Is It Possible to Create Realistic Lifestyle Images Using AI in 2026?

AI image creation has been around for a few years and we have been testing various LLMs and image generators over the past few years. Only 2 years ago, the image generated using AI were obviously not real with weird details, elements out of place and especially for human-looking characters, creepy fingers and distorted faces. Fast-forward to today, we can say with confidence that it is possible to generate highly realistic images using AI. These images can be used to improve your marketing efforts. Particularly in the field of lifestyle image creation, in the past companies have had to resort to 3 options:

1. very expensive lifestyle image

2. share sets and props with other clients (your competitors usually)

3. use stock photos and retouch the products onto the stock images

We have explored all product lifestyle photography options in our overview. Here we will explore in more detail the newly available option of creating product lifestyle images from product on white photos. This will bring a lot of changes to how the photography and ecommerce industries function. 360Refinery now officially offers this as a service, because we feel confident in producing highly realistic lifestyle images for most product types.

Let's do some tests. We use various models, strategies, and tests for creating an image, before achieving the results that are good.

1. Wooden baby walker product and lifestyle photography.

The first product we will test is a wooden baby walker. This is a product we photographed for a client a few years ago, so we have good quality product on white images of the product.

Goal: Create an image of a baby using the walker in a nicely decorated room. We will try creating an image of a baby by himself and with his mother.

Test Image 1: The image looks pretty good at first glance. The walker looks unchanged from the image, the AI has preserved the structural identity of the product on white photo. The decor looks nice and the baby looks very much like an ad after highend retouch. This looks like a studio shot ad, almost like a graphic.

Test Image 2: We decided to add a mom to this image. This image also looks pretty good. There are no distorted faces and fingers, and the image doesn't look quite as perfect as the first one, which makes it look a little more "real".

Test Image 3: Here we decided to keep a mom in the image, but make everything look more like a candid image that was accidentally captured. The overall result is great. This ai lifestyle image looks very realistic. Maybe the baby's right hand thumb could be a little better, but it's nothing that really draws the eye, and this is something that can be easily tweaked in photoshop.

Verdict: For this kind of product the results are great, and you can have flexibility in choosing the image stye, as well as the detail of the interaction and post-production fee.

Let's have a deeper look at the two the top selling items is these results.

If you are interested in creating ai lifestyle images, but don't want to learn how to write prompts and tweak images, you can hire us to help you. Learn more about our ai product lifestyle photography service.

2. Clothing on Model Photography - AI Generated Lifestyle Photos

Let's try another product category, clothing. Here we have a pair of jeans and a shirt and the flatlay on white images below.

Goal: Create clothing on model image of the products with characters that fit the brand identity.

Product 1:Raw denim jeans.

Test Images: The raw denim fabric of the jeans is replicated surprisingly well in the test image. The pocket detail wasn't replicated accurately, but with some tweaking, this could be fixes. Poses and facial expressions would also need to be worked on. To achieve a good image would take some time, but it looks like it is very doable.

Product 2: Long sleeve t-shit and jeans combo.

Test Images: The fabrics in the ai lifestyle images look good, just like in the product images, however, some unwanted changes were made to the design - additional layers of white fabric around the neck and at the bottom, which is not accurate. The poses look a little off. The left-mode image looks best to me, but the pose covers some of the text on the t-shirt. With some more time spent on the images, this could produce decent results.

Verdict: AI for on model clothing photography can work, however, special attention needs to be paid to the design, so it doesn't get changed and lead to false representation of the product.

If you are interested in creating ai lifestyle images, but don't want to learn how to write prompts and tweak images, you can hire us to help you. Learn more about our ai product lifestyle photography service.

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