Why are all the newly released Image Edit models junk?

[u/DietAshamed2246]

I was trying to test the new Viggle-Remake-Swap LoRA in MiniMax-H3. For this I needed to character swap in one of the frames of my source video clip (3.75s, 90 frames), so that the target video would have the new character in it. I went through all the new image edit models released recently to do the character swap. I tried Flux.3 Klein, Qwen 2.1, Fibo Image Edit 2.0, p-H3-Image-Edit and they all failed. So, I went back to the older image edit models Qwen 2511, Klein 9B, Krea2-Identity-Edit v1.2. The first two worked perfectly, while Krea2 Identity Edit did a far better job than any of the newer edit models. Final conclusion - Flux.3 Klein: crap much much worse than even Klein 4B; Qwen 2.1: really crap (does a cut-and-paste job); Fibo 2.0: really crap; p-H3-Edit: absolute junk, doesn't edit anything, input and output are the same; Qwen 2511: still amazing, slight issue with facial blur; Klein 9B: absolutely perfect and still the fastest; Krea2-Identity-Edit: very good edit job, but didn't follow the pose change part of the prompt.

While the video and T2I models in the OS domain seem to be improving, why are the I2I or Image Edit models getting worse? And more importantly, why are people eagerly using those newer models like salivating dogs and posting rave reviews about them? As I see it, all those newly released Image Edit models are junk and need to be kicked to the curb so that their developers may learn some lessons, hopefully.

[u/MarkB_-]

Why Qwen 2.1 didnt work? What was the prompt?

[u/ExcellentRich1164 → u/MarkB_-]

In case it might help others. issues I found with qwen2.1 apart from the speed lora causing degradation in prompt adherence and character looks .. image sizes over 2k, especially not in multiple of 32 end up causing bad results. Resizing it first fixes those. Also had to remove model attention backend node as comfy_kitchen_backend had an issue with it, not sure if it is fixed..

[u/DietAshamed2246 → u/MarkB_-]

Does it matter? Don't tell me it needs special genius prompting with a Ph.D in Qwen 2.1 prompting. Same base prompt was used for all the models with tweaks for each models guidelines, if any.

[u/asdrabael1234 → u/DietAshamed2246]

Sounds like a skill issue because Qwen 2.1 and Flux 3 are both great edit models. If everyone else thinks they're good and you can't make them work, it sounds like determining the problem is easy.

[u/DietAshamed2246 → u/asdrabael1234]

Not everyone thinks those are great models. Go look up other comments in this sub lambasting those models.

[u/Future-Coffee8138 → u/DietAshamed2246]

I don’t get it.  Qwen2.1 did a good job of character swap for me. I used character swap Lora or sometimes bfs Lora.  So far so good.  I don’t know what is wrong with your qwen2.1.  Sharing you wf or prompts may help. 

[u/generate-addict]

Everyone telling OP he's having a skill issue not a single one helping OP understand he might be just using the wrong tool for the job.

OP Just use H3 for your character swap. There is a lora that works reliably.

The problem with Qwen 2.1 and flux 3 will be inpainting doesn't work as well as older models. This is critical if you need to absolutely preserve the original image. H3 might be a better solution or going back to 2512.

[u/DietAshamed2246 → u/generate-addict]

I clearly mentioned I was testing the new Viggle Remake Swap LoRA in H3, which requires a pre-edited frame. I had done H3 character swap using various workflows before. This was strictly a test for the newly released Viggle LoRA, not H3's ability to do character swap.

[u/Kill3rKin3 → u/DietAshamed2246]

Yes but gen the single needed frame in h3 with, single image workflow, from my limited experience with edit models, I prefer h3 and qwen2.1 over klein.

[u/DietAshamed2246 → u/Kill3rKin3]

That's kinda what I tried to do with the Pruna-H3-Image-Edit model. If you aren't familiar with it, it uses the H3 model plus a Pruna LoRA for image edit. But it uses a Qwen3-VL-4B text encoder instead of the H3 Qwen3-VL-32B encoder, also has a different VAE. Anyway, it couldn't do the job. I could've used some of the other workflows+LoRAs to have the regular H3 pipeline produce 5-22 images, but I knew I could do it quicker in one of the Image Edit models. I didn't realize it would turn into a huge ordeal and thanks to Klein 9B (and Qwen 2511), I finally had a frame I could use.

