What is VASS and HDR color and composition correction?
VASS is an alternative color and composition for SDXL. To use it, add the the /vass parameter to your SDXL render.
Whether or not it improves the image is highly subjective. If you prefer a more saturated image, VASS is probably not for you. If the image on the right is more pleasing, this HDR “correction” may help you achieve your goals.
The parameter VASS comes from the name of the creator. Timothy Alexis Vass is an independent researcher that has been exploring the SDXL latent space and has made some interesting observations. His aim is color correction, and improving the content of images. We have adapted his published code to run in PirateDiffusion.
Example of it in action:
As you can see in the figure above, more than the colors changed despite the same seed value. The squirrel turned towards the viewer and, unfortunately, so did the the cake. “Squirrel” is at the beginning of the prompt, so having more importance to the composition, the cake also shrank and additional cakes were removed. We would be lying if we said these are all definitely benefits or compositional corrections that happen when /vass is used, but rather its an example of how it can impact an image.
Try it for yourself:
/render a cool cat <sdxl> /vass
Limitations: This only works in SDXL
To compare with and without Vass, lock the seed, sampler, and guidance to the same values as shown in the diagram above. Otherwise, the randomness from these parameters will give you an entirely different image every time.
Tip: You can also disable the SDXL refiner with /nofix to take upscaling into your own hands for more control, like this:
/render a cool cat <sdxl> /vass /nofix
Why and when to use Vass
Try it on SDXL images that are too yellow, off-center, or the color range feels limited. You should see better vibrance and cleaned up backgrounds.
VAE is a file that is often included alongside Checkpoints (full models) that impacts the color and noise cleanup, to put it simply. You have have seen models advertised as “VAE baked” — literally packing this file into the SafeTensors format. Your humble team at PirateDiffusion reads these guides and installs the VAE that the creator recommends, so 99.9% of the time you are using a VAE already and it is silently working as intended.
More specifically, VAE is a special type of model that can be used to change the contrast, quality, and color saturation. If an image looks overly foggy and your guidance is set above 10, the VAE might be the culprit. VAE stands for “variational autoencoder” and is a technique that reclassifies images, similar to how a zip file can compress and restore an image. If you’re a math buff, the technical writeups are really interesting stuff
The VAE “rehydrates” the image based on the data that it has been exposed to, instead of discrete values. If all of your renders images appear desaturated, blurry, or have purple spots, changing the VAE is the best solution. (See troubleshooting below for more details about this bug). 16 bit VAE run fastest.
Most people won’t need to learn this feature, but we offer for enthusiast users that want the most control of their images.
Which VAE is best?
It depends on how you feel about Saturation and colorful particles in your images. We recommend trying different ones to find your groove.
Troubleshooting
Purple spots, unwanted bright green dots, and completely black images when doing /remix are the three most common VAE glitches. If you’re getting these, please let a moderator know and we’ll change the default VAE for the model. You can also correct it with a runtime vae swap as shown below.
Shown below: This model uses a very bright VAE, but is leaking green dots on the shirt, fingers, and hair.
The Fix: Performing a VAE swap
Our support team can change the VAE at the model level, so you don’t have to do this every time. But maybe you’d like to try a few different looks? Here’s how to swap it at runtime:
/render #sdxlreal a hamster singing in the subway /vae:GraydientPlatformAPI__bright-vae-xl
Recommended for SDXL
/vae:GraydientPlatformAPI__bright-vae-xl
Recommended for SD15 photos (vae-ft-mse-840000-ema-pruned)
/vae:GraydientPlatformAPI__sd-vae-ft-ema
Recommended for SD15 illustration or anime
/vae:GraydientPlatformAPI__vae-klf8anime2
Compatible VAEs
Using a different third-party VAE
Upload or find one on the Huggingface website with this folder directory setup:
If you click that file you’ll see that it doesn’t contain a bunch of folders or a checkpoint, it just contains the VAE files. Pointing into a binned VAE of a whole model will not load. In that case just ask us to load that model for you.
