Nano Banana vs GPT Image: Which Is Better for a Photo Card?

For a photo card with your own people in it, GPT Image wins up to four faces and Nano Banana wins at five. GPT Image 2.5 Flare, the model Auto uses for pictures, keeps faces closest to the photos and returns a card in about 25 seconds; Nano Banana Pro holds the likeness of five people at one table and costs more. For words drawn on the card, pick GPT Image 2, and for loud party colour, Seedream 5.0 Pro.

The rest of this page is for the cards that need more: the 70th with the number spelled right, the family of five spread over three countries. All five models sit in one Model picker, so switching costs a click.

Who is who: two Nano Bananas, two GPT Images and a Seedream

Nano Banana is Google's image model, and two versions run here: Nano Banana Pro and Nano Banana 2. Pro is tagged "Up to 5 people"; Nano Banana 2 is tagged "Fast" and costs less. GPT Image is OpenAI's line, from the makers of ChatGPT: GPT Image 2.5 Flare, tagged "Best likeness", and GPT Image 2, tagged "Sharp details". Seedream 5.0 Pro comes from ByteDance and carries the "Rich colour" tag.

On paper they are twins. All five draw at 1K or 2K and take up to 8 reference photos of your people. So the choice comes down to what the card has to get right: the faces, the words, the colour or the clock.

Nano Banana vs GPT Image vs Seedream: the table

The times below are ones we measured here; where we have not timed a model, the table says so. Prices are relative because the live numbers change - the exact cost is on the button before you press it.

Likeness of real faces: Flare up to four, Nano Banana Pro at five

Likeness is the one thing everybody checks. Nobody writes back about the lighting; everyone writes back when Grandpa looks like a stranger in Grandpa's cardigan. A picture here holds up to six people, but faces stay most reliable up to four, and inside that range we trust GPT Image 2.5 Flare most.

The watercolour below shows what "keeps the face" means. We took a Nano Banana 2 portrait of a grandmother by a sunny kitchen window, holding a handmade card, and asked Flare to repaint it as a watercolour birthday card with her face, smile and hair exactly as they were. The style changed completely. She did not.

Past four, faces start to drift, and the small one at the far end of the table tends to go first. Nano Banana Pro, tagged "Up to 5 people", is the model we switch to when that fifth face matters. It drew the pictures behind every scene in our catalogue, so it has had plenty of practice seating families. Past five, likeness is a gamble on any model: make two cards rather than one crowded one.

The photos do more work than the prompt: one clear, well-lit photo per person, face to the camera. Spend your words on the scene and write it like a seating plan.

What people usually type

"a family photo card for dad's birthday"

What works better

"Dad at the head of the kitchen table holding the cake, Mum on his left, Grandma Rosa on his right, my brother and me standing behind, warm lamp light, everyone laughing, realistic photo, no text"

Five names and five places: that one goes to Nano Banana Pro. Leave out Grandma and the brother, and Flare does it for less.

Words on the card: why we use GPT Image 2

Names, ages and dates are where a card goes wrong in public: one letter missing from a name, and the family notices before anyone looks at the picture. When the words are part of the image, we pick GPT Image 2. The card below asked for hand lettering that reads exactly "Happy 70th, Mum" above a watercolour of an old couple dancing in a kitchen. Every letter came back where it belongs.

The prompt does half the work. Put the exact words in quotation marks after "reads exactly", say where they go - across the top, in icing, in chalk on a board - and end with "no other text", so the picture does not grow a second line nobody asked for. Keep it to a name, an age or a date; a longer message belongs in the greeting, which is free.

Two caveats. Our lettered example is in English, so check Hebrew, Arabic or Russian words letter by letter. And Nano Banana and Seedream are not our lettering models: our prompts for them usually end with "no text". Qwen Image 3 from Alibaba is tagged "Clean text", but takes only three reference photos.

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Count the faces, check for words, then pick the model - not the other way round.

Colour and mood: where Seedream and Nano Banana part ways

Seedream 5.0 Pro is the loud one, in the good sense. The garden dinner below came from words alone: a long table in a sunlit garden, a bright tablecloth, bowls of fruit and flowers, children holding balloons, grandparents at the head, and "rich saturated colours" asked for by name. It looks like the afternoon everyone remembers slightly sunnier than it was. Seedream also starts well below Nano Banana Pro in price.

Nano Banana Pro is quieter and more lived-in. In "Hanukkah by the window", one of our catalogue scenes, the menorah is lit, the doughnuts are dusted with sugar, street lamps glow outside and everyone leans in close. Nothing shouts; it looks like an evening someone actually had. Open the scene, add your people's photos, and they take the seats.

The two GPT Images split the work: Flare cares about faces, GPT Image 2 about everything else. Name the materials - linen, knitwear, oak - and it draws them in fine detail.

Speed and price: the draft and the card you send

We measured two numbers here: a GPT Image 2.5 Flare card takes about 25 seconds, a GPT Image 2 card about 80. We have not timed the two Nano Bananas or Seedream here, so we will not guess. At today's rates Flare and Seedream start lowest of the five, GPT Image 2 and Nano Banana 2 cost a little more, and Nano Banana Pro costs the most. A failed picture gives its credits back, and new accounts get 1,000 free credits.

Whatever the model, one habit helps: make a quick draft first, fix what it got wrong - the room, the light, who sits where - then make the card you send on the model that suits it. The sofa below is a Nano Banana 2 run from words alone: three generations squeezed onto one sofa, blowing out candles on a homemade chocolate cake, a golden retriever in a party hat at their feet. As a layout test it answers everything, down to whether the dog fits. For real faces, add photos and move to Flare or Pro.

Which one to pick for your card

One to four people, no words. Leave the Model picker on Auto and you get GPT Image 2.5 Flare. That is most birthday cards.

Five people. Nano Banana Pro. For six or more, split the family across two cards.

A name, an age or a date on the card. GPT Image 2, words in quotation marks, "no other text" at the end.

A bright party scene where no face has to be exact. Seedream 5.0 Pro, colours named in the prompt.

Still torn between the garden and the kitchen. Nano Banana 2 for drafts, then the final card on the model that fits.

To switch, set the composer to Standard, pick Photo card and open Model. Or tell the agent in the chat who is in the card, add their photos, and Auto does the rest. The full route from photos to sending is on our AI photo card page; the card can go out by email, SMS or a messenger on the morning of the day.