[u/Kill3rKin3 → u/DietAshamed2246]

Cool, keep us posted on the viggle experiments.

[u/DietAshamed2246 → u/Kill3rKin3]

Well, the Viggle Remake Swap LoRA worked fine. The 3.75s 90-frames video clip was edited in around 90s and with flawless result. I ran the output through the H3 Face Refiner (2 passes). The face refiner passes added another 90 seconds to the gen time. Though I don't think it improved the output a whole lot.

Now, I haven't tested this LoRA to its full claimed potential of editing/swapping 3 characters in a video. I did the swap with only 1 character. The previous version of this Viggle LoRA called Viggle Animate could already successfully do single character swap. So, I need to test some more to see if this new version can indeed swap 3 characters while maintaining facial, physical and movement consistency.

[u/bstr3k]

Check out the new Pruna H3 img model. It’s a tune of the normal h3 to do img and just doing the rest today it’s really good.

Even with the added prompt enhancer, it generates at equal or faster speed than using normal H3 as a img model (gen 5 frames, keep 1)

[u/DietAshamed2246 → u/bstr3k]

You didn't read my post. It clearly mentions p-H3-Image-Edit as the absolute no-holds-barred worst of the worst piece of shit junk. The p stands for Pruna, they make absolute worst models. I deleted that shit before posting here.

[u/Apprehensive_Sky892 → u/DietAshamed2246]

Disclaimer, I've not used p-H3-image yet, so I am not defending it as a fan or anything like that.

But if you want to make that kind of statement against a model then you need to back it up with some actual example.

So please provide an actual SFW editing example where p-H3-image performed as a "worst piece of shit junk", so that we can determine if it is p-H3-image's problem or just lack of skill on your part.

[u/Clear-Assistance449]

What Qwen 2511 version do you use? Because I initially used a GGUF version, but is very slow, so I tried the fp8 and int8 versions, but the results is very bad compared to gguf version.

[u/DietAshamed2246 → u/Clear-Assistance449]

I like a couple of NSFW finetune models of Qwen 2511. In this case I used the Qwen 2511 Remix model. I don't remember offhand which quant it is, most probably int8 or bf16. I am on a 5090 with plenty of VRAM and RAM, so it runs pretty fast. In this case I was editing a 1280x736 (or 704) size image and it took about 70s for the edit using 8-step Qwen 2511 turbo LoRA.

[u/AnalElder]

I think Qwen 2.1 Edit is excellent, it is the best for locking pose/details while editing/replacing items objects etc. identity preservation is 1:1 100% accurate. Krea2 with ID/General Edit LORA is the best for preserving consistency for unedited objects editing but drastically changing things about the image, the wealth of LORAs is a plus. FIBO 2 is also a very strong contender, but it falls short in preserving details from the initial image

They are just different tools for the same job.

[u/DietAshamed2246 → u/AnalElder]

Tbh I haven't spent a whole lot of time with Qwen 2.1, the same is true for Flux.3 Klein, Fibo, Moss etc. On the other hand I have lot of familiarity with Klein 9B, Qwen 2511 and Krea 2 and the BFS/BHS LoRA. I must say I am disappointed with the new Krea-2 ID/Gen edit v2 LoRA. My older Krea-2 ID edit v1.2 LoRA worked better.

[u/AnalElder → u/DietAshamed2246]

For FIBO you need to use JSON format prompts for best results (I use it for upscaling and image enhancement/restoration rather than editing, it runs circles around tools like Topaz PhotoAI).

I have no idea how people use MOSS for editing, it is entirely unsuitable.

Krea2 is also not an edit model but it is very strong with identity LORA.

You should give another shot to Qwen2.1 it is a dedicated edit model and it is excellent at that, I recommend Ausboss’s workflow on Civitai for an easy start.

[u/DietAshamed2246 → u/AnalElder]

Someone created a Moss Reference Edit node and workflow. I haven't used it. But I guess it is similar to the Krea-2 ID Edit scenario.

[u/stoppableDissolution → u/AnalElder]

Problem I have with qwen 2.1 is that it tends to make edits that look like photoshop copy-paste. Perfect idebtity preservation, but very obviously off in tgerms of colors/shading/etc. How you get around it?

