Research Guides: Image Use & Citation: AI and Images

AI and Images

Created using DALL-E. 2024.

Created using Microsoft CoPilot. 2024

It should be noted that no one can claim copyright to AI-generated images. Be ethical when using AI images. Some AI generators pay artists for their contributions. These guidelines can help you when using AI image generators.

Call it what it is. Say, "This is art generated by using AI."
If you can give credit to the artists used, do so.
Use generated AI Images to inspire you - ideation, do not copy the AI image but instead use light, lines, movement, color, characters, landscapes, etc., to create your image.
In practice, you should try to use a text-to-image generator that compensates the artists who created it.

If you need to cite AI-generated images, here is an example. It is based on APA 7th ed., citing AI in text. Ask your professor if they prefer a certain format before submitting your work.

"Title of image." date used, LLM name (version) [large language model]. Prompt. webaddress to the generated image chat.

Are you curious about which artists were used to train AI text-to-image generators? Search Have I Been Trained?

Adobe Firefly
Use generative AI and simple text prompts to bring your ideas to life. And now you can add reference images to get the style and structure you’re looking for.
Beautiful AI (Prezi)
Want to make dynamic presentations? Beautiful AI will help you create your presentation.
DALL-E
We’ve trained a neural network called DALL·E that creates images from text captions for a wide range of concepts expressible in natural language.
DreamStudio
DreamStudio is a web application for generating and editing images with Stability.ai’s latest Stable Diffusion models.
Hugging Face
Only uses images from the public domain or images with Creative Commons licenses.
Midjourney
Midjourney is an independent research lab exploring new mediums of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species.
Napkin
At Napkin, our mission is to give everyone the power of visuals in their communication. We want to bring visuals to conversations where there are none today and enable people who never think about visuals to become dynamic visual storytellers. With Napkin, everyone will become a more effective storyteller.
Shutterstock AI Image Genertor
Compensates artists in their platform when an image is generated.
Tess
Images generated on Tess are meant to be used without complex licensing structures. Tess works with artists directly to ensure fair compensation when you download and use images from our platform.