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Lighting, Shadows & Materials · Image Editing

Elo rankings from blind votes across 5 challenges in this category.

Highlights

10 images
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Price · Performance

Best models, by

Every ranked model plotted by price against its Elo. The upper-left frontier is the best value: top quality at the lowest cost.

Best Image Editing Models by Price

Best AI Models for Lighting, Shadows & Materials

36 models ranked · Last update: November 12, 2026 1:06 AM

Google dominates this category with Nano Banana Pro holding the top position at 1274 Elo, though OpenAI’s GPT Image 2 achieves a significantly higher win rate of 84.2% despite its slightly lower 1255 Elo. While Google and OpenAI lead here, the results diverge from the overall leaderboard as Black Forest Labs' FLUX.2 [klein] 9B provides a highly competitive 1253 Elo at a fraction of the cost and 14 times the speed of the category leader.

Rivalries

Aggregate head-to-head across the arena

Highlighted challenges

Best
GPT Image 1.5
Mid
Qwen Image Edit 2509
Worst
GPT Image 1 Mini
Image Editing Photorealism Adding & Editing Objects

Man and Car in California

Combines two references (a person and a car) into one believable driving scene. It checks whether the model keeps the man’s identity and the car’s appearance while placing them convincingly on the coastline with matched lighting and perspective.

Edited result
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Best
Nano Banana
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Mid
Seedream 4.5
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Worst
Bria FIBO
Image Editing Photorealism Face & Identity

Bald man challenge

A targeted edit test. Adding a realistic head of hair requires a believable hairline and texture while keeping the face, expression, and lighting unchanged. Common failures are wig-like or pasted-on hair and subtle changes to the underlying face.

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