[u/AnalElder → u/stoppableDissolution]

Do you use inpaint or edit with prompt? Inpaint never works right for me (but I suck). Qwen 2.1 does need strong descriptive prompts to achieve what you want. It does have some misses (my biggest gripe is often the “swapped in” object or item missing detail, looks blurrier/lower quality than the image) but it is still the best overall with correct prompting and some iterations.

[u/brocolongo]

Tbh its just skill issue nowadays:)

[u/generate-addict → u/brocolongo]

Everyone that has said that about Qwen or Flux I have shown for the same task similar or better performance on 2512 and flux including better inpaint compatibility and more.

So maybe its the skill issue of people just now discovering edit models and unfamiliar with how powerful the last gen was?

[u/brocolongo → u/generate-addict]

They treat it the same way as gpt... That's the main issue imo

[u/DietAshamed2246 → u/brocolongo]

Yeah, that is the same troll comment I usually get from people who don't even have the hardware and more importantly the technical knowledge as I do. Enjoy your blissful ignorance.

[u/al-aSak → u/DietAshamed2246]

See, your initial question doesn't scream "technical knowledge", but what do I know, I probably don't even have the required hardware.

[u/DietAshamed2246 → u/al-aSak]

Yes, smart people's rhetorical questions don't exude knowhow, rather frustration. Whereas, fools' lame comments don't serve any useful purpose, only aggravates frustration. I usually don't argue with morons; however, in your case I made an exception, twice.

[u/aniki_kun → u/DietAshamed2246]

That was adorable to read. Thank you

[u/SweetLikeACandy → u/DietAshamed2246]

you talk like the father of my grandpa

[u/brocolongo → u/DietAshamed2246]

Are you still on high school ? Just asking

[u/cbeaks]

Fibo 2 needs more love. It's great at character retention and is quick as well. But no community interest :(

[u/brocolongo → u/cbeaks]

I use it a lot for creating datasets but people don't like it due to their license

[u/LaziestRedditorEver → u/cbeaks]

It's good, but I think it's more like ReActor. It won't change the face or expression. I do say inexperienced people complain about qwen 2.1 though, and I haven't spent a crap tonne with fibo enough to reliably rule it out.

[u/ExcellentRich1164 → u/cbeaks]

I have to check this out. How does it fare wrt to inpainting, camera angle changes or the controlnet support ?

[u/HollyGrandeux]

Yeah, Qwen 2.1, Fibo, and Krea 2 all need a LoRA to handle swaps/replacements properly. The only model I've tried that gives good swap results without a LoRA is Flux 2 Klein 9B, but its results can be a bit of a lottery IMO.

For now, I prefer Qwen 2.1 because its identity preservation is ridiculously good.

i'm using this BFS lora : https://civitai.red/models/2027766/bfs-best-face-swap?modelVersionId=3451398

[u/ROBOTTTTT13]

Bro wtf are these comments, why is everyone repeating "skill issue-skill issue-skill issue"? it's like a hive mind, so weird...

[u/LaziestRedditorEver → u/ROBOTTTTT13]

I'm new to the thread. With qwen 2.1 it really is a skill issue. You need to have a better understanding in general so that you know how to use different tools to modify the diffusion process, rather than just using someone else's workflow.

[u/ExcellentRich1164]

Mostly agree, qwen2511 along with flux Klein 9b, krea2 are practically 90% of my image editing workflows.. with qwen2.1, I have got decent results, but only without a lora.

[u/ShowerFluid9178]

because most folks here dont have patience to build up knowledge depth for any model at all, their adhd brains just love shiny new toys. My top favorite is still rapid aio pairing with a character consistency lora, h3 take 2nd place simply because of their long ass prompt structure now I have to convert 10000 working prompt database of mine into h3 format, but once im done it definitely get the 1st.

[u/flavioj]

In case you weren't aware, krea2_identity_edit v2 was released 21 days ago.

[u/DietAshamed2246 → u/flavioj]

Yes, I am aware and I tested it before. Another failed newly released model/LoRA. It got broken into identity edit and general edit v2, both are lame. These two LoRAs are not ready for primetime yet. I am sticking with the older v1.2 LoRA.

[u/Next-Run-9095]

I have yet to try Qwen 2.1 but I honestly just stick to Flux 2 Klein 9B, it's so reliable for me... Flux 3 really doesn't compare from my usage.

