I Tested Gemini's Nano Banana AI Image Editor—and These 7 Tricks Seriously Impressed Me
Gemini’s Nano Banana makes quick AI image edits—such as object removal, compositing, text generation, and custom filters—surprisingly accessible and often more convincing than Adobe’s generative tools. Its low-resolution output, blur, and lack of precise manual controls still rule it out for professional photo workflows.
I Tested Gemini’s Nano Banana AI Image Editor—and These 7 Tricks Seriously Impressed Me
Author: Ruben Circelli | Published: Unknown | Generated: 2025-09-20 | Domain: uk.pcmag.com
Tags: ‘#gemini’ ‘#nano-banana’ ‘#ai-image-editing’ ‘#photo-editing’ ‘#generative-ai’
TLDR
PCMag tested Google Gemini’s Nano Banana image model across seven common editing tasks: adding readable text, blending images, removing and adding objects, creating filters, visualizing room changes, and removing reflections. The model delivers strong, prompt-driven edits and, in one bookcase-removal comparison, produced more convincing generative results than Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. However, downloaded images remain limited in resolution and can exhibit blur, softened focus, and smudged text, making Nano Banana best for casual sharing rather than high-end photography.
Key Takeaways
- Seven practical editing workflows: Nano Banana can add text, blend multiple source images, remove unwanted subjects, add new content, generate bespoke visual filters, preview design changes, and target specific reflections.
- Text and compositing improve with Pro: Nano Banana Pro produces clear, legible text and can combine more source images; Google demonstrates blending up to 14 images in its promotional material.
- Free access with limits: Users can access Nano Banana through Gemini on desktop or mobile by uploading an image and enabling the banana-icon toggle. Paid subscribers receive priority access to Nano Banana Pro, while free users face usage caps and revert to the original model afterward.
- Better for restrained edits: Small, focused removals and additions tend to look most realistic; asking the model to substantially rebuild a scene can make the image appear fully AI-generated.
- Not a professional Adobe replacement: Gemini reportedly outperformed Lightroom and Photoshop’s generative removal in the bookcase example, but lacks raw-file support, color/noise/distortion/lighting correction, layer and library tools, and direct edit controls.
Images & Media
- Article hero image — PCMag composite illustration accompanying the Nano Banana AI image-editing test.
- Ruben Circelli author portrait — Author profile photograph.
Referenced Links
- Google’s Nano Banana Pro announcement — Google’s description of Nano Banana Pro improvements, including accuracy, consistency, controls, text generation, and multi-image blending.
- Adobe Lightroom — Compared with Gemini for AI-powered bookcase removal.
- Adobe Photoshop — Compared with Gemini for generative image editing.
- What are RAW camera files? — Context for Gemini’s lack of raw-image editing support.
- Gemini’s Veo 3 AI video generator — Related Google generative-video model.