- Describe the picture. Say what should be in it and what it needs to show, in a sentence or two: “a community nurse talking with an older man at his kitchen table, his medication box open between them” works better than “nurse with patient”. Never include names or identifying details of real students, patients or colleagues.
- Choose what it’s for. Lecture slide, case study or scenario scene, handout or worksheet, poster or flyer, LMS page or module banner, icon or spot illustration, or something else. This sets a sensible shape and keeps the picture uncluttered enough for where it will be used.
- Choose a style. Let the AI choose picks one that suits the purpose. Otherwise choose flat illustration, realistic illustration, photographic, simple diagram or schematic, line drawing, watercolour, cartoon or 3D render. Illustrated styles usually suit teaching better than photographic ones because nobody mistakes them for a photo of a real person or place.
- Choose the shape. Widescreen (16:9) fills a slide or banner, landscape (3:2) suits handouts and pages, square suits icons and social posts, and portrait (2:3) suits posters and flyers.
- Choose the quality and how many. Draft is quick and cheap for trying out an idea, Standard suits most teaching use, and High detail is for posters, print and anything shown large. Make up to four pictures at once to choose between; the price shown on the button covers all of them.
- Set the extra options (optional). Under “More options”, choose whether the picture should contain words. None is recommended, because AI images still misspell text; if you need labels, keep them short and they’ll be spelled exactly as you type them. You can also ask for a transparent background (useful for icons and slide overlays), tick “use my description exactly” if you don’t want the AI to add detail, and add your unit, discipline and level so the picture suits your students.
- Create. Choose “Create image”. The pictures are drawn in the background while a progress message shows, which usually takes between 20 and 90 seconds. You’re only charged once the pictures are saved. If the request is refused or something goes wrong, you aren’t charged.
- Check and adjust it. Each picture shows with its title, caption and alt text, which you can edit at any time for free. Read the “Check before teaching with it” note, which points out anything worth checking, such as anatomy, equipment or text. To change a picture, choose “Change this picture” and say what to change, for example “make the room brighter” or “remove the second person”. The new version is added beside the original, so you never lose one you liked. You can delete a single picture or the whole set.
- Download or copy it. Download any picture as PNG (best for slides and the web, and the only format that keeps a transparent background) or JPEG (smaller files for email and documents). Word gives you a document with the picture, its title and caption, and the alt text already set in Word’s accessibility field. Copy alt text puts the description on your clipboard for your LMS or slide software. Every image is saved to “My Images” and to “Everything You’ve Generated” on your User Hub.
You can also create pictures straight from other tools: “Generate an image for this session” in the Lesson Planner and “Generate a scene image for this case” in the Case Study Creator. These are filled in from your lesson or case and drawn the first time you open them.
Every action’s credit cost is shown on its own button before you commit to it. Nothing is charged silently. Your pictures are saved at a private address on the site that only you are given.