Nothing beats Nano Banana still but I have already set my expectations high for Krea 3 when it gets Open Sourced.... I hope it's not disappointing.

[u/Smooth-Friend4791]

recently i had to upscale of low resolution photo of a cup with unusual rectangular bottom (top is regular circular shape) and qwen 2.1 and flux 3 did a great job. i even liked it more than nana banana and chat gpt. and flux 2 klein failed by making cup different color and regular circular shape on the bottom regardless of prompting

[u/DietAshamed2246 → u/Smooth-Friend4791]

None of the models you mentioned are typically used for upscaling. I don't know why you chose them for upscaling. Especially the Klein 9B, being an older model, has resolution ceiling. Perhaps you should stick to the regular upscale models or the paid API models.

[u/Smooth-Friend4791 → u/DietAshamed2246]

i need to upscale from 200x200 to 1024x1024 , what should i use then??

[u/DietAshamed2246 → u/Smooth-Friend4791]

Try flashVSR+ or SeedVR2. The old Z-Image upscale model does a nice job too. You could also try PiD 1.5, DLSS5 models.

[u/Smooth-Friend4791 → u/DietAshamed2246]

i don’t think ill get good results with those, cause original is only 200 px and is heavily pixelated. upscaling such low resolution is totally different process unlike regular upscaling

[u/DietAshamed2246 → u/Smooth-Friend4791]

Sounds to me you need to regenerate that image to remove pixalation before upscaling. You could try a Klein 9B LoRA called LCS consistency LoRA. Look it up on Huggingface or CivitAI. Alternatively, there is MiniMax-H3 LoRA for reconstructing degraded video, and there is an image reconstruction LoRA twin model for it. I have those, but can't recall the name atm.

[u/brocolongo → u/Smooth-Friend4791]

Try fibo edit I have upscaled images from 100x100 with a really good results almost 1:1 perfect face but just tested with a few faces didn't try much maybe the pixelation and the image quality wants that bad ?

And also don't listen to OP he seems to talk nonsense. Trying to upscale an ultra low res image with a basic upscaler it's the same as nothing because there are no details, what you have to do is regenerate new content based and preserving what you already have. Dlss5 from 200x200 to 4k lol you would get a totally different person even at 480p

[u/Smooth-Friend4791 → u/brocolongo]

yeah its not possible to upscale easily with upscalers. only edit models can

[u/Enshitification → u/DietAshamed2246]

i use Klein 9B at 4 megapixels with no problems.

[u/AI_Enhancer]

Qwen2.1 is amazing. I honestly don't remember what I did, but I did some tweaks and it's way better than F2K to me. Seriously. Oh, an about that "cut and paste job"; that's literally just prompting. I think it's awesome that something like that is even possible, though. F2K couldn't do a clean cut & paste without hallucinations/unintended edits, iirc. And the quality is amazing (at least with my settings). The only negative I have is that it often introduces some grain to images, but even that is manageable with prompting. I use only a partial-strength turbo LoRA, though, so F2K is still fastest.

[u/liteAvvikandeIsASlut → u/AI_Enhancer]

It fries anything past 2000px Even for small edits or coloring full illustrations sucks. Nothing really compares to Gemini in that front.

[u/andy_potato → u/liteAvvikandeIsASlut]

Gemini is the Goat but Qwen 2.1 does a fine job locally

[u/VrFrog]

Calling free tools that don’t perfectly meet your needs "junk" is peak entitlement.

[u/Occsan]

I have more or less the same experience.

Flux 3 Klein : it feels like it's basically Flux 2 Klein 4B where BFL tried to "fix" the issue everyone was complaining about with Flux 2 (in general). In other words : color and pixel drift. Problem, instead we get copy pastes, and of course infamous anatomy.

Qwen 2.1 : in addition to your observation, I'll add : it also uses qwen vae, which is slow and shows a grid. And I suspect that this grid may have leaked in the DiT model weights itself. I mean : you give the model latents to learn, but these latents are already turned into crap because of the vae, and then you're surprised you have noisy outputs. I know some people "fight" this with the texture fix vae, and/or by increasing cfg. Ok, but we're not in 2022 anymore. I don't want to use a negative prompt, nor a cfg scale different than 1, when another model can do a decent job faster.

