While AI art has exploded over the past two years, the best AI image generators have remained largely the same: Adobe Firefly, Midjourney, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion are in the running, each bringing new advancements with every update.
But Flux, a relatively new open-source AI image generation tool, looks set to take the throne, at least when it comes to realism. Early experimenters running the model on their own devices have paired it with XLabs' Lora, a tweaked script that supposedly adds extra detail. The results are nearly indistinguishable from photographs at first glance.
Comment from r/StableDiffusion
Upon closer inspection, these images are easily identifiable as AI-generated. Text, especially small text like the strap and microphone in the image above, is immediately obvious. Patterns and textures can also look odd or out of proportion when viewed. That aside, at first glance, the images circulating on social media look like regular photos of regular people (who gives a TED talk in a swimsuit, but that aside).
Comment from r/StableDiffusion
What is Flux AI Image Generator?
The Flux AI image generator, developed by startup Black Forest Labs, is positioned as a successor to Stable Diffusion because it is open source, meaning the code is freely available and anyone can tinker with it, modify the models, and incorporate them into their own generators. Users can run Flux locally if they have a powerful enough computer, but it is also available on multi-model platforms such as Poe and Nightcafe.
Flux.01 actually comes in three versions: there's a Pro version available with a commercial license, a medium-weight model called Dev, and a faster model called Schnell (Black Forest Labs is, unsurprisingly, based in Germany).
Ideogram surprised many when it was introduced a few months ago, but Flux is likely to be Midjourney's biggest rival in terms of photorealism. The models themselves produce very realistic results, but the skin texture is not so realistic and looks plastic. However, some users who have done so have been getting frighteningly realistic results by combining Flux with Lora, a photorealism tweak script created by XLabs.
Feel the difference using Flux with Lora (from XLab) vs. without Lora. Skin, hair, wrinkles. Pure CLI without Comfy. From r/StableDiffusion
The strikingly realistic depiction of the image above quickly went viral, and many are wondering what benefits it could have other than providing a bit of fun for machine learning enthusiasts. The ability to create realistic images of non-real people could be a game-changer for stock photography and advertising. Many small businesses and brands are already using AI imagery for their social media content. However, the risk of AI imagery being used to create fraud and fake news is more frightening than ever.
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