The past several years have seen an explosion in powerful, creative, capable tools for interacting with images in any way you can imagine. AI art tools like Midjourney and DALL-E have generated the most headlines, but that’s just the tip of the AI-driven art iceberg. Image generation APIs can be used for everything from content moderation to creating custom visuals for marketing or sales.

Whether you’re looking for the most advanced AI art tools like DALL-E or an API for creating custom videos from a text prompt, here are ten image generation APIs worthy of your time and attention. Any of these could be used to program AI-driven image generation capabilities into your applications.

1. OpenAI Image Generation API

Of course, the creators of DALL-E have one of the most notable image generation APIs. OpenAI’s Image Generation API can create images in three separate ways. It can create an entirely original image based on a text prompt. It can edit an existing image based on a text prompt, allowing users to add or remove elements with masks. Finally, it can create variations of a provided image.

At the moment, OpenAI’s Image Generation API is still in Beta. Users are limited to 50 images a minute. You can read more about their restriction at their rate limit guide. Images can be returned in 256×256, 512×512, and 1024×1024 resolutions.

2. DeepAI Image Generation API

DeepAI’s Image Generation API offers the best of what image generation APIs are capable of. It’s a tool for unlocking your imagination and providing genuine inspiration, as well as a fun toy to mess around with. Like OpenAI’s Image Generation API, DeepAI creates original images from a text prompt.

The DeepAI Image Generation API could be useful for everyone, from working artists to content creators looking for striking custom images. For artists, it can be a helpful learning tool and a source of inspiration. It’s a fast and easy way to get a preview of an artist’s style or a particular movement, as you can generate images based on any text input. You can get an idea of what a post-apocalyptic Mark Rothko canvas might look like, for example, or a Dada summer painting or a killer cyborg in the style of Salvador Dali.

Post-apocalyptic Mark Rothko painting generated by DeepAI.

Like OpenAI, DeepAI’s image Generation API also lets you customize the image resolution in the API query. It supports height and width between 128 and 1536. You can further customize your images using negative prompts, telling the API what you don’t want. This filter can be useful for disproportionate bodies, blurry faces, or other undesirable qualities.

DeepAI’s Image Generation API is like a cross between DALL-E and Midjourney. When used properly, it can be a valuable, creative, and inspiring tool.

3. Bannerbear Image Generation API

BannerBear’s Image Generation API is like a text-based image generator mixed with Canva. It’s explicitly designed to generate images for eCommercehttps://nordicapis.com/how-ecommerce-businesses-are-leveraging-the-api-economy/ and social media. This alone is cause for celebration for anyone who’s ever had to create promotional content.

Bannerbear easily integrates with several popular social sites and web tools, as well, from Zapier to Airtable to Google Forms. This makes it exceptionally useful for an automated marketing workflow. A world where you never need to mess with templates or custom sizing ever again is a kind of utopia, indeed.

4. Hive Image Generation API

The Hive Image Generation API is another high-quality art AI similar to Midjourney. It can produce rich, luxurious original images that are impressive enough for publication or promotional use. That’s just the beginning, though. The Hive also offers numerous powerful tools for everything from content moderation to text recognition to the ability to extract deep, powerful, useful insights from images and videos like demographic data or contextual info.

If you’re looking for one AI tool for nearly anything image-related you can think of via an API, you should check out Hive Image Generation API.

5. Synthesia Video Generation API

If you’re looking for an AI tool for video generation, Synthesia is worth a look. Synthesia’s video generation API lets you pick an avatar and input the text you want to be generated, and Synthesia will create an original video in a manner of minutes. It’s useful for everything from creating tutorials to sales and marketing materials, with a wide variety of templates and support for over 120 languages.

6. Eden AI

Eden AI’s Image Generation API is another image creation API similar to Midjourney that lets you create high-quality original images based on text input. Integration with popular automation tools like Zapier or Bubble makes Eden AI another useful image generation API to work into your low-code automation workflow.

Like Hive, Eden AI can do much more than generate AI art. It’s capable of face recognition, object detection, logo detection, landmark recognition, and similar object detection. This also makes Eden AI worthwhile as part of a content moderation or reputation management tool. It’s an excellent example of how image AIs can be helpful for so much more than just generating AI avatars and fantasy art.

7. Cloudlayer Image Generation API

Cloudlayer offers another image generation API similar to Canva or Bannerbear. It lets you create images via HTML, URL, or templates via API. Cloudlayer supports custom CSS libraries like Bootstrap or Tailwind, custom fonts, and even JavaScript. Cloudlayer is also available via SDK or no-code tools like Zapier, so it’s easy to use by anyone.

Image generation is just one aspect of Cloudlayer’s capabilities, though. It’s an entire documentation generation suite. Not only can you create custom images via API, but you can also use it to generate PDFs. If you’re looking for a single solution to handle multiple marketing and business operations via API, you should strongly consider Cloudlayer.

8. Amethyste API

Looking for an image AI for your Discord bots? Try Amethyste API, an image AI that can generate or retrieve over 150 different kinds of images for your Discord server. You can sign up for a free API key here and start adding custom graphics to your Discord server in no time.

9. Colourlovers API

Although Colourlovers is technically an image generation API, it’s more of an image lab or studio for customizing and fine-tuning your images. It lets you create interesting, unique patterns for your graphics, for one thing. Its palette generator is just as useful as its trending tools. Both can return both single colors and palettes in either JSON or XML format.

Not only can Colourlovers create interesting details and textures for your visual content, it also helps you make sure your visuals will be appealing and attractive. It’s useful for everything from market research to competitive analysis.

10. Venngage API

Venngage (formerly Glitterly) lets you create infographics from an API call. You can make everything from timelines to one-pages to presentations to diagrams and data visualizations. Venngage is useful for everything from creating marketing to instruction materials to banners, whitepapers, cards, menus, and certificates. Venngage is capable of a truly impressive range of creative functions.

Final Thoughts On Image Generation APIs

You shouldn’t have to spend a fortune to have high-quality graphics for your content and promotional materials. What’s more, creating or sourcing images to showcase your band in a positive light can take time and energy. Image generation APIs democratize access to quick artistic capabilities, allowing everyone to be creative.

Think of these APIs like a creative prompt generator, letting you visualize anything your heart desires. This could be a “chicken with a TV for a head,” “computer monitors washing up on a beach,” or a “moody sky” to give you something to work from. Whether you’re an artist looking to unlock your creativity and elevate your craft or a business or website owner wanting to stand out with something other than Unsplash stock art, image generation APIs are worth exploring.