Recently, OpenAI has expanded its offerings by including new features in its free plan that were previously only available to pro subscribers. Among these new features is access to DALL-E 3, OpenAI’s advanced AI image generator. Like other image generation tools such as Midjourney, Flux, and Ideogram, DALL-E 3 can produce photorealistic images, render text, and perform inpainting.
Earlier this year, with the release of GPT-4o, OpenAI made a significant shift by offering many features that were once exclusive to paid plans at no cost to free users. This included advanced capabilities like image analysis, coding, and the use of custom GPTs. Free users were even granted access to GPT-4o, the most powerful model available, albeit with daily usage limits. However, image generation was not initially included in this expansion.
Creating images with ChatGPT for free is a simple process. As OpenAI explained on X, users can request ChatGPT to generate images for various purposes, such as designing a slide deck, personalizing a card, or visualizing an idea. The process is user-friendly, with ChatGPT handling most of the work. For best results, it’s important to provide detailed descriptions of what you want. If you want an image of a cat on a card, for instance, specify that clearly. While text rendering in images is not yet flawless, using double quotes around text can improve accuracy.
Although free users now have the ability to generate images, there is a limitation of two images per day. For those needing more flexibility, such as creating multiple revisions or producing enough images for a comic book, options include using another platform or subscribing to the Pro plan, which costs $20 per month.
OpenAI has expressed its ambition to make cutting-edge AI technology accessible to as many people as possible. To support this goal, the company has provided free users with features that were previously reserved for Pro subscribers. This includes the ability to utilize a variety of custom chatbots and third-party tools. A major shift occurred with the introduction of GPT-4o to free users, replacing the older GPT-3.5 model. Since then, even more advanced models, capable of running on smartphones, have surpassed GPT-3.5 in performance benchmarks.
Free users also benefit from upload functionality, which allows them to utilize the AI vision and analysis capabilities of GPT-4o. This feature can analyze uploaded images to describe their content. One popular use for this function is to input a list of ingredients and receive recipe suggestions based on those ingredients.