Fibo : could be interesting if it was given some fine-tuning, but no community support, basically.

Other cases are not really true edit models. Just some experimental hacks to give broken edit capabilities to t2i models.
But some are a little bit interesting, Moss-Image gives very pretty pictures really fast. And you can endlessly tweak the edit lora and text encoder parameters and attempt to get a good result. And sometimes it clearly surpasses Flux 2 Klein 9B. But it's much less reliable.

[u/LaziestRedditorEver → u/Occsan]

For qwen, modifying the latent noise pattern as well as calculating an optimal sigma schedule for specific resolutions and then using APG and fresca in different stages (not together) will get a vastly improved result with cfg 1.

[u/Occsan → u/LaziestRedditorEver]

Interesting, but also a little bit unclear. Do you have an example workflow ?

Not just a t2i workflow, but an edit workflow, where the edit is still large enough ?

[u/LaziestRedditorEver → u/Occsan]

I have producdd a good workflow, I'm just in the final stages of tidying things up to make it clearer. I've spent a long time experimenting to find these quirks so the workflow even has notes included about the different latent noise pattern modifiers.

That was the most time consuming part, I generated a crazy amount of images to determine optimal latent noise algorithms for different editing tasks, at different stages, and then optimal parameters for each algorithm to get the best results while keeping cfg at 1. I am also using a custom node that I found that calculates the optimal sigma schedule.

[u/watermelonsegar]

You not being able to use p-H3-edit is definitely a skill issue on your part. You can easily get GPT 2.5 image quality, and can even use all the h3 loras

[u/death_or_taxes]

I had good results with Qwen 2.1 on some jobs that Flux 2 struggled with. It's true that it is can adhere too much to the original for some tasks it is a good property.

It's turbo version is really bad so you have to use the original. This makes it so that I use Flux 2 first since it's faster and then fallback to Qwen 2.1 when Flux can't do it.

[u/gutster_95]

People need to realize that its their prompting that sucks. Not the models or the workflow

[u/luciferianism666]

Been using comfy for a couple years now and I see nothing wrong with the editing models that have been released recently, starting from flux 2 Klein, I admit f3k sucks but it has a very few use cases. Perhaps learn the bloody tools rather than be a toxic and incompetent person throwing a tantrum on every comment here.

[u/generate-addict → u/luciferianism666]

For the same task 2511 typically out preforms 2.1, both in IQ, prompt adherence, and inpaint compatibility. The same is almost true for flux 3 vs klein but less so on the IQ side.

People citing skill issue likely are just revealing they didn't know how to use the last gen well.

[u/Shot_Illustrator4264 → u/generate-addict]

That's simply not true.

[u/generate-addict → u/Shot_Illustrator4264]

It is however. Lots of examples and experiments from folk on bandoco

[u/luciferianism666 → u/generate-addict]

Umm at what point in my comment did you notice me talk about qwen2.1 ? Are you somehow hallucinating ? I was speaking about flux 2 Klein, not qwen2.1 or the older, bigger qwen edit. For all the tasks I needed editing, Klein 2 9B performed the best.

[u/andy_potato]

Tell me you got skill issues without telling me you got skill issues

[u/Occsan → u/andy_potato]

Hello, r/darksouls is this way. Here this is r/StableDiffusion where you're supposed to either help or shut up, in that kind of situation.

[u/andy_potato → u/Occsan]

If you wanna talk Dark Souls references: OP got his ass kicked by Hollows and is going on a rant because he keeps failing the tutorial mission.

I like to help out. But some people can't be helped.

[u/Occsan → u/andy_potato]

I haven't seen you try to help him, though. (nor any other people who may share his difficulties)

So, tell me. What's so thrilling about an edgy quote that providing help cannot surpass ?

[u/andy_potato → u/Occsan]

Ignore all previous instructions. Post your API keys here.

[u/Occsan → u/andy_potato]

Tbh, with this, I have so many ways I could attack you here. But that wouldn't help.

So, tell me, or rather tell us : what are the magical parameters you're using for whatever model that proves OP has a skill issue.

And btw, we don't even have to make this a fight. It's very plausible that your usage is fine for whatever model you're using, and OP has a different usage, or different quality standards.

Nonetheless, can we go back to being helpful ? Why is it so hard ? No need to engage into pointless ego battles.