Disclaimer: This is an independent creative test made with AI, for demonstration only. It isn't an ad for any brand shown or named, and isn't affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by them. All trademarks belong to their owners
Nano Banana Pro - why the label text on product shots breaks
What went wrong with label text across a 10 shot skincare campaign and how to avoid it
Tested by Nouamane Benbrahim
Ever zoom into an AI product shot and find the label saying something the brand would never print?
I made a 10 shot campaign for medicube's PDRN soothing toner, and I attached the real product photo to every single prompt. medicube didn't ask for this, I picked the toner to test on. The logo came out right in all 10 shots, but the smaller text drifted in almost every one. You can open the exact prompt under each image to see what I asked for.
Here's what broke and what I'm doing about it.
1. Watch out for weird ingredient words
The product name has "PDRN" in it, a skincare ingredient most people have never heard of. In three of my shots it turned into a very different four letter word 😅 You can see it on the bottle at this party.
Exact prompt
Create a new photorealistic image. This is a photograph taken at a crowded pink-lit party from the start — not a composite. Rebuild the entire scene as if shot natively here, with unified lighting across subject and environment. THE VIBE: Pure joy and a little brattiness — she's the spoiled girl at the party, laughing, glowing, the centre of her own universe. Candid, sparkly, early-2000s. IDENTITY LOCK: The product from the first reference — the tall clear cylindrical bottle with a white flip-top cap, filled with translucent blush-pink liquid, a white label band with the dark-grey "medicube" wordmark and "PDRN PINK CICA SOOTHING TONER". Do NOT alter its shape, colours or branding. THE SUBJECT: A woman in her late twenties with deep-brown skin and a warm red undertone, dark curly hair pulled up into a high messy bun with loose tendrils, small gold hoop earrings, wearing a fitted pale-pink long-sleeve baby tee with the word "Glow'd" in a looping dark script across the chest. She laughs with her head tilted back slightly, eyes crinkled, glancing off to the side, holding the toner bottle up near her shoulder in her right hand, label outward. THE FACE: Natural skin texture, no airbrushing, luminous sheen on her cheekbones and nose bridge, warmth in the shadows, real laugh lines. THE SETTING: A packed party behind her, people softly blurred and cropped, streamers and pink balloons. THE LIGHT: Warm pink ambient light washing everything, plus a camera flash lighting her face. THE KEY DETAILS: The shirt text reads exactly "Glow'd", legible. THE MOOD: Pink-washed, warm-nostalgic, celebratory. THE COMPOSITION: Square frame, waist-up, she sits left of centre with the crowd around her, head in the upper-middle with headroom. THE CAMERA: Candid party snapshot, direct flash, deep focus. THE AFTER EFFECT: Small four-point sparkle glints on the bottle, her earrings and highlights; a soft pink haze over the whole frame. THE LABEL: The medicube wordmark legible; small copy soft.
Every time it happened, the bottle was either small in the frame or lying on its side. In the shots where the bottle stood big and upright, PDRN came out right.
So if your label has an unusual word on it, keep the bottle big and upright in any shot where people will actually read it. If you really want the small bottle, plan on fixing the text in an editor after.
2. Don't trust the small print
The real bottle says 250 ml / 8.45 fl oz. Out of the five shots where I can actually read the volume, only one got it right. This flat lay says 300 ml / 0.88 fl oz, and others said 200 ml. "Dedicated to real results" also came back as "real resulte" and "reil results" in two of them.
