Stable On-Image Text with GPT Image 2.5: Labels & Posters

Readable on-image text in GPT Image 2.5 (product labels, poster titles, price bars) is less about saying “crisp typography” and more about treating the line as a hard constraint. Use Create with Flare to explore layouts and Sunburst to finish. This guide is the on-site playbook—not capacity planning, and not a remake of Flare vs Sunburst or the full four-layer prompt stack.

Three “I need text” cases

Case	Goal	Prefer
Mood / concept poster	Big title readable	Model render + Sunburst
Short product label	1–4 words, fixed place	Quoted copy + high contrast
Legal / long brand copy	Exact compliance lines	Leave space; composite later

Short, few fonts, high contrast wins. Long, tiny, dense blocks invite spelling drift. Do not bet a commercial lockup on a lucky reroll.

Five rules that stabilize GPT Image 2.5 text

1. Quote the copy — poster text, exactly once: "SUMMER DROP", not “a nice summer title.”
2. Count + exclusions — exactly once plus no subtitle, no logo, no watermark, no extra lettering.
3. Placement and type feel — e.g. upper third, left aligned, bold condensed sans, white on dark. Skip fake licensed font names.
4. Separate subject stack from text constraints — lock subject/scene/light/frame with the four-layer structure, then append a text block.
5. Tiny type later — ingredients, footnotes, QR captions: ask for clean negative space for later typography.

Paste-ready skeleton:

matte ceramic bottle on slate, soft left light, eye-level product shot,
poster text exactly once: "PURE MINERAL", bold white sans, upper-right,
high contrast, no extra text, no watermark, no barcode

On-site loop: Flare for layout, Sunburst for glyphs

1. Open Create and pick ratio first (poster vs square label).
2. Run 2–3 Flare turns changing only type placement or background clutter.
3. When framing works, switch to Sunburst with the same prompt.
4. For series identity, attach refs (reference consistency).
5. Still soft? Shorten the line or composite type after.

Ratio first: the frame reshapes the type

The same prompt recomposes on 1:1 vs 9:16—it is not a crop. Choose ratio before writing placement:

• 1:1 — center or lower-third labels
• 4:5 / 3:4 — PDP verticals; titles in the upper third
• 9:16 — story covers; bigger type, fewer lines
• 16:9 — wide KV; split title and hero; avoid busy textures under glyphs

Failures and fixes

• Gibberish / mixed scripts — add no extra text; shorten to 1–5 words.
• Spelling drift — space rare brand letters or spell letter-by-letter; else composite.
• Type lost in speculars — cleaner backdrop or stronger contrast.
• Changing copy, light, and camera together — one layer per turn.
• Shipping tiny Flare finals — explore in Flare; finish labels in Sunburst.

Related guides on this site

• Structure → prompt structure
• Models → Flare vs Sunburst
• Drift → reference consistency
• Start → Getting started · Create

Next step

Take one real headline (≤5 words), quote it, test two placements in Flare, then one Sunburst final. If you can read it at a glance, the text loop works; if not, shorten or composite—do not stack more adjectives.