Shutterstock AI Deep Dive – Custom Visuals Powered by Generative AI
Shutterstock.AI is an AI-powered creative platform by Shutterstock, the stock media licensing company. It hosts an AI image generator and multiple AI photo editing features. It's an ethical and commercially safer approach to generative AI, designed to serve stock photo buyers looking for a more personalized touch in their imagery for their marketing needs.
Today, we are deep-diving into Shutterstock’s AI platform to show you what it's about and what you can accomplish with it. If you want a real-time test experience, visit the Shutterstock Creative AI platform and explore it while you read our review!
Shutterstock's Ethically-Developed, Visual AI Solutions
When machine learning technology capable of generating content started making waves a couple of years ago, Shutterstock was one of the first companies to focus on developing ethical design tools around it.
For this, they partnered with high-profile AI tech startups and firms, like OpenAI, Amazon, and NVidia, to train different generative artificial intelligence models exclusively with Shutterstock's high-quality, curated, and legally licensed content. Plus, they provide expert licensing coverage and compensate contributors for using their photos in training datasets.
This approach ensures that Shutterstock's AI creative tools are highly capable, commercially safer, and ethically responsible.
Shutterstock's journey in AI technology began with the launch of Shutterstock Generate, a text-to-image generator. They then expanded their offerings to include AI image editing tools and an AI design assistant, showcasing their dedication to evolving and meeting the diverse needs of creative professionals.
As it stands now, with Shutterstock’s generative AI, you can either create a new picture from scratch or edit any image from their pre-shot library as much as you wish and download it with a standard license.
It's an ideal resource for brands and businesses looking to personalize their visuals, as it's much safer commercially than other alternatives. It's also a user-friendly suite with a gentle learning curve, which makes it useful for beginners and non-designers who want beautiful images but lack the skills to produce them with traditional methods.
Overview of Shutterstock AI Features
Let's quickly review Shutterstock's AI tools for creating or enhancing images.
AI Image Generator: This tool creates images based on your written prompt. It’s equipped with natural language processing, meaning you can input text as you would normally write it without thinking of keywords.
All you have to do is type in a description of the image and hit “Generate”; the software will synthesize four image variations based on your prompt within 10 to 15 seconds. Each time you do this it will consume one “generation” from your monthly allowance (see pricing details in the section below).
It currently supports prompts in 20 different languages. It has a newly added “styles” tab to select the aesthetic desired for your picture, whether for photography, art, digital, 3D, or scene. You have outdoor, watercolor, flat design, origami, country living, and many more options.
Magic Brush – An “inpainting” tool, the magic brush lets you select an area or object in a picture you want to modify. Then, you can use “erase” to remove what is in that area seamlessly or “replace” and write a prompt describing what you want to replace it with, and the tool will insert an AI-generated object that fits your description.
Expand Image—The name is pretty transparent: this feature lets you expand an image beyond its original borders, filling the new canvas with suitable content. It's very useful for modifying aspect ratios and improving picture composition.
Variations—This option produces more versions of the same prompt, letting you explore more creative possibilities within your desired concept.
Design Assistant—If you feel unsure or need guidance, this feature is here to help. It hand-guides you through the design process, turning your ideas into impactful images. It's a perfect companion for beginners.
Background Remover – Remove any image's background, and use a prompt to describe what you want to replace it with, all in one swift move.
Using Shutterstock.AI in Real-Life [3 Use Cases]
To get a real sense of how valuable these tools can be in daily creative workflows, we pretended to be three different users with distinct visual needs. We tested how Shutterstock's AI features worked for each of those scenarios. Have a look:
The influencer wants to create “faceless” visual content to keep her audience engaged but maintain anonymity instead of featuring herself in her channel. She found out that AI people photos are a good alternative as she doesn't have to worry about infringing a model's rights when using them.
The influencer begins with generating an image according to her vision. She launches the AI image generator and types a prompt: “Young woman resting on a lounge chair by a swimming pool and reading a book, seen from behind, her face is not showing, dressed in neutral tones, quiet luxury environment, warm daylight lighting”; she selects a 1:1 aspect ratio since that matches Instagram's dimensions for a square post, and after checking all the styles available for Photos, selects “Outdoor” as it's the one that better fits her brand's image.
The results are good, although most of the images have issues with body parts and the book. One of them is almost perfect, but it will require some tweaking as the portion of the face that is visible doesn't look realistic. She picks that one and clicks on “Edit.” Then she uses Magic Brush to select that area of the face, clicks on “Replace,” and types in the prompt: “Her hair covers her face naturally,” then hits enter.
There are still some minor issues (the feet look a bit weird, and the book has no text) that would take much longer and require more skills to fix, but she decides she's happy for now. She simply opens her created image on Shutterstock Create with one click, then crops the image to leave the feet out of the frame and places her text strategically to cover most of the book. And done!
