A Production Workflow for AI Images in Editorial

Editorial image generation works when it is treated as a production pipeline rather than a creative slot machine.

1. Write the brief as an art director would

Specify subject, framing, lighting, mood and what must not appear. Vague briefs produce images that need re-briefing, which costs more than writing it properly the first time.

2. Generate a wide first pass

Produce a dozen cheap variations before refining anything. The purpose of the first pass is to find a direction, not to finish an image.

3. Select on composition, not detail

Choose the candidate whose layout serves the page: room for a headline, subject not centred under a crop, tonal separation from surrounding elements. Detail problems can be fixed; composition problems cannot.

4. Edit in a real editor

Colour correction, cropping and any text addition belong in your normal tooling. Generated images almost always need toning to match a page.

5. Keep a consistent look

Use style references so a series reads as one set. Consistency across a section is more valuable than any single striking image.

6. Record provenance

Store prompt, model, date and editing steps alongside the asset. This takes a minute and answers the question that will definitely be asked later.