In April, I had GPT-4o create a bunch of maps of the Holy Land based on an existing public-domain map. My chief complaint at the time was that GPT-4o “falls apart on the details”—it gives the right macro features but hallucinates micro features (such as omitting specific hills and valleys and creating nonexistent rivers).
Nano Banana Pro changes that. It preserves features both big and small and doesn’t alter the location of features you give it, which means that you can hand it a map, have it transform the look, and then export it back out of Nano Banana with the correct georeferencing. You can completely change the appearance of a map and just swap it out for your purposes.
This time, I started with the same public-domain map but had Nano Banana Pro extend it so that it would have the same 2:3 aspect ratio as the GPT-4o images. It did a phenomenal job. If you’ve heard of the “jagged frontier” of AI, this work is an example of “sometimes it’s amazing.” There’s no reason why it should be so good at creating a map this accurate. But here we are. (You can download the 4K version of the generated image.)
Then I ran the same prompts on Nano Banana Pro that I used for the earlier GPT-4o images. The results preserve all the details but apply the appropriate style. While the Nano Banana Pro images are more accurate, I feel like the GPT-4o images were, on the whole, more aesthetically pleasing for the same prompt. On the other hand, the NBP images followed the prompts way better. Only a few of the more heavily stylized NBP images inserted the nonexistent river between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea.
Below are some of my favorite Nano Banana Pro images. The first two recreate the Shaded Blender look that’s so hot right now. The second two show how NBP can change up the style while preserving details. I especially love how the last one makes the Mediterranean Sea feel vaguely threatening, which captures ancient Israelites’ feelings toward it.
You can view all 200+ Nano Banana Pro-generated images here. The older GPT-4o images remain available.