Higgsfield Soul vs Krea 1: Why these new AI Art generators still matter
Photorealistic and surprisingly powerful, here’s what sets these new AI Tools apart even as the market groans under model fatigue.
If it feels like every week another image model drops, you’re not imagining things.
There are already lists of “The 30+ top AI art generators in 2025” which should paint a clear picture of where we are. Against that backdrop, Higgsfield’s Soul and Krea’s Krea 1 landed with little fanfare, yet both deserve a closer look, especially because they’re pushing against the “plasticky” look of other AI tools.
Higgsfield Soul
Higgsfield launched the Soul model, a high-aesthetic photo generation model, and described it as a “fashion-grade realism” tool. Soul generates photorealistic images with over 50 curated presets (e.g., “iPhone,” “Tokyo Streetstyle,” “Overexposed”) to simplify the creation process. Soul tries to avoid the “plasticky” look common in AI-generated images, producing authentic visuals for people, buildings, and objects.
Krea 1
Krea AI launched Krea 1, its first image generation model, with a public beta. Developed in collaboration with Black Forest Labs (creators of the FLUX series), Krea 1, like Soul, is designed to address the "AI look" problem, offering hyper-realistic textures, crisp details, and diverse artistic styles. The model is available for free beta access, with real-time generation and editing capabilities, and integrates with Krea’s broader platform, including tools like Krea Train and Krea Realtime.
Enough talk. Let’s put them in the Thunderdome of prompts and see what they can do.
Prompt Fight: Converse Woman
A casually candid iPhone-styled photo of a young woman spontaneously captured sitting relaxed on a textured Parisian pavement. She wears classic Converse sneakers paired with a softly draping, cream-hued silky blouse exuding understated elegance reminiscent of The Row's refined minimalism. Beside her rests a discreetly placed Polène tote bag with supple leather textures alongside stylish sunglasses laid casually on the worn stone surface. Her loosely styled hair softly frames her face with minimal, natural makeup highlighting her authentic neutral expression. The gentle natural daylight casts soft shadows and subtle highlights that reveal nuanced skin textures and the delicate sheen of her blouse fabric. The informal framing is slightly tilted with an off-center composition, capturing genuine casual intimacy emblematic of spontaneous iPhone street photography moments in a muted urban Paris setting.
uff. That’s a lot of options. Which ones do you like?
Prompt Fight: Bruised Man
Man framed in a medium close-up against a matte baby blue studio backdrop, the shot uncomfortably hand-held with slight asymmetry. His face is partially obscured by a scratched, glossy black motorcycle helmet with a slightly fogged visor that reflects the harsh studio lighting. His cheek is bruised in deep purples and bruised reds, lips swollen and glistening like a prizefighter post-bout, yet his deadpan stare pierces through the visor with icy electric blue eyes. He wears a black mesh shirt under an unzipped neon green sleeveless hoodie, the collar peeking out just enough to clash with the bruised softness of his features. The whole moment holds a violent yet glamorously unbothered tone, like a Y2K skater who’s just stepped off a backstage ramp ready for the flash. The lighting casts soft shadows and mild flash glare on the visor’s scratches, emphasizing texture and raw grit, casual candid early-2000s Y2K snapshot, grainy softness
Which ones you don’t like?
Where does this leave the field?
Saturation isn’t slowing innovation. Both models target the same pain point, images that don’t scream “AI”, but attack it from different angles: Soul with curated photographic presets, Krea 1 with fine-tunable training.
Free tiers are the new marketing spend. In a crowded market, letting users generate risk-free is the fastest route to word-of-mouth and dataset feedback.
Even if your toolkit already includes Midjourney, Sora or Imagen 4, spending a weekend with Soul and Krea 1 is worthwhile. At worst you gain two more aesthetic levers; at best you find the look that finally works for that specific special project.
Keep tweaking, touch grass, and enjoy coffee. Cheers.