Nano Banana: lock this still before you buy motion (4K, 4cr)

Nano Banana is the stills row. Animate after approval. Do not generate the pack inside the video model.

Nano Banana is Google's fast, efficient image generate: vibrant colors, text-to-image only, no image required, no audio, 4K out, 4 credits. That is the whole job. The text-to-image tool is where you press it. Motion is a different row, a different credit, and a different argument with the client.

Four credits buys a frame, not a second

The catalog is blunt. Categories: text-to-image. Requires image: no. Durations: none. Resolution: 4K. Credits: 4. Features on the row: Quick, Budget-friendly, Vibrant. Styles listed: Realistic, Artistic, Anime. Aspect list is wide — 1:1 through 21:9 plus auto — because a still has to survive a crop later, not because this model will move.

If you are spending video credits to "see if the product looks right in motion," you are using the expensive tool to answer a cheap question. Lock the bottle, the label, the light. Then animate.

Vibrant is the spec. Duration is not on this row.

Google's description is one sentence: fast and efficient image generation with vibrant colors. Use that. Prompt saturation, palette, the thing that has to pop on a muted feed. Do not prompt camera moves. There is no duration field to absorb a pan. There is no native soundtrack to hide a weak composition.

A pack that only works once it starts moving was never approved. It was hoped. Hope is what burns the next 15-credit image-to-video pass when the hero is the wrong red.

Run several stills. Pick one. Show it. If the still would be a dead thumbnail, the clip will be a dead thumbnail with motion blur.

Approve, then buy motion

The sequence is not taste. It is accounting.

1. Generate the still on Nano Banana. Four credits. 4K.
2. Reject on color, crop, and label. Not on "how it might move."
3. Hand the locked frame to an image-to-video row that actually lists durations.
4. Caption and crop after the take. The stills model will not typeset your hook.

The Google roster has video families. Nano Banana is not one of them. Mixing them in your head is how a 4-credit stills habit becomes a video bill with no approved hero.

If you need a ranked stills shortlist rather than this one row, best AI image generator is the catalog cut. This page is only the Banana: lock the frame while it is still a frame.

The test

Print the still at the size you will actually ship. Phone width. Dark mode. One second of looking.

If you would not post that JPEG, do not animate it. If you would, the video model is allowed to spend. Until then, stay on 4 credits and 4K and the color the row is for.

FAQ

Is Nano Banana a video model?

No. It is text-to-image. The catalog lists no durations and no audio. 4K stills at 4 credits. Motion is a later row after the still is approved.

Why not generate the pack inside the video model?

Because the video row charges for time you have not designed yet. A wrong bottle in a 4K still is 4 credits. A wrong bottle in a clip is the stills mistake plus every second of motion. Approve the pack as a picture.

Does Nano Banana need a reference image?

No. Requires image is false. You write a prompt. If you already have a locked photo you only want to tweak, that is an edit row, not this generate.

What do I do after the still is locked?

Take the approved frame into image-to-video. Keep Nano Banana for the next SKU, the next colorway, the next thumbnail. Do not ask it to pan. It does not pan.