FLUX AI Image Generator: Can It Be Detected?

One standout AI image generator, FLUX, is revolutionizing the scene by effortlessly creating lifelike human images from simple prompts.

But can we still detect these images? Are FLUX creations so realistic that they blend seamlessly with real photos, or can leading AI image detectors still spot them?

Let’s find out.

What Is FLUX AI Image Generator?

FLUX is an exciting open-source AI model suite making waves for its ability to create incredibly lifelike human images.

Developed by Black Forest Labs—a team of former Stability AI engineers—FLUX was launched in August 2024 with the release of FLUX.1, and it’s quickly becoming the go-to choice for AI art enthusiasts.

FLUX.1 is available in three versions to balance accessibility with its creative capabilities:

1. FLUX.1 [schnell]: With the least creative capabilities, this is the fastest FLUX version, perfect for personal projects.
2. FLUX.1 [dev]: Version is for non-commercial use and is almost as good as FLUX.1 [pro].
3. FLUX.1 [pro]: Pemium version, offering the most creative, top-quality image generation.

How FLUX Differs from Other Image Generators?

FLUX stands out because it’s powerful and versatile:

• High Image Detail: It provides excellent light and shadow effects and detailed hand features, especially in realistic styles.
• Clear Text: FLUX reduces errors in text within images, making it more reliable—a huge improvement over other AI image models.

When we dig even deeper, we can see that FLUX.1 [pro] and [dev] are better than popular models like Midjourney, DALL E 3, and Stable Diffusion 3 in:

• Visual quality,
• Following prompts,
• Size and aspect variability,
• Typography,
• Output diversity.

As for FLUX.1 [schnell], it is the most advanced quick model currently on the market.

Can FLUX Images Be Detected Using AI Detectors?

So it’s finally time to put FLUX.1 to the test. Can the best AI image detectors in our directory beat the AI?

For this purpose, we’ve chosen three tools that have performed well in our previous testing:

• Is It AI?,
• Hive Moderation,
• and Winston AI.

For the images to be tested, we created six images in total—two types of images with each FLUX version using the same prompt.

Type 1:

The first type is a challenging-to-detect image—just a generic picture of a mountain view. There’s nothing extra to reveal that it was AI-generated.

Type 2:

The second type is an easy-to-detect image, as AI generators struggle with generating convincing crowds, shadows, and text—areas FLUX aims to improve.

So how did it go?

As you can see, all the AI image detectors follow a trend.

Interestingly, all the tools struggle with FLUX.1 [schnell] but detect the images generated by the more advanced models with relative ease.

Currently, we don’t have a good explanation for this, but we are more than certain that it is something that will be resolved in the near future.

Other tool we tested included the popular Fake Image Detector, which does not give any confidence scores but rather just a text-based answer. This tool also performed well.

Conclusion

FLUX.1 introduces an exciting new chapter in AI image generation – all its creations are a bit better than what the current other models can output.

While current AI detectors easily identify FLUX.1 [dev] and [pro] images, the challenge posed by FLUX.1 [schnell] showcases the rapid progress in this field.

However, we are certain that, since FLUX.1 is so new to the market, AI image detectors will catch up in the coming months.

In our opinion, the biggest change brought by FLUX is the increased difficulty in detecting AI fakes manually. However, AI detectors still seem to work well, and yes – FLUX.1-generated images can be detected.

Happy detecting!