GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst: When the Comparison Changes the Decision

For GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst, the useful question is whether it improves the particular operation you need, because changing quality, continuing an edit, and judging a photograph can produce different verdicts. In a matched product-image comparison across quality settings, Sunburst retained the case, camera angle, and reflection throughout the sequence. Flare changed the framing and the case’s apparent shape or size between settings. That makes a quality increase something to inspect for composition changes, rather than an automatic upgrade to the same picture.

A separate sequence within that comparison fed the previous output into each successive portrait edit, and the result did not clearly separate the two models. Both preserved the faces, while both lost an item that had been omitted from the preservation instructions. The contrast matters: stability across quality settings does not establish superiority across every editing operation.

A photographic comparison produced another split, with a viewer preferring the image that the person running the comparison considered worse. The images initially lacked clear model labels, which were supplied later. The prompt also arrived later and explicitly requested oval bokeh and peripheral anamorphic stretching, details relevant to judging the unusual background. Visual preference, compliance with the prompt, and the identity of the model therefore need separate judgments.

In a mobile Firefox workflow, long prompts were associated with timeout messages affecting both Sunburst and Flare. When a timeout appeared, several waiting generations visibly cleared together. The displayed message was: “GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst is taking longer than expected. Please try again or select a different model.” Some results nevertheless arrived afterward. For this failure pattern, the interface timeout alone does not establish that generation stopped.