10 Creative Uses For Apple Intelligence Image Playground

With macOS 15.2 and iOS 18.2 we get a new Apple Intelligence feature called Image Playground. Here are some ideas on how you can use this AI image-generating app.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Here are some ideas on how you can use the Image Playground App. 
So the new Image Playground App that's part of Apple Intelligence for your Mac, iPhone, and iPad can be used to generate all sorts of different images. Here are some ideas for how you can use that.
First, since the Image Playground App is tied into your Photos it can easily create images from the people you've got there. It's ideal for creating avatars for use on social media sites and other places. So here you would just go to where it says Person at the bottom, click Choose, and then choose the face from your Photos Library. Then it will generate some images there. But you don't have to stop here. You can personalize this with various things like these suggestions or just type your own. So, for instance, if I wanted to use space as one modification I could get this. But I can keep going. For instance I can do sunglasses and then I would get this. If you don't like the first image generated you can always flip through and it will generate more. It will keep going until you find one that you like. Then you can click on the three dots here and you can copy this and usually paste it in somewhere or you can Save it as an image and use that as an avatar somewhere. When you click Done here, after you've saved it, it's going to appear here in your list of Projects. So you can see it there and always go back to it and modify it or export it again. By the way an easy way to export this is actually Drag & Drop. When you do that to a Finder window or the Desktop you get a regular image that you can use anywhere you want.
It is so easy to create these. You can create a whole bunch of different ones for different situations. For holidays, or moods, or whatever. If you rather not have the avatars look like you, you can simply go to the Appearance option here. Here you choose a skin color and a basic appearance, like this, and then you can further modify it if you want just by adding more and more terms. Then continue to flip through to find what you like.
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Another way to use it is to illustrate something that you're writing. So, for instance, I'm writing this in Pages here and if I wanted to add an image I can use Image Playground to do it. I'll click Plus there to add something new and I'll just type a term here, like that. Then it will generate an image and I could use that. But I can further modify it, like that. If I get something I like it's really easy to just Copy it right here and then I can Paste it right here into Pages and then adjust as any other image.
This could be particularly useful if you're creating educational content. For instance, if you've got a math problem like this you may want to have a nice illustration to go along with it. So I'll click the Plus button here and I'll just type something, like that. Further modify it, like that. Say I like that one and perhaps it would be more appropriate to change the style from Animation to Illustration here and use this. I'll Copy this here and I'll Paste it into my Pages document, like that.
Now if you post online to say social media or micro blogging sites or maybe to just a regular blog something you may want an illustration to accompany the posts. You can certainly generate those with Image Playground as well. So, for instance, if you wanted to talk about vacations you may start with a term like Beach and then continue to modify it. So you can do like waves and then you can do umbrella. You can do beach chair, palm tree, and then maybe take a suggestion of sunset right here. You can keep playing around with all these terms and get something you like and then I'll click Done here. Then you can export this image out. I'll just drag it out here and use it as the image for your post.
How about if you're creating an invitation, either a printed one or something you're going to send by email. You can use Image Playground to generate a graphic for that. So, for instance, say you've got a birthday party. You can do Birthday Party here. It will generate an image. But you don't want just a cake there. You want to show more of a party and this is going to be more of a party for adults so maybe you can do a word like this to emphasize that and see what it comes up with. Then something like this might be a good image for a poster that you create for a party. 
Maybe you want to put up a poster, say, that you're offering guitar lessons. You could just have a simple image of a guitar like that and you can use that. 
How about a Keynote Presentation. A boring keynote presentation would be just text on the screen. But let's say you wanted to have an image on each slide. That's pretty typical. So instead of going to a ClipArt collection online or something you can use Image Playground to generate something for this. Let's type something here and see what we get. That's kind of a neat image right there. We can go ahead and Copy that and then Paste that in. You can also Drag & Drop. We'll drag this into the place holder slot here in Keynote to get an image.
Another thing you can do is just use Image Playground to generate wallpapers for either your Mac, your iPhone, or your iPad. Let's go do something like this. Let's do Steampunk Factory to start with. Then we can flip through these. Get something that looks pretty neat like that. We can drag this out here and then we can go into System Settings here, let's go to wallpaper and I can simply drag it into this spot right here, like this, and we've got a cool Desktop Wallpaper.
You can also create backgrounds for use in FaceTime or Zoom. So let's go create something nice looking. Let's go back to the idea of a beach and let's do a sunset, like that. Let's say we're going to use this one for FaceTime. Let's go ahead and drag that out save that somewhere. Probably your Documents Folder. If we go to FaceTime here it uses this as a background. We would go into here and under FaceTime there's background. I've got it turned On. Let me click here and choose a picture. I can click Plus and I can say Choose and I can actually choose the image from my Desktop, like that. It makes it easy to generate lots of them. Then you can very easily have them all listed here and switch them out.
You can actually access Image Playground even when you are not using the Image Playground App. An earlier adapter of this is Apple's Preform App. So you could be in this app here and you can actually go to Insert and notice that Image Playground is listed here. So, for instance, you can use Image Playground to populate something like a Dream board in Freeform. It brings up the interface here. You can see it is basically the same thing but in a smaller format and you can describe what you want. So if you want a sports car you can generate that and there we go. You can say Done and it will place it right there inside your Freeform App. So we can generate a few more and it's very easy to actually just come up with visuals for a Freeform Board just by using Image Playground over and over again.
Now in the past I've talked about creating custom folder icons in the Finder. The big problem there is using a graphic app to create the actual images. But you can use Image Playground for that. So, let's start off just by asking for something simple. A folder with a Stock Chart printed on it and see what it comes up with. So, let's say we wanted to use this as the folder icon. I could simply Control click on it and Copy and then go to this folder here, Command i with a folder selected to bring in information, select the icon there and Command V to paste. Then I get a Folder Icon. It's actually a square image. Now it would be nice if it was just the folder. Let's do that. I'm going to launch Preview and then in Preview I can do File, New From Clipboard. I get that there. But I could also use the Copy Subject function in Preview that is part of macOS. I can two-finger click on my trackpad or right click on my mouse and select Copy Subject. Now, I can go and change the icon again. When I paste it in it's just going to be the folder. It's going to grab the subject from the middle there. So you can see it looks a little bit more natural. You can use Copy Subject for other things as well.
So for instance back into Image Playground if I wanted to, say, just get this car here, I could go in here, I'll Copy, I'll switch to Preview, create a New From the Clipboard and then Control Click and Copy subject and now you can see I get just the car. So remember that. You can use Copy Subject to get just the subject out of something generated from Image Playground.
So there are some ideas for using Image Playground on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad. They just scratch the surface. You can basically use Image Playground for anywhere that you need some custom images. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 12 Responses to “10 Creative Uses For Apple Intelligence Image Playground”

