Imagen 4 is Google’s answer for photorealism with text. It renders typography more reliably than any other major model and produces the most convincing people and anatomy, which makes it the pick for documents, slides and marketing assets where words have to look right inside the image.
Access is its real advantage: generation is bundled into Gemini Advanced at $20/month — effectively all-you-can-eat for moderate volume — and metered at roughly $0.04 per image on Vertex AI for production use, with tight Google Workspace and Cloud integration.
The limitations are deployment and taste: there’s no local/self-hosted option, and its clean, polished default look is less distinctive than Midjourney’s signature style.
Best for
- Documents, slides and marketing with text
- Photorealistic people and product shots
- Google Workspace / Cloud workflows
Pros & cons
Strengths
- Best-in-class typography and text in images
- Strongest photorealism for people and anatomy
- All-you-can-eat value inside Gemini Advanced
Limitations
- No local hosting
- Less distinctive style than Midjourney