Exact prompt
Create a new photorealistic image. Preserve the exact bottle, label and colours of the product, from the first reference. THE VIBE: A vanity dumped out on a pink bedspread — the contents of a very spoiled early-2000s girl's handbag, with the toner as the crown jewel. Messy, cute, over-the-top. IDENTITY LOCK: The product from the first reference — the tall clear cylindrical bottle with a white flip-top cap, filled with translucent blush-pink liquid, a white label band with the dark-grey "medicube" wordmark and "PDRN PINK CICA SOOTHING TONER", two pink-outlined ingredient pills, and a thin pink stripe under the label. Do NOT alter its shape, colours or branding. THE SUBJECT: The bottle lies on its side at the centre, label facing up. THE SETTING: A plush pale-pink satin surface with soft creases. THE LIGHT: Soft even overhead window light, very gentle shadows, warm pink cast, slight faded-film finish. THE KEY DETAILS: Arranged loosely around the bottle: pink rectangular sunglasses with dark lenses, a hot-pink feather boa curling across one corner, an open clear pink lip gloss with its wand, a few unwrapped pink gum sticks, a flip phone in a rhinestone-studded pink case, a scatter of cotton pads. Nothing with other brand names or text. THE MOOD: Y2K girly glam, pastel and hot pink, playful excess. THE COMPOSITION: Square frame, direct top-down flat lay, bottle centred diagonally, props around it with some cropped at the edges, balanced but casual. THE CAMERA: Top-down iPhone flash snapshot, deep focus, everything sharp, slight flash falloff at the corners. THE LABEL: The medicube wordmark and product name clear and legible; small copy soft.
At feed size you'd probably never notice. On a product page, someone is gonna zoom in, so it's worth checking every label at full size before a shot goes anywhere.
3. A mirror selfie flips the label
This one's on me. The moodboard had a mirror selfie in it, so I asked for one. A mirror flips everything, so the label came out backwards, which is exactly what a real mirror would do.
Exact prompt
Create a new photorealistic image. Preserve the exact bottle, label and colours of the product, from the first reference. THE VIBE: A flash-lit early-2000s mirror selfie in a hot-pink bedroom — cheeky, glossy, self-obsessed in the fun way. She's mid-routine and knows she looks good. IDENTITY LOCK: The product from the first reference — the tall clear cylindrical bottle with a white flip-top cap, filled with translucent blush-pink liquid, a white label band with the dark-grey "medicube" wordmark and "PDRN PINK CICA SOOTHING TONER". Do NOT alter its shape, colours or branding. THE SUBJECT: A woman in her mid-twenties with a sleek dark-brown shoulder-length bob, light-olive skin, dark-brown eyes, glossy pink lips, wearing chunky pink rectangular sunglasses with dark lenses pushed down her nose and a white ribbed tank top with a pink feather boa over one shoulder. She holds the toner bottle up beside her cheek with her right hand, label to the camera, long glossy hot-pink coffin nails, lips slightly parted in a pout, gaze just off-camera. THE FACE: Natural skin texture, no airbrushing, visible pores, dewy sheen on the nose bridge and cheekbones, individual lashes, a few flyaway hairs. THE SETTING: A cluttered pink bedroom behind her: pink fluffy pillows, a string of heart lights, glossy pink shopping bags, a vanity mirror frame edge. THE LIGHT: Direct on-camera flash, hard and bright on her face, with a hot-pink ambient glow from the room behind; strong gloss highlights on lips and bottle. THE KEY DETAILS: The bottle's pink liquid catching the flash. THE MOOD: Punchy-saturated Y2K pink, flirty, bratty confidence. THE COMPOSITION: Square frame, chest-up, she sits slightly right of centre, head in the upper-middle with headroom, bottle in the left third near her face. THE CAMERA: Shot on an older point-and-shoot with direct flash, deep focus, slight vignette. THE AFTER EFFECT: Faint flash bloom on the brightest highlights; a subtle faded-print tone overall. THE LABEL: The medicube wordmark and product name legible.
If the label has to read, ask for a front camera selfie instead of a mirror shot, or flip the finished image so the text reads the right way.
Why it works
My read from these 10 shots, and it's a guess, I haven't seen this documented anywhere: the model copies the big parts of a label really well, the logo, the colors and the layout. The tiny letters are where it starts guessing, and it guesses toward words it already knows. That would explain why an uncommon word like PDRN slipped while the logo never did.
Your turn: open your last AI product shot at 100% and read every word on the label.
Emero saves your real product photo so every new shot in a campaign starts from the actual label, at cost.
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