Everything Seedream 5.0 can do

Seedream 5.0 is ByteDance's image model, in three versions. Pro works a brief through before it draws and is built for exact edits; Lite draws 2K and 3K pictures at one price; Flash is the quick one and costs the least. Pro and Flash read up to 10 pictures at once and draw any shape from 1:16 to 16:1, up to about 4.6 megapixels; Lite reads up to 14 and draws up to 4704 × 2016.

Every picture below was made by the step under it. Change a placeholder and press Gen to make your own.

Change one thing

Hand Pro the picture you already like, name the one change, then name everything that stays: the shape, the angle, the backdrop, the light. Whatever the prompt leaves unnamed starts to drift.

Several changes fit in one edit when each names its own place: the front of the counter, the tiles behind it, the lamps above it, the stools on the near side. What isn't named stays as it was.

Try ideas on Flash

Flash is the quick one, at one price at any size, about two fifths of a smaller Pro picture. Try directions on Flash: a splash, a picnic, a pop studio, all from one bottle. Then finish the one you like on Pro. Every starting picture on this page came from Flash.

Brief it like an art director

Write the prompt in layers: the format, the subject, where things sit, the light, the words, the style. Name the format first: "a travel magazine cover" makes the model keep room for the masthead and frame the picture as a cover rather than a portrait. Every word to print goes in quotes.

For anything built from parts, write it like a layout: the regions, what goes in each, where the labels sit. This prompt names none of the volcano's parts; the model knows them and labels six. Pro's Thinking is on by default: the model works the brief through before it draws, which takes longer and costs nothing extra.

Small labels hold better above 2.36 megapixels, which costs twice as much. This cutaway's Dimensions are 1728 × 2304.

Lite plans the picture too. Give each person a side, their own clothes and what they hold, and each keeps what's theirs: nobody trades a jacket or an instrument.

Words in many languages

Pro sets words in many languages with their accents and marks in place: French, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Thai, Russian and more. Put the exact words in quotes, name the script and the type style together ("brush-written Japanese", "condensed serif capitals"), and say where the words go and which way they read.

One layout can carry every language: an edit swaps the words and keeps the art. Say which way the new script reads: Arabic runs right to left. Like every edit on this page, its Dimensions follow its input, so the model changes the poster instead of drawing a new one.

Two scripts can share a cover. Describe each block on its own: its script, its style, its color, its place. Give them matching weights, so the English reads as part of the design rather than a translation added later.

Up to ten pictures in one

A Pro step reads up to ten pictures. Give each one its job by what's in it, and say where it goes. Packshots on white combine cleanest, taken from the angle they'll have in the final frame: these four are shot from straight above, for a flat-lay.

The four are placeholders: drop in pictures of your own things and the same sentences lay them out. Each picture past the first adds a little to the price.

From a sketch

Give Pro a rough drawing and it finishes it, keeping everything where you drew it: the cabin, the boat, the trees, the line of the hills. Drop in a photo of your own sketch and pick a finish.

Three tiers

Pro, used for most of this page, is priced by size: above 2.36 megapixels a picture costs twice as much. Reach for it for words, edits, sketches and many pictures at once.

Lite costs the same at every size, 2K or 3K, in eight shapes. Pick the largest of its Dimensions when you want the most pixels: these panoramas are 4704 × 2016.

To build on any step, press Mix to copy its recipe into your own page.