Sheldon

4 months ago

Thanks bunches

Ken

As always, a great tutorial. Is Image Playground an app which is all ready on my MacBook (New running 15.2) or do I need to download from the app store? I have looked through application file but couldn't find it. Thanks Ken

Gary Rosenzweig

Ken: If it is an Apple Silicon Mac with 15.2 and meets the requirements of Apple Intelligence, then it should be there.

Satyam Chatterjee

I am from India , How can use Apple Intelligence on my Mac ? Is it possible? Thank for fantastic videos.

Satyam: Do you have a compatible Mac? If so, you can always try setting your language to US English and see if that works.

Thanks Gary. I needed to go into system settings and turn on Apple Intelligence. It works great! Look forward to more tutorials and practical uses.

Bernard

3 months ago

Having gone round in circles trying to get Apple Intelligence to work - note it's not just about having Sequoia 15.2, you have to have Apple Silicon as well. I should have read the small print!

Gary

Using a MacBook Air M1 and always get an error message "Unable to use that description ". I have run out of ideas...help appreciated.

Gary: Did you try quitting the app and restarting it?

Dan

Gary. I have an M1 iMac running OS 15.2. I live in America. I have installed the Image Playground app and its components. However, it will only work if I log out of my main account and then log in to a second account. How can I get it to work with my primary account.

Dan: Sorry, I don't know why it isn't working for you. Check everything over and call Apple Support if you can't find anything that would make it work.

Melody Whitaker

Thank you Gary! I would have entered a Genmoji here but it wouldn’t let me. 😉