Photon
LMArena ID: photon
Luma AIProprietary
Photon is an AI image model from Luma AI. On LMArena’s Text-to-image leaderboard it ranks 68 of 82 with 1036±4 from 130,160 votes. It is not on LMArena’s Image editing leaderboard yet. License: Proprietary.
Key figures
- Developer
- Luma AI
- License
- Proprietary
Not yet available: Released (per AA), LMArena · Image editing, AA Elo
Who it is for (from the data)
- When quality is not the top priority: #68 of 82 on Text-to-image, in the bottom half; if quality matters most, check higher-ranked models first.
- Mainly text-to-image: no image-edit results yet.
- Use via Luma AI's service or API: LMArena lists it as proprietary.
- Existing Luma AI users: this vendor has 3 models on Text-to-image.
Neighbours on Text-to-image
| # | Model | Score | Votes | AA Elo | License | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 65 |  Imagen 3.0 Generate 002 Google | 1058 | 359,772 | – | Proprietary | +22 |
| 66 |  Qwen Image Alibaba | 1057 | 84,550 | 903 | Apache 2.0 | +21 |
| 67 |  Ideogram V3 Quality Ideogram | 1048 | 118,538 | – | Proprietary | +12 |
| 68 | Photon Luma AI | 1036 | 130,160 | – | Proprietary | |
| 69 | ?P Image | 1033 | 109,762 | 900 | Proprietary | -3 |
| 70 |  FLUX 2 Klein 4B Black Forest Labs | 1030 | 152,389 | – | Apache 2.0 | -6 |
| 71 |  Runway Gen-4 Runway | 1024 | 54,361 | – | Proprietary | -12 |
Alternatives · More from Luma AI
| # | Model | Score | Votes | AA Elo | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 | UNI 1.1 Max Luma AI | 1189 | 14,072 | – | Proprietary |
| 23 | UNI 1.1 Luma AI | 1184 | 46,699 | – | Proprietary |
Alternatives · Top open-weight models
| # | Model | Score | Votes | AA Elo | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 | Qwen Image 2.1 Alibaba | 1223 | 11,441 | 1042 | qwen-research |
| 20 | Ideogram 4.0 Quality Ideogram | 1205 | 60,591 | – | Ideogram Open Model |
| 27 |  Cosmos3-Super-Text2Image (Agentic) NVIDIA | 1165 | 10,805 | – | OpenMDW-1.1 |
| 33 | Cosmos3-Super-Text2Image NVIDIA | 1152 | 18,485 | – | OpenMDW-1.1 |
| 35 |  Hunyuan Image 3.0 Tencent | 1150 | 180,518 | 989 | tencent-hunyuan-community |
How to read the scores
- LMArena score: people blind-pick the better of two anonymous images for the same prompt, and the votes are fitted into an Elo-style rating; "±" is the 95% confidence interval.
- Text-to-image and image edit are separate boards, so scores are not comparable across them; AA Elo comes from Artificial Analysis on a different scale.
- If the gap between two models is smaller than their combined intervals, the order is not statistically reliable; treat them as the same tier. More votes mean narrower intervals.
FAQ
Where does Photon rank among AI image models?
Text-to-image rank 68 (1036) (LMArena, data as of Oct 26, 2026).
Is Photon open-weight?
No. LMArena lists it as Proprietary; it is available only through Luma AI’s products or API.
Can Photon edit images?
The LMArena image-edit board has no result for Photon yet, so we cannot confirm its editing ability from the data.
Who makes Photon?
According to LMArena, Photon is made by Luma AI.
How reliable is Photon's score?
The scores are based on 130,160 votes on Text-to-image (95% CI ±4). More votes and narrower intervals mean a more stable rank.
How far is Photon from #1 on Text-to-image?
#1 on Text-to-image is GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst (1425); Photon scores 1036, 389 points behind.
Sources
LMArena Text-to-image data published on Oct 7, 2026.
LMArena Image editing data published on Oct 20, 2026.
17NAS syncs the upstream leaderboards daily; this page's data was synced on Oct 26, 2026.
Price, resolution and speed have no reliable public data yet and are omitted; all values come from the snapshot, blanks show –.