Is Firefly About to Eclipse Midjourney in the Battle of the AI Image Giants?

Adobe leads on functionality, while Midjourney stays ahead on Aesthetics.

Image created by the author using various AI and Photoshop

I was inspired to draw and write by Midjourney over a year ago. At first, there was very little competition. Now, the market is flooded with AI image generators. Some bring in extra functionality or controllability. Most go down the route of simplifying the user interface to the point where you are doing little more than selecting a bunch of presets.

Midjourney has stayed ahead because it hasn’t dumbed down, and it has kept its focus on improving its beautiful aesthetics.

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To begin with, Midjourney was producing beautiful but imperfect images. These were fine for hobbyists posting on social media, but most artists who were integrating Midjourney into their work were using editing and upscaling tools to get the images up to publication standard.

Then Adobe began integrating AI generative tools into Photoshop. Now, I notice my workflow changes as Adobe and Midjourney battle it out. Each is bringing in regular updates. One day, I used Midjourney’s Pan and Zoom only to find Adobe’s generative expansion is more flexible and gives…