-lasting choice. The table below compares the most commonly used tools by their general characteristics.

03How Do You Write a Good Image Prompt?

A vague prompt produces an average, faceless image. Think of a good image prompt as a brief you would give a photographer or illustrator. The same structure works whether you use Midjourney or DALL-E.

1. Subject: What is in the image? A product, a person, a place, an object.
2. Setting: Where? A marble counter, a hotel terrace in morning light, a minimal studio backdrop.
3. Lighting: Soft natural light, golden hour, harsh studio light.
4. Composition and angle: Close-up, bird's-eye view, eye level, shallow depth of field.
5. Style: Photorealism, flat illustration, watercolor, 3D render.
6. Color palette: Your brand colors or the tone you want.
7. Aspect ratio: 1:1, 4:5, 9:16 or 16:9, depending on where it will be used.
8. Exclusions: Elements you do not want, such as text, logos or a crowded background.

Handmade ceramic coffee cup on a light oak table, soft natural light from a morning window, shallow depth of field, close-up from eye level, warm earth tones and cream color palette, plain background, photorealistic, 4:5 ratio, no text or logo

04Creating On-Brand Images

Creating individual good-looking images is easy; the hard part is producing images that look like they belong to the same brand across a whole year. For that, you need to tie AI to a visual identity guide.

Brand colors, preferred lighting, the camera angles you use and the styles you avoid should live in a written document, and every prompt should draw on it. Defining a corporate identity to this level is the core deliverable of brand management.

Some tools accept a reference image or a style reference. Providing a few previously approved images as references noticeably improves color and tone consistency. Even so, every generated image should be checked against the brand guide before publishing.

• Do not have AI generate logos and text elements; add them afterward in a design program.
• Generate the images for the same campaign in the same session and with similar prompts.
• Keep approved prompts in a library and share them with your team.

05AI in Product Images

The most common question in e-commerce and catalog work is whether an AI image can replace a real product photo. The short answer: the product itself should be a real photograph. AI can subtly but significantly change a product's shape, color or texture, and that turns into returns and a trust problem.

A better approach is to keep the real product photo and use AI to generate the background, the scene or the lifestyle setting. A clean, well-lit base shot determines the quality of these edits too, which is why product photography remains a core investment in the age of AI.

The same rule applies to hospitality and food service: the room, the view and the plate should be real. Guests are disappointed when they discover that the room they find is not the AI-enhanced one they saw. You can find ways to tell an honest story with real images in our boutique hotel marketing article.

06Image Sizes for Social Media

Creating the image at the right aspect ratio avoids the losses that cropping later causes. Commonly used sizes are vertical 4:5 (1080×1350) for the Instagram feed, 1:1 (1080×1080) for square posts, and 9:16 (1080×1920) for Reels and Stories.

To plan your social media feed with AI images and produce them together with post copy, see our article on AI for social media. For moving content, our guide to AI video creation comes into play. If you want a professional team to run planning and publishing, take a look at our social media management service.

Generating images for your website at high resolution and then converting them to modern formats such as WebP protects page speed; this is also the first step of speed and performance management. Large, uncompressed images are one of the most common causes of a poor LCP score.

07Copyright and Legal Limits

The copyright status of AI images is still debated in many countries. Under Turkish law, the principle that an author must be a natural person leaves the protection of a fully AI-generated image unclear. The information in this area is therefore general in nature; check current legislation and your legal counsel.

• Well-known people and brands: Generating real people's faces, other brands' logos or registered characters carries legal risk.
• Imitating an artist's style: Generating work in the style of a living artist by naming them is ethically and legally problematic.
• License terms: Commercial usage rights can differ between a tool's free and paid plans.
• Misleading content: AI images presented as real create a risk of misleading consumers; some platforms require labeling.
• Personal data: Do not upload employee or customer photos to tools you have not approved.

08AI and Professional Production

AI is a powerful assistant for concept sketches, moodboards, backgrounds and fast variations. It is an ideal tool for showing a campaign idea to a client or planning the lighting of a shoot in advance.

However, a brand's hero visuals, real product and location shoots, video and creative ideas still need human effort and experience. The best results come from a production workflow that is accelerated by AI and shaped by people. In creative production, using AI at the idea and draft stage and keeping the real shoot front and center is the practical way to strike this balance.