Perfect! She now downloads the image with a Standard license—as it covers her social media usage needs—and proceeds to upload it to her Instagram. It all took her less than ten minutes.
He's on a budget, so he's creating the content himself, and he chose to go with stock photos as they're cost-effective, fast, and professional quality. He now wants to see how the generative AI tools from Shutterstock can help him customize these visuals to drive better results.
First, he surfs through Shutterstock's image library until he finds a photo he loves that matches his concept and has the perfect space to insert some of his yellow-themed, decorative paintings. But he encounters an issue: the photo has a small potted plant on a table, where he would like there to be flowers.
So, he launches the generative AI editor from the image's page, selects the “Remove background” option (which opens a layout with all Creative AI features), paints the cactus with Magic Brush, and chooses “Replace”, adding a prompt for a “minimalist plant pot with yellow flowers.”
Now the image is ready to have his product inserted, so he downloads it with a Standard license –ideal for digital marketing needs–. That was fast!
Now, for the last task, he opens Shutterstock's AI background remover, uploads one of his custom product images of a minimalist chair, removes the background in one click, and then uses the crop layer tool to place the chair in the center of the canvas, then the “Change color” setting to apply a muted, light taupe background to the new product image.
And just like that, he has a new product image to match his concept and create consistent adverts. Very cool.
He doesn't want images to use in his final work -as he'd collaborate with a digital graphic artist for that- but rather to get a visual of his character's appearance to aid his creative process during the writing stage.
Our amateur writer has never created or edited imagery, so he chooses to use the AI design assistant. Launches it, goes to the chat window, and sends a message to the assistant asking to “Create a graphic novel character that is a young Viking warrior”
The AI chatbot then asks a few follow-up questions to help identify the character's style. Upon answering, he finally gets some images to shape up his vision.
After some extra back-and-forth with the assistant to get more details to customize this character, a new iteration of images finally resembles what he had in mind.
He will now select one of them to start his writing process. It was so quick!
Shutterstock's AI Cost
You can open and visualize how Shutterstock's generative features work without paying, but you must have an active Shutterstock “AI Plus” membership to use the premium version of the tools and to download any image generated or edited with AI.
With the AI Plus plan, all downloads come with a Standard license included, and you get access to all generative AI tools.
Currently, the AI Plus plan costs only $7/mo and gives you 100 generation credits. Each generation credit produces 4 unique image variations with any AI feature you use. This means that with this plan, you get 400 AI-generated or AI-edited images per month for only seven dollars.
If you consume all these credits before your month is up and want more, you can buy generation credits on demand in addition to your plan.
We find this to be a fairly affordable price.
Shutterstock.Ai for Stock Photo Buyers: On-Brand Visuals in Seconds
If you're a seasoned stock photo buyer—or interested in this wonderful creative resource—the generative AI features from Shutterstock can empower your workflow in new and exciting ways.
Picture this: You have complete freedom to search and select any stock image from Shutterstock's extensive catalog and customize it to perfectly align with your brand's unique needs, all within seconds and without ever leaving the Shutterstock platform. With Shutterstock's generative AI, you can be confident that the results will always meet high-quality standards.
Even better, your final pictures will have full commercial use coverage from Shutterstock, with either a Standard or Enhanced license. This means you can use the images for any commercial purpose, including advertising, marketing, and product packaging, without any additional permissions or fees.
Shutterstock.AI For Non-Designers: User-Friendly Creative Tool
If you're new to creating visual content for your business or personal project, generative AI is one of the best ways to produce great content faster and easier.
Shutterstock ensures your journey is smooth, as all its generative AI tools are designed to be incredibly user-friendly and straightforward. These resources enable you to create stunning visuals in a snap, from the virtual design assistant to the image generator to the editing features. With Shutterstock.AI, you can expand your creative possibilities without needing complex skills.
The best part is that you can handle any project imaginable quickly, from personal artistic expressions to your small business's marketing and social media presence.
Pros and Cons of Shutterstock’s Generative AI
After testing it out with our use cases, these are the things we liked the most:
Of course, no resource is perfect. Here are some things we feel could be improved:
That said, the positives far outweigh the negatives, and we are sure the company will continue improving the service, and these issues may soon be solved. So, we highly recommend trying Shutterstock's AI service.
Solve Your Visual Needs with Shutterstock’s Advanced AI Platform
After exploring its features and testing them with our three use case scenarios, we can only conclude that Shutterstock.AI is a technically advanced creative platform full of convenient solutions for creating and editing images.
Shutterstock.AI's intuitive interface and guided assistance feature make it an ideal starting point for novices in image generation and editing. However, its ability to deliver rapid, high-quality results and the extensive customization options within the pre-shot library make Shutterstock's generative AI tools a valuable asset for businesses seeking to personalize their visuals easily.
Click here to try Shutterstock AI, and let us know how you like it!
