Two images & design tools, one decision. Here is the honest split.
| Adobe Firefly | DALL-E | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Best at | Commercial projects where training-data provenance matters, and Generative Fill edits inside Photoshop. | Precise compositions, images with readable text, and iterating in plain conversation. |
| In short | Adobe's commercially-trained image generator, built into Photoshop and Express. Designed to be safe for client work. | OpenAI's image generator, available inside ChatGPT. Strong at following literal instructions and rendering text. |
| On Atlas | 3 starter prompts | 3 starter prompts |
Pick Adobe Firefly when the job is Commercial projects where training-data provenance matters, and Generative Fill edits inside Photoshop.. Pick DALL-E when the job is Precise compositions, images with readable text, and iterating in plain conversation.. Still torn? Run one real task through both free tiers. An hour of testing beats a week of reviews.
A [subject] in [setting], lit by [light source], shot on a [lens/angle], in a [style] palette of [colors]. No text, no watermark.