1.7 – Limitations and Best Practices Lesson

Lesson Overview

Generating images directly with ChatGPT is an exciting and powerful feature, but it’s not without a few hiccups. This lesson guides you through the most frequently encountered limitations, as well as best practices to improve your results. Knowing these issues—such as faces and hands sometimes appearing off, or longer text inside images not rendering well—can save you time and help set realistic expectations, especially if you’re used to other creative tools. Negative prompting, or instructing the model on what not to include, is still being refined, so prompts like “no background” may not always work as intended. Meanwhile, achieving visual consistency across a set of images requires careful repetition or use of reference images.

Practical tips covered here, like being specific (but not overly detailed) with prompts and using follow-ups to refine images, can help anyone get better, clearer visuals. These skills are highly relevant for personal creative experimentation, professional branded content, or team presentations. Whether you’re creating simple business graphics, social posts, or storybook illustrations, understanding limitations and best practices allows you to use ChatGPT more effectively and avoid common frustrations.

Who This Is For

This lesson is valuable for anyone looking to use AI image generation in practical scenarios, regardless of skill level. Consider continuing if you are:

• Marketers needing quick custom visuals for campaigns or social media
• Small business owners or staff creating images for branding or internal use
• Educators preparing unique educational graphics
• Content creators and bloggers seeking fast, original images
• Designers or team members wanting to understand real-world AI image quirks
• Anyone curious about AI-powered creativity, from hobbyists to professionals

Where This Fits in a Workflow

Understanding the limits and techniques of ChatGPT image creation helps at the early planning and production stages of any visual project. For example, if you’re designing a short marketing campaign, knowing ahead that long text inside images may not work avoids wasted iterations. If you’re developing a visual story or character series, recognizing consistency challenges means you’ll proactively use repeated prompt language or bring in reference uploads. These insights shape how you approach prompt writing, revisions, and image selection, streamlining your overall process whether you’re building a brand library or simply producing one-off imagery. This lesson serves as a foundation for smoother, frustration-free creative projects.

Technical & Workflow Benefits

Compared to trial-and-error or relying on default settings, learning the key limitations and best practices of ChatGPT image generation helps you sidestep common pitfalls. Previously, you might have spent extra time fixing odd faces, weird hands, or unreadable text in generated images—or been baffled when a “no background” instruction went ignored. A structured approach—clear, focused prompts, prompt formulas, and reference language—delivers more predictable outcomes. For example, marketers can save time revising images for campaign consistency, while educators avoid surprises with classroom graphics. Overall, these practices let you produce higher quality visuals faster, with less frustration and more creative control, especially when compared to a purely experimental or “guess and check” approach.

Practice Exercise

Use ChatGPT’s image generation feature to create a simple visual for a real scenario: a business card mockup.

1. Write a prompt for a business card featuring a person’s name and job title.
2. Review the generated image for any text quality issues or oddities in hands or faces, if visible.
3. Adjust your prompt using follow-up instructions—try simplifying text, specifying background, or adding reference language such as “to be used as professional business card art.”

**Reflection:**
Did ChatGPT struggle with any element (such as the text or layout)? Which prompt changes led to better results?

Course Context Recap

This lesson gives you a practical understanding of what to expect from ChatGPT’s image capabilities and how to work around its current quirks. Previously, you focused on the mechanics of prompt structure; now, you’re learning how to handle real-world issues during image creation. Up next, you’ll explore further ways to refine and customize your prompts for even higher-quality visuals and more creative control. Continue through the course to sharpen your skills and unlock the full potential of AI-powered image generation.