Dueling Versions of Stable Diffusion XL

 

In a previous post I mentioned a number of new offerings from Stabilty AI.  By far, the most interesting of these is a new version of Stable Diffusion, the company's text-to-image AI generative app.

Somewhat confusingly, the new upgrade, Stable Diffusion XL, is available in two versions, both of which are free of charge to use.  First, there is Stablility AI's own unofficial beta version on Hugging Face; and then there is a version offered by Clipdrop, a subsidiary acquired by Stability AI when it recently purchased Init ML.  Adding to the confusion, the app's previous version, on a page simply entitled Stable Diffusion Online, is also still available for use.

In my last post I quoted Google Bard on the differences between the two versions of XL that are now offered.  

"(1) Model Size - the full version images are larger (1.37GB) than the Clipdrop version images (,54 GB); (2) Image Quality - Clipdrop version images are of lower quality; and (3) Features - the full version offers more features, such as the ability to edit generated images."

In actual practice I did not find this to be accurate, perhaps because the full version is still available only in beta form.

Above are images I obtained from the Clipdrop version after entering the following text prompt:

"Elegant nighttime depiction in muted colors of extremely beautiful female model, face and figure shown in realistic detail, posing in futuristic designer clothing on rooftop of Tokyo apartment with glowing city lights and brightly lit neon billboards in background, a highly detailed epic cinematic concept art, excellent composition, dynamic dramatic cinematic lighting, aesthetic, very inspirational, arthouse."

I was extremely pleased with these results and found them to be aesthetically much more pleasing than anything I had obtained in prior versions of Stable Diffusion.  In particular, they were far more photo realistic.

Shown below are the results I obtained using the same prompt on the Hugging Face beta version page.  Not only are these images visually less appealing, but they are also smaller in size than the Clipdrop images.  That was quite a surprise to me, and as a result I will in the future work exclusively with Clipdrop until such time as Stability AI has released a final version.  It's extremely puzzling that Clipdrop seems to have left beta behind while its parent company is apparently still stuck there unless it is simply that Hugging Face has not acquired access to the final version, though I'm unable to locate it anywhere else either.  According to  Stability AI the version available on Dream Studio is also beta but it does go on to say that the final version of the new app "will be released as open source for optimal accessibility in the near future."