Generated 2,400 product images with Midjourney before realizing the aspect ratio was wrong

We were relaunching our e-commerce store and I had the brilliant idea to replace all product photos with AI-generated lifestyle images. Very modern. Very forward-thinking.

I set up a batch job to generate 2,400 images — one per product — using Midjourney via their API. Each image took about 40 seconds and cost roughly $0.08. I started it on a Thursday and went home.

Friday morning: 2,400 images, beautifully generated, all looking great.

Friday afternoon: our frontend dev pointed out that our product cards require a 4:3 aspect ratio. I had generated everything in 16:9.

You cannot simply crop a 16:9 lifestyle image to 4:3 without cutting off the product.

2,400 images. $192. All of them useless.

I now have a checklist.