photon.md

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# Photon


Photon generates high-quality images from text using a simplified MMDIT architecture where text tokens don't update through transformer blocks. It employs flow matching with discrete scheduling for efficient sampling and uses Google's T5Gemma-2B-2B-UL2 model for multi-language text encoding. The ~1.3B parameter transformer delivers fast inference without sacrificing quality. You can choose between Flux VAE (8x compression, 16 latent channels) for balanced quality and speed or DC-AE (32x compression, 32 latent channels) for latent compression and faster processing.

## Available models

Photon offers multiple variants with different VAE configurations, each optimized for specific resolutions. Base models excel with detailed prompts, capturing complex compositions and subtle details. Fine-tuned models trained on the [Alchemist dataset](https://huggingface.co/datasets/yandex/alchemist) improve aesthetic quality, especially with simpler prompts.


| Model | Resolution | Fine-tuned | Distilled | Description | Suggested prompts | Suggested parameters | Recommended dtype |
|:-----:|:-----------------:|:----------:|:----------:|:----------:|:----------:|:----------:|:----------:|
| [`Photoroom/photon-256-t2i`](https://huggingface.co/Photoroom/photon-256-t2i)| 256 | No | No | Base model pre-trained at 256 with Flux VAE|Works best with detailed prompts in natural language|28 steps, cfg=5.0| `torch.bfloat16` |
| [`Photoroom/photon-256-t2i-sft`](https://huggingface.co/Photoroom/photon-256-t2i-sft)| 512 | Yes | No | Fine-tuned on the [Alchemist dataset](https://huggingface.co/datasets/yandex/alchemist) dataset with Flux VAE | Can handle less detailed prompts|28 steps, cfg=5.0| `torch.bfloat16` |
| [`Photoroom/photon-512-t2i`](https://huggingface.co/Photoroom/photon-512-t2i)| 512 | No | No | Base model pre-trained at 512 with Flux VAE |Works best with detailed prompts in natural language|28 steps, cfg=5.0| `torch.bfloat16` |
| [`Photoroom/photon-512-t2i-sft`](https://huggingface.co/Photoroom/photon-512-t2i-sft)| 512 | Yes | No | Fine-tuned on the [Alchemist dataset](https://huggingface.co/datasets/yandex/alchemist) dataset with Flux VAE | Can handle less detailed prompts in natural language|28 steps, cfg=5.0| `torch.bfloat16` |
| [`Photoroom/photon-512-t2i-sft-distilled`](https://huggingface.co/Photoroom/photon-512-t2i-sft-distilled)| 512 | Yes | Yes | 8-step distilled model from [`Photoroom/photon-512-t2i-sft`](https://huggingface.co/Photoroom/photon-512-t2i-sft) | Can handle less detailed prompts in natural language|8 steps, cfg=1.0| `torch.bfloat16` |
| [`Photoroom/photon-512-t2i-dc-ae`](https://huggingface.co/Photoroom/photon-512-t2i-dc-ae)| 512 | No | No | Base model pre-trained at 512 with [Deep Compression Autoencoder (DC-AE)](https://hanlab.mit.edu/projects/dc-ae)|Works best with detailed prompts in natural language|28 steps, cfg=5.0| `torch.bfloat16` |
| [`Photoroom/photon-512-t2i-dc-ae-sft`](https://huggingface.co/Photoroom/photon-512-t2i-dc-ae-sft)| 512 | Yes | No | Fine-tuned on the [Alchemist dataset](https://huggingface.co/datasets/yandex/alchemist) dataset with [Deep Compression Autoencoder (DC-AE)](https://hanlab.mit.edu/projects/dc-ae) | Can handle less detailed prompts in natural language|28 steps, cfg=5.0| `torch.bfloat16` |
| [`Photoroom/photon-512-t2i-dc-ae-sft-distilled`](https://huggingface.co/Photoroom/photon-512-t2i-dc-ae-sft-distilled)| 512 | Yes | Yes | 8-step distilled model from [`Photoroom/photon-512-t2i-dc-ae-sft-distilled`](https://huggingface.co/Photoroom/photon-512-t2i-dc-ae-sft-distilled) | Can handle less detailed prompts in natural language|8 steps, cfg=1.0| `torch.bfloat16` |s

Refer to [this](https://huggingface.co/collections/Photoroom/photon-models-68e66254c202ebfab99ad38e) collection for more information.

## Loading the pipeline

Load the pipeline with [`~DiffusionPipeline.from_pretrained`].

```py
from diffusers.pipelines.photon import PhotonPipeline

# Load pipeline - VAE and text encoder will be loaded from HuggingFace
pipe = PhotonPipeline.from_pretrained("Photoroom/photon-512-t2i-sft", torch_dtype=torch.bfloat16)
pipe.to("cuda")

prompt = "A front-facing portrait of a lion the golden savanna at sunset."
image = pipe(prompt, num_inference_steps=28, guidance_scale=5.0).images[0]
image.save("photon_output.png")
```

### Manual Component Loading

Load components individually to customize the pipeline for instance to use quantized models.

```py
import torch
from diffusers.pipelines.photon import PhotonPipeline
from diffusers.models import AutoencoderKL, AutoencoderDC
from diffusers.models.transformers.transformer_photon import PhotonTransformer2DModel
from diffusers.schedulers import FlowMatchEulerDiscreteScheduler
from transformers import T5GemmaModel, GemmaTokenizerFast
from diffusers import BitsAndBytesConfig as DiffusersBitsAndBytesConfig
from transformers import BitsAndBytesConfig as BitsAndBytesConfig

quant_config = DiffusersBitsAndBytesConfig(load_in_8bit=True)
# Load transformer
transformer = PhotonTransformer2DModel.from_pretrained(
    "checkpoints/photon-512-t2i-sft",
    subfolder="transformer",
    quantization_config=quant_config,
    torch_dtype=torch.bfloat16,
)

# Load scheduler
scheduler = FlowMatchEulerDiscreteScheduler.from_pretrained(
    "checkpoints/photon-512-t2i-sft", subfolder="scheduler"
)

# Load T5Gemma text encoder
t5gemma_model = T5GemmaModel.from_pretrained("google/t5gemma-2b-2b-ul2",
                                            quantization_config=quant_config,
                                            torch_dtype=torch.bfloat16)
text_encoder = t5gemma_model.encoder.to(dtype=torch.bfloat16)
tokenizer = GemmaTokenizerFast.from_pretrained("google/t5gemma-2b-2b-ul2")
tokenizer.model_max_length = 256

# Load VAE - choose either Flux VAE or DC-AE
# Flux VAE
vae = AutoencoderKL.from_pretrained("black-forest-labs/FLUX.1-dev",
                                    subfolder="vae",
                                    quantization_config=quant_config,
                                    torch_dtype=torch.bfloat16)

pipe = PhotonPipeline(
    transformer=transformer,
    scheduler=scheduler,
    text_encoder=text_encoder,
    tokenizer=tokenizer,
    vae=vae
)
pipe.to("cuda")
```


## Memory Optimization

For memory-constrained environments:

```py
import torch
from diffusers.pipelines.photon import PhotonPipeline

pipe = PhotonPipeline.from_pretrained("Photoroom/photon-512-t2i-sft", torch_dtype=torch.bfloat16)
pipe.enable_model_cpu_offload()  # Offload components to CPU when not in use

# Or use sequential CPU offload for even lower memory
pipe.enable_sequential_cpu_offload()
```

## PhotonPipeline

[[autodoc]] PhotonPipeline
  - all
  - __call__

## PhotonPipelineOutput

[[autodoc]] pipelines.photon.pipeline_output.PhotonPipelineOutput