Neutral Expression to Genuine Smile

12 models were given the same image and edit instruction, and the community voted blind on which outputs looked best. How it works

Blind Vote This Challenge

Winning image by Nano Banana for Neutral Expression to Genuine Smile

#1 — Nano Banana

Edit instruction

{
  "action": "image_edit",
  "reference": "uploaded neutral portrait",
  "change": "Warm genuine Duchenne smile: lips curved up, slight natural teeth, soft eye crinkles, subtle cheek raise",
  "details": "Realistic smiling skin (dimples if present, soft cheek shadows), slightly brighter eyes; keep exact eye shape/color/iris",
  "preserve_exact": "Face identity/structure, eyes/nose/lips/eyebrows, hair, skin texture/pores/freckles, makeup, clothing, head pose, background, lighting, shadows, framing",
  "no_changes": "No face shape change, no new features, no gaze shift, no hair/clothing/lighting/background edits",
  "style": "Ultra-photorealistic 8K portrait, sharp face focus, natural soft lighting, realistic skin glow"
}

Voters were asked to judge by Identity preserved Natural smile No geometry changes

Challenge Rankings

12 models

#	Model	Price	¢/img	Elo
1	Nano Banana Google	$$	3.9¢	1266
2	Seedream 4.5 ByteDance	$$	4¢	1240
3	GPT Image 1.5 OpenAI	$	0.9¢	1236
4	Nano Banana Pro Google	$$$	6.7¢	1216
5	Grok Imagine Image xAI	$$	2¢	1211
6	Seedream 5.0 Lite ByteDance	$$	3.5¢	1166
7	FLUX.2 [pro] Black Forest Labs	$$	1.5¢	1157
8	Wan 2.6 Alibaba	$$	3¢	1145
9	Grok Imagine Image Pro xAI	$$$	7¢	1132
10	FLUX.2 [max] Black Forest Labs	$$	3¢	1123
11	Reve Image 1.0 Reve AI	$$	4¢	1113
12	Seedream 4.0 ByteDance	$$	3¢	1105

Google's Nano Banana leads the editing challenge with a 1266 Elo and a 77.6% win rate, delivering results more than twice as fast as its closest competitor, Seedream 4.5 (1240 Elo). Despite being the most affordable model in the top five, GPT Image 1.5 maintains a competitive 1236 Elo, and noticeably outperforms the more expensive Nano Banana Pro (1216 Elo) and Grok Imagine Image Pro (1132 Elo).