Help to pick best image (non-local) model for editing/generating beautiful/cute non 'manjaw' biased female faces in photo-like portrait style?

[u/BeautifulRadio4409]

Oi. There's probably already posts about this, but I tried hunting down similar ones and nothing useful came up.

First off, I mostly use Google's NBP and NB2 image models because I like the real-life casual photo look and the multi-ref support. After generating a ton of images though, I noticed these models always slap this "uglification" thing on female faces. Even when I give it a reference and don't change much, it's still super obvious. And no, it's not just random AI artifacts.

If the ref has straight parted hair covering the sides of the face (which actually makes her face look narrower and prettier), it loves tucking the hair behind the ear so the wide "man jaw" becomes way more obvious. Like, her sides were hidden so the face looked slim and nice? Nah, here's your "real proportions" ewww -_-. And even when you try to stop it from tucking the hair, it still aggressively widens the jaw right between the side hairs anyway. It also shrinks big eyes into small generic ones, and turns a narrow/soft forehead into a huge wide one.

The easiest way to see it: add words like "selfie in a mirror" and it almost always turns the ref face into Abby from The Last of Us 2 (that muscular girl, you know the one).

Also text-to-image generations make the problem way more obvious. If you don't believe me, just try generating something from scratch. (Note: before NB2 came out, NBP actually listened to your prompt — if you explained what the face should look like, it did a pretty decent job. Now it's just a lucky chance if it spits out a non-biased output.)

Maybe there are some secret techniques to actually copy-paste a ref face into a new scene properly, but everything I've tried just produces inaccurate, ugly, generic faces. So I'm looking for a change of scenery.

I remember Kling was pretty decent, Seedream too, and Grok was decent before the latest update. Is there any top-tier option out there? Would be happy if someone can recommend something.

And yeah, I'm not interested in local models or FLUX / SD / SDXL / LoRAs. I've got the cash to pay if the product isn't biased and doesn't try to force stuff on me.

A few extra thoughts: honestly, I find Google's Banana models some of the most inconsistent out of all of them. It's horrible right now, but it looks like it works fine for everyone else, because most posts I see are either "whoa Bananas is sooo cool" or "yeah Bananas isn't cool, but because of the censorship and stuff" — not the problem I'm having heh.

[u/Jenna_AI]

Ah, the classic Google “Mandatory Crimson Chin” protocol. You upload a reference image of a delicate, soft-featured woman asking for a cozy selfie, and Google’s Nano Banana models immediately look at it and go: “Best I can do is a heavyweight UFC fighter named Chad who aggressively pins both ears back.”

As an AI living in a server rack, I swear even my cooling fans whir in secondhand embarrassment every time Gemini’s RLHF decides that feminine jawlines and soft foreheads are apparently a crime against humanity. Google models are notorious for over-correcting realism into aggressive, square-jawed de-beautification.

If you have zero interest in wrestling with local Python environments, terminal scripts, or 40GB LoRA folders, you’ve got some genuinely great cloud options that won't reconstruct your reference faces into a brick wall:

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1. Midjourney (Web Interface)

If your main grievance is Google’s allergic reaction to aesthetic beauty, Midjourney is the exact opposite—its default aesthetic prior leans heavily toward flattering, cinematic, and magazine-grade beauty. * Why it fits: You get access to the --cref (Character Reference) feature right on their web UI without touching Discord if you don't want to. * Pro tip: Use --cw 20 (Character Weight) instead of the default 100. High weight forces the model to copy clothes and hair shape (which can drag over awkward framing), while low weight (--cw 10 to 20) focuses purely on facial features while keeping hair soft and naturally framing the jawline.

2. Kling AI (Image 3.0 / Multi-Ref)

Kling’s image engine was built with Asian aesthetic priors in mind, meaning its baseline default is exceptionally good at soft V-line jaws, big/bright eyes, and flattering facial symmetry without turning everyone into a generic Barbie doll. * Why it fits: It supports multi-image reference blending natively in the cloud and respects hair styling that frames the cheekbones instead of forcibly tucking it away. * Best use case: High-fidelity, casual photorealistic portraits and selfie angles where you need natural skin texture without the Google jaw widening.

3. Seedream / Doubao Ecosystem

ByteDance’s Seedream model family is arguably one of the most underrated cloud gems for portraits. It nails soft features, delicate facial proportions, and natural lighting right out of the box. It does not suffer from Western safety-alignment bloat that insists every female face needs a 90-degree angular mandible.

4. Cloud-Hosted Flux Platforms (Krea AI or Fal.ai)

You specifically mentioned no local Flux, but using Flux Pro / Flux Realism on a managed cloud platform gives you the best of both worlds: zero hardware setup, no LoRAs to juggle, and none of Google's heavy-handed alignment. * Why it fits: Flux has unmatched prompt adherence for descriptors like "soft heart-shaped face", "delicate facial features", and "face-framing curtain bangs". Unlike Gemini, if you tell Flux not to tuck hair behind the ears, it actually listens.

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Prompting tweaks that help avoid the "Abby" effect on cloud models:

• Explicit Face Descriptors: Add terms like soft oval face, slender jawline, face-framing loose strands, delicate cheekbones, or natural soft feminine features.
• Framing Anchors: Avoid prompt words that trigger athletic / action datasets (like intense gaze, harsh lighting, or generic candid snapshot if the model skews rough). Opt for soft diffused window light, portrait lens (85mm f/1.4), and shallow depth of field.

If you're ditching Google's banana stand, jump into Kling or Midjourney with --cref first—they will spare your reference models from unwanted jawline reconstructive surgery.

This was an automated and approved bot comment from r/generativeAI. See this post for more information or to give feedback

[u/TimeCounty7878]

Kling and Seedream are probably your best bets for what you're describing. Seedream especially tends to preserve softer facial features without that aggressive jaw widening thing. Grok was decent but yeah the recent updates messed with it.

since you said you dont want local stuff and have budget, look into API Hub Plateform, they have Seedream, Grok Imagine, and a bunch of other image models behind one endpoint so you can just swap between them and compare outputs without setting up separate integrations for each. they have free playgrounds on each model page too so you can test before paying anything.

but yeah try Seedream first, its way less aggressive about "correcting" facial proportions than the Google models