EP 058 · 68 MIN NANO BANANA PRO KEEPS YOU OFF PHOTOSHOP
Midjourney Edit Models + Nano Banana Pro: Eating Lunches in the Upside Down
The short version
Episode 58 has Rory Flynn and Drew Brucker walk through real Nano Banana Pro client work: swapping products inside a glass container, crisping blurred label text at 4K, and versioning ad assets without redoing the shot. They also cover Midjourney's office-hours notes on two upcoming edit models and a V8 timeline pushed into January or February 2026, plus Rory's tip for building free custom Nano Banana tools in Google AI Studio and paying per image instead of a monthly subscription.
Key takeaways
- 01
Nano Banana Pro now handles single-object edits inside a glass container, matching lighting and dimensions, the kind of fix that used to mean redoing it in Photoshop.
- 02
Build free custom Nano Banana tools in Google AI Studio, an outpainter, a simplified editor, and pay about 15-20 cents per 4K image instead of a subscription.
- 03
Midjourney's two new edit models, multi-reference for consistent scenes and an instruction-based single-image editor, aim to stop users leaving for Nano Banana after one render.
- 04
Midjourney V8 finished its final training run but won't ship in 2025; expect January or February 2026, with a SREF overhaul and vague 'better' text handling alongside it.
- 05
Drag a finished Nano Banana image back into the prompt box to reverse-engineer its own optimized prompt, sometimes returned as JSON, for reuse across a campaign.
- 06
Write if-then rules into system prompts (if a shot mentions shoes, it won't stay a close-up) to eliminate the specific failures you've already hit before.
- 07
Real conversions for AI tool recommendations come from X, LinkedIn and YouTube, not Instagram or TikTok, where affiliate 'automation' posts generate clicks but no actual revenue.
Receipts · said on the record
“If you ask for the hardest thing to do with AI, that was it.”
“No one's using Midjourney for product-related stuff right now, can't. I mean, you're gonna give yourself a headache if you try to do that.”
“I just pay for when I use it — whatever that cost is, like 20 cents, maybe 15 cents per image with Nano Banana at 4K. It's not like I have to pay $30 a month for this stuff.”
“You're not doing this if you haven't been failing with image or video generation for a long time. I know that if I mention the shoes, it's not going to be a close-up.”
“Here's this N8N workflow I built that shoots out 700 different marketing assets and posts them right to your Facebook ads account, and every image looks like trash.”
Chapters
- 0:00:00 Midjourney Fast Hours hits 30k subs
- 0:01:28 Stranger Things S5, film craft & AI framing
- 0:05:39 Turning cinematic shots into AI prompts
- 0:07:33 Pop culture prompts, memes & brand tie-ins
- 0:08:38 Nano Banana branding tricks & model hype cycle
- 0:09:38 Midjourney swag, “non-sponsored sponsors”
- 0:10:12 Midjourney UI overhaul & scrolling-style feed
- 0:15:46 Midjourney edit models and in-app image editing
- 0:20:16 Midjourney V8 timing, text handling & business use
- 0:24:41 Midjourney vs other models for real client work
- 0:26:47 Free image tools, casual users & competition
- 0:30:57 Nano Banana Pro: real-world client use cases
- 0:36:31 Micro edits, product shots & text stress tests
- 0:42:33 Product versioning, depth tests & asset variants
- 0:44:25 Car branding, moodboards & Nano video keyframes
- 0:46:20 Polaroid race car branding & design details
- 0:50:09 Building custom Nano tools in Google AI Studio
- 0:55:21 Style libraries, handoff workflows & reverse prompts
- 0:59:17 If-then logic for prompts, GPTs & image systems
- 1:03:01 From tokens to full-blown image systems
- 1:04:21 Instagram grifts, empty funnels & manychat rage
- 1:05:15 Platforms that actually convert for AI tools
- 1:06:38 Algorithm chaos, Pokémon and death threats
- 1:06:58 Midjourney swag, a toddler cameo & water bottle talk
- 1:07:58 Future video model hype, skepticism & sign-off
Questions this episode answers
How does Fast Hours use Nano Banana Pro for client work?
Rory and Drew use it for micro-edits inside product shots, crisping blurred label text, and swapping products across ad variants, cutting jobs that took an hour down to about ten minutes.
What are Midjourney's new edit models?
Per office-hours notes, one ingests many reference images for consistent scenes and characters, and the other is an instruction-based single-image editor meant to keep users from leaving for Nano Banana after their first render.
When is Midjourney V8 coming out?
Drew and Rory report the final training run was confirmed, which normally takes about a month, putting V8 in January or February 2026 rather than before year's end.
How do you build a custom Nano Banana tool without a subscription?
Rory describes the tool in Google AI Studio, connects a personal API key, and pays per image, about 15 to 20 cents at 4K, instead of a monthly fee.
Where does Fast Hours say AI-tool recommendations actually convert?
Rory says X, LinkedIn and YouTube drive real, high-volume conversions, while Instagram is full of affiliate 'automation' accounts that generate clicks but no revenue.
Show notes
Rory and Drew celebrate crawling their way to 30k subs, then immediately prove they are barely qualified to handle it by turning a Stranger Things binge into a full-blown lecture on composition, lighting, and how to reverse-engineer blockbuster shots into Midjourney and Nano Banana Pro prompts. They talk like film school dropouts who discovered prompts instead of lenses.
From there, they unpack fresh Midjourney office hours: the upcoming UI/UX overhaul with continuous scrolling, better color control, a reworked style system, and the big one: parallel edit models that finally keep you inside Midjourney instead of forcing you into five other tools. They break down what “better text handling” could realistically mean for real-world client work, what to expect from Midjourney V8 training in January, and why business use cases will decide who actually wins this model war.
Then it’s a long, dangerous slide into Nano Banana Pro obsession. They show how they are using it for real campaigns: ingredient flat-lay diagrams with perfect labels, knolling that actually respects object counts, thumbnail iterations in minutes, hyper-real food tweaks (“make the cheese more brown and bubbly”) and product work where text on bottles and labels actually holds up. Think: turning moodboards into branded cars, movie-poster typography onto existing art, and multi-shot car sequences that are clean enough to use as video keyframes.
In the back half, they zoom out into systems: building custom Nano tools in Google AI Studio, using JSON prompts, if-then logic, and style libraries to create reusable pipelines for teams that are not prompt nerds. They rant about broken N8N workflows, fake Instagram “AI automation” grifts, and share where affiliate tools actually see conversions today across YouTube, X, and LinkedIn. It is part Midjourney V8 rumor mill, part Nano Banana Pro clinic, part therapy session for creatives trying to stay sane in an algorithm that clearly prefers trolls and evolving Pokémon.
