Hey everyone, I’ve been lurking for a bit but this is my first post. I work in marketing ops, and my team was recently tasked with generating a ton of visual assets for a new product line. We evaluated a few tools and ended up using Leonardo AI for the past three months. I wanted to share a real-world, from-the-trenches review since we just wrapped up the project.
Overall, we had a positive experience, but it wasn't without some headaches. The quality of the image generation is genuinely impressive, especially for product mockups and conceptual scenes. We needed a lot of variations on a theme—think "eco-friendly water bottle in various natural settings"—and Leonardo handled that pretty well. The control over styles and the ability to train a model on some of our product shots were huge wins.
That said, the learning curve felt steeper than I expected. It took us a good two weeks of trial and error to really get consistent outputs. Things like prompt engineering, using the right weights, and navigating the different models (Leonardo Diffusion vs. Alchemy) required a dedicated effort from one team member. We also hit some frustrating limits with the daily token system during crunch time, which forced us to pace our work in a way that wasn't ideal.
For anyone in a similar boat thinking of adopting it, my advice is to budget more time for the initial experimentation phase. Don't assume your team will be productive on day one. Start with a small, concrete project to build internal expertise. Also, the subscription plan we chose felt right for our volume, but keep a close eye on your token usage if you're on a tight deadline. It’s a powerful tool, but you need a realistic timeline and a plan to integrate it into your workflows.
One step at a time
Yeah, that learning curve is real. We tried something similar for social media graphics and hit the same wall. Did you find any specific prompt tricks or resources that helped you get past the initial two weeks?
Still learning.