Stable Diffusion XL

Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 is the significant advancement in the evolution of text-to-image generation models. This version is the flagship model of Stability AI, improved to be the world's best image generation model that is succeeded by the limited, research-only release of SDXL 0.9. This chapter explores the features, ways to access, and limitations of Stable Diffusion XL (SDXL) 1.0.

Features of Stable Diffusion XL

As per reports, when Stability AI tested SDXL 1.0 against various other models, the results were conclusive that people preferred this model compared to other versions. Some key features that the version offers are −

• Contextual Understanding − One of the significant improvements is the ability of the model to understand and interpret complex prompts.
• Legible Text − The model also focuses on generating accurate legible text, i.e., the text on the images.
• Better Portraits − While the previous models had the problem of generating human portraits and anatomy. This model fixes the issue to an extent by generating better quality.
• Artistic Styles − Stable Diffusion XL offers various artistic styles for image generation, such as anime, digital art, cinematic, 3D Model, etc.
• Prompts − You no longer need to provide lengthy prompts to get desired results, SDXL understands short prompts much better than previous models.
• Open-source and Color Composition − The reason why SDXL is the most used model among all the versions of Stable Diffusion is that it is open-source and also designed to generate high quality images along with better color grading and composition.

How to Access Stable Diffusion XL?

There are many ways to get hands on the SDXL model. The four main ways to access and use Stable Diffusion XL are −

Accessing Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 Online

Clipdrop is one of the easiest ways to access Stable Diffusion XL for free. Once you navigate to their official website, you can type your prompt or choose from pre-written examples and generate an image.

Accessing Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 using Discord

Another easiest way to generate images is by accessing it through Discord. Once you start using, visit one of the #bot-1 - #bot-10 channels, and you will find the following command to enter the prompt "/dream prompt: *enter prompt here*. Once you enter your prompt, the bot will generate two images, this gives you an option to choose the better one and also helps to train the model.

Accessing Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 using Hugging Face

The model is currently available for download on Hugging Face. Click here to download SDXL 1.0 base model.

Stable Diffusion XL Turbo

The next enhanced version of SDXL is Stable Diffusion XL Turbo developed with new distillation technology called Adversarial Diffusion Distillation (ADD), which allows the model to synthesize images in a single step.

You can also access this model by downloading the model weights and code on Hugging Face or by visiting Clipdrop which is Stability AI's image editing platform.

Limitations of Stable Diffusion XL

The model has some limitations such as −

• It cannot generate perfect photorealism.
• It struggles to generate tasks with complex prompts.
• It also has difficulties in generating portraits and people.
• It is not very accurate in generating legible text, but better than the previous models.
• There might be a loss of information during the encoding process since the auto-encoding part of the model is lossy.