As a creative, I have been careful to mitigate the use of AI in my workflow. With the Disney and Universal lawsuits against Midjourney fully exemplified, none of us know how things pan out. I definitely don't want to go deeper and can't get back into the tide.
But at the same time, I don't want to throw away my baby in the bath. Many of the best AI image generators help you create content, and most creative applications have built-in AI capabilities at the heart of them. I want to use AI as a valuable tool to automate my workflow, but I don't hand over all the reins and the tool does all the creative work for me.
With that in mind, I've put together a list of five tools I've used, as well as the five tools I use regularly. If you're interested in this subject, check out our dedicated AI coverage where experts write reviews, opinions snippets and guides on all the best software.
1. TopazPhoto AI
AI photo editing tools were part of the first AI tools for creatives that became mainstream. The ability to enhance high-end images, remove noise in low-light areas, and add details to soft areas felt like a dark art only the Jedi Master could access. I remember getting my first photo AI 3 and being blown away by “incredible results.”
Photo AI is especially suitable for facial recovery, even when your photos are low resolution, suffer from artifacts and are extremely noisy. Somehow, it not only manages to get the details, but also to return the details that should have been captured in the first place.
I especially like this tool because of its ability to quickly upscale images for printing. Photo AI is for those who cannot take photos with sufficiently advanced resolutions or need to take advantage of older photos.
2. NVIDIA App
If your PC or laptop has an NVIDIA GPU packed in, you will need to use the NVIDIA app. When I was researching a recent AI development that Nvidia had been doing, I first came across this handy little tool.
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The app is designed for both creators and gamers, but is primarily used to create and improve content. The first feature I used was called RTX Video Super Resolution and it improves the quality of video using AI. I have a lot of inferior low-Res video footage for years, but it's amazing that I can not only use it, but also bring it back to life. This app removes compression artifacts, polishes edges, and upscales video resolution. All of these are particularly suitable for doing low-resolution video work within 4K video projects.
The NVIDIA app also has an independent broadcast tool (independent app) tailored to creatives that stream a lot of content. The power of AI has made it possible to improve audio and image on the spot. I don't like using this to completely change the scene, but it's certainly great to be able to manipulate things a little more skillfully.
3. Photoshop generated fill
The number of Photoshop users who have not yet used Generation Filling Tools in Beta introduced in 2023 and Full Photoshop in 2024 allow seamless addition or removal of objects and background expansion based on AI predictions.
I don't use it much to generate new content, but I use it many times to extend the background and remove the objects in my photo I want to remove. I'm grateful that these tools in Photoshop can hit a bit and make a miss, but I can see that they get me 80% of the way. I almost always need to do a little cleanup, but I don't have much work, like I have to do the actions manually.
Photoshop also includes a set of AI-powered neural filters. These perform complex editing for just a small portion of the time it takes to run manually. These include smooth skin, adjusting facial expressions, and automatically adding colors to your black and white photos.
4. CanvaAI
For a long time, Canva has been a useful tool for creatives who want to quickly generate content without the need for expensive and overdesigned professional-grade tools.
Canva AI is a new addition to the Canva package, which is centered around conversational AI assistants. It will allow you to create new designs, social media content and generate editable files. Like Canva's core tools, Canva AI is extremely easy to use and requires no design expertise.
What Canva AI can do is truly impressive, but you definitely need some help to reach a satisfying outcome. Isn't that the case with all conversational AI tools? ! For example, I asked him to “generate a logo for Paul Hutton's writing,” and came up with an old-fashioned sequence of physically lighting logos. I was chasing something more abstract, but after a while it produced something I was happy with.
5. Midi Joney
If it doesn't include a dedicated image generation package, I think the list of the best AI tools is odd. I chose Midjourney because it has the ability to generate high quality and realistic visuals. He is also famous for his ability to understand subtle interpretations of prompts. This is helpful, especially considering that we, as humans, are not always the most obvious communicators.
If you want to generate finished content rather than just brainstorming ideas, then there's nothing else but Midjourney. You'll want to note that there is a rather steep learning curve, but there is a lot of help in the form of online communities and YouTube tutorials.
