Flynn Talbot

ChatGPT Image 1.5 is here but does it speak lighting?

We ran it through a long line of internal tests and it holds up well. When mastered, this is already a hugely practical tool in your lighting workflow.

Test 1: Can it change a lighting fixture from a standard colour to a custom colour so you can add that to your presentation. No problem. Actually from our tests, it is better at this than Nano Banana.

Test 2: Can it understand colour temperatures and help you make the right call on a project? It definitely can and with various fixture and interior images we threw at it, the rendering of colour temperatures was easy and failry accurate.

Test 3: Can it create a mood board for your lighting presentation? Interior Designers have been doing this forever so why don’t we as lighting designers? It was easily able to take a screen shot of our intended fixtures for a project and assemble them into a mood board and then illuminate the fixtures (not 100 accurate but close enough for a client presentation). It even updated the backgrounds to really dial the mood in.

Test 4: Now it’s gets a bit more challenging. Can it take a mood image and add in realistic lighting details so you can accurately represent your vision to a client? With a few prompts, designed in the right way, it can definitely output some realistic results that will speed up your creative process.

Test 5: Can it take a daytime render that you might receive from the design team and turn it into dusk and render your lighting intent? Absolutely. For this one, it missed the detail of landing the downlights perfectly within the curved ceiling slot, but we were still blown away. It nailed virtually everything else and I would show this image to a client.

So what do you think?

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Hi Everyone! It’s been a while.

25 years in lighting design. Some years away from IG.

Installations at the V&A, festivals across the world, countless projects that taught me how light transforms space and creates a deep connection with people.

Now I’m exploring something that’s got me as excited as when I first discovered the real magic of lighting: AI for lighting designers.

Not replacing creativity, but helping it evolve. I’ve been working behind the scenes to help designers expand and now I’m ready to share.

If you’re here for the light and the innovation and the art, welcome back.

If you’re a lighting designer wondering how AI fits into your workflow, let’s talk.

Good to be back.