Microsoft's AI Image Generator is free, but should you use it?

Image Creator from Microsoft Designer, formerly known as Bing Image Creator is a free AI tool to create unique images, but is it any good? We have tested and played with it and here’s what we’ve found.

Microsoft’s AI Image Generator is using DALL-E 3

First of all, Image Creator from Designer is extremely simple to use and it’s free for anyone with a Microsoft account.

The tool is using the AI DALL-E 3 image generator to create the images and you just need to enter a detailed description of the scene you want to generate. For instance, to get the image below, we entered: draw an image with a Windows logo and a high tech robot.

However, you can be a lot more specific in your description, adding elements, actions, background, or even the colors to use.

Image Generator draws quality images

The best part is that you may think of every possible and unnatural things like an animal writing or working on a computer and the drawings will look natural, imaginative. It’s not just overlaying a pen over a dog’s paw like some other AI image generators.

All the colors look vivid, every pixel looks like it belongs there, but sometimes, the creative part is a bit awkward. We asked for a dog writing and we got one writing with both front paws. Although it made us laugh, it’s not something you can use in a children’s book.

Its features are pretty limited

After you enter the text and hit the Create button, you actually get 4 different images, not one, which is great because you have something to choose from. However, you can’t select one and ask DALL-E to modify it in any way.

For instance, if you embed DALL-E to ChatGPT, you can easily type in the modifications you need: change the background, make the image more realistic, take out a certain element from the image and so on.

With, Image Generator, if you don’t like any image that was generated, you have no other option than to write a different description and cross your fingers.

There is, however, the option of selecting an image and hit the Customize button to open it in the Microsoft Designer editor for adjustments.

Another limitation is the resolution. Image Creator from Designer generates only 1024×1024 pixels images even if you specify any other resolution. That means you will need to edit it if you want any other aspect.

Lastly, if you’re a new user, you will get only 15 boosted generations. When you run out of boosts, you will still be able to use it but the process will become a lot slower. While boosted generations take about 20 seconds, the regular ones will require over a minute of processing.

Image Creator from Designer vs other AI image generators

If you really want to generate quality images, AI image generators such as Midjourney and NightCafe have a lot more features and settings you can play with. You can select characters and preexisting models or even adding your own images to change using the artificial intelligence engine.

However, these tools are free only for a few tries and then you need to opt for a paid plan or buy extra credits to generate more images.

Pros	Cons
Completely free	Limited features
Very creative and fast	It doesn’t let you further change the composition
Great colors and composition	It only generates 1024×1024 pixels images
It generates 4 images to choose from	After the credits run out, image generation is slowed down

Should I use Image Creator from Microsoft Designer?

If you want to have some fun and need some nice images to show to your friends on social media, Image Creator is excellent. It will feast your eyes with great coloring and composition, but if you need a solid tool for image creation, you should stick to more traditional art generation tools instead.

You can give a try to some AI open source content generators if you don’t just want to create images.

The bottom line is that Image Creator from Designer is a simple and fun AI tool that you should definitely try. You have nothing to lose anyway, because it’s free, right?

Have you tried Image Creator from Designer? Let us know your thoughts about it in the comments section below.