The Flux AI image generator, released by Black Forest Labs, has quickly gained popularity and is now one of the most powerful tools in its category. Unlike its competitor Midjourney, which is a closed and paid service, Flux is an open-source model that can be downloaded and used on different platforms. To compare the realism and accuracy of Flux and Midjourney, the author created five descriptive prompts and ran them on both generators. The first prompt aimed to generate an image of a chef in a professional kitchen. Midjourney won this round due to its realistic skin texture and depiction of the main character. However, the author noted that they preferred the dynamism of the Flux image. The second prompt required the generators to create an image of a street musician performing in a busy city. Once again, Midjourney won for its realism and quality of texture.

The image also excelled in terms of structure, layout, and background. The third prompt focused on generating an image of an elderly woman caring for plants in a rooftop garden. Midjourney won because of its superior texture quality, although both generators struggled with certain aspects of the prompt. Prompt four challenged the generators to depict a paramedic rushing to an ambulance on a rainy day. Neither generator won this round, as both faced difficulties capturing the darker environment. However, Midjourney slightly outperformed Flux in terms of matching the scene description. The final prompt called for the depiction of a retired astronaut giving a presentation about space. Flux emerged as the winner due to its skin texture, human realism, and better overall image structure, including a more realistic background. Overall, Midjourney had an edge over Flux in terms of skin texture rendering, but Flux often outperformed in terms of image structure and backgrounds. This comparison highlighted that even at the cutting edge of AI image generation, there are still features that can reveal the images as AI-generated.