Pictures and Design — Choosing an Image Tool

Before Part V: Tools Change, Judgement Doesn’t

In Parts I to IV you followed one project from the first message to the final invoice. Each chapter named one tool per task, so you could start without having to choose first. That was deliberate. But it leaves a question open, and someone asks me in every workshop: “Why this tool? What about the others?”

This part answers that question, but not with a ranking. A ranking of AI tools is out of date before the book is printed. Prices change every few months, free plans shrink, new models appear every few weeks, and tools close. In April 2026 one of the best-known AI video apps was shut down, and everyone who had built their work around it had to start again. What does not change is how you decide. That is what this part teaches.

The story goes on. A week after the handover, a private school in Nairobi asked Zawadi for a new website, a short film for its open day, a poster series for the admissions period and an audio guide for parents, in English and Kiswahili. Zawadi leads the project. Before she writes her offer, she asks Otieno to find out which tools it really needs and what they will cost, because Chapter 15 taught them that tool costs belong in the price. In the next five chapters you follow his research.

One honest note: Otieno is a character in this book. The Missing Linkk team is testing every tool in these tables. Until a table shows the date of its check, check prices and plans yourself before you pay.

The Living Library

The tables in this part show the landscape at the time of writing. The current version lives in the Living Library on Missing Linkk Learn: every tool from this part with its link, its current plans and prices, the date of the last check, and new tools as we test them.

When this book and the Living Library disagree, the Living Library is right.