The vae folder must have the following characteristics:
A single VAE per folder, in a top-level folder of a Huggingface profile as shown above
The folder must contain a config.json
The file must be in .bin format
The bin file must be named “diffusion_pytorch_model.bin”
Where to find more: Huggingface and Civitai may have others, but they must be converted to the format above
Other known working vae:
/vae:GraydientPlatformAPI__vae-blessed2 — less saturated than kofi2
/vae:GraydientPlatformAPI__vae-anything45 — less saturated than blessed2
/vae:GraydientPlatformAPI__vae-orange — medium saturation, but
/vae:GraydientPlatformAPI__vae-pastel — vivid colors like old Dutch masters
/vae:LittleApple-fp16__vae-ft-mse-840000-ema-pruned – great for realism
FreeU is a simple and elegant method that enhances render quality without additional training or finetuning by changing the factors in the U-Net architecture. FreeU consists of skip scaling factors (indicated by s1 and s2) and backbone scaling factors (indicated by b1 and b2).
Skip factors
a) Aim to minimize texture over-smoothening
b) Helps to preserve details in image render
Backbone factors
a) Amplifies the feature map of the entire render
b) Lead to over smoothening of textures
c) Generates more vivid details and improves image quality
Therefore in their paper, a balance between the skip scaling factors and backbone scaling factors is essential in ensuring a good render. To find more details about FreeU,
you can click on the link here: Link
For our platform, we use the following command to call for FreeU with the following factors:
/freeu: s1, s2, b1, b2
By default, we recommend the following values of s1,s2,b1, b2 for:
– SD 1.5: s1 = 1, s2 = 1, b1 = 1.2, b2 = 1.2
– SD XL: s1 = 0.9, s2 = 0.2, b1 = 1.2, b2 = 1.4
Take note for both scaling and backbone factors, the range is between 0 and 2.
In summary from our testing, we can recommend the following (If your lazy to read through the X-Y plots):
– Adjust b1 and b2 based on your preference to get the specific feel and detail required from 0 – 2
– Adjust s1 and s2 between range of 0.8 – 1.5 (up to 1.6) to get the right colour contrast and saturation.
– Take note your values will vary depending on model and lora/embeddings used.
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In this testing, we will showcase the power of freeu using the following prompt:
/render /size:768x768 /seed:1 /guidance:7 /sampler:dpm2m /images:2 1girl, half body shot, maid outfit, posing on shopping street , /freeu:s1,s2,b1,b2
We will be changing one set of scaling factors, either the skip and backbone and keeping the other constant to understand what happens.
If you’re ready, let’s go!
Now, we are going to change the backbone factors while keeping the skip factors constant.
Even though this uses a realistic checkpoint, the trend is still similar if a semi-real or anime-based checkpoint is used. In summary, we can observe the following trend:
a) Changing the skip factors (s1 & s2) affects colours and saturation of the render.
b) Changing the backbone factors (b1 & b2) changes the feature map of the render.
What does Arafed mean in Stable Diffusion? ShowPrompt and the Describe command
Ah yes, the mysterious Arafed. You might see this in prompt outputs or when using our /describe command
“The word “arafed” appears to have multiple meanings in English, derived from its use as both an adjective and a verb. As an adjective, it means “as leisurely” or “as dilatory.” When used as a verb, it translates to “let him/her/it slow”
This suggests that the word is related to the concept of slowness or taking one’s time, or being leisurely. Someone having fun
“arafed man in a white robe riding on top of a blue car”
This content policy is a living document. It is modified based on community feedback. Join us in VIP chat to discuss!
Be cool, be considerate
Our goal is to provide a safe space for many kinds of fantasy content, even if it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. We cater to many kinds of creators. Our system hosts an extensive library of fantasy and NSFW content from many countries. We try to strike a good balance of respecting different kinds of viewpoints, cultures, and sexual preferences. We will not remove lawful content that some people find offensive as long as it is lawful.
For example, we have a lot LGBTQ+ content. If that’s something you don’t want to see, we have specific groups for it and you can avoid it. We’re trying to make this work for everyone.
That said, there’s a fine line between fantasy content for one’s personal enjoyment and content that might be against the law in your hometown. These content guidelines are for everyone’s protections — ours and yours.
Examples of what’s OK
We publish a wide range of content that’s also inline with other social media platforms. This keeps our own policies in check for sanity. These subreddits are filled with PirateDiffusion creations:
If you can picture a red-face police officer coming over to your house and taking a chunk of time out of their day to deal with what’s on your computer instead of dealing with real criminals, maybe rethink your life priorities. If the cops don’t care, it’s OK. That’s the rule.
Public figures
Some stuff is fine. Photoshopped memes of celebrities, some skirting on good taste, have been created since the day the Internet was made. The fact that AI saves a few steps hasn’t changed the law. So because of this, we try to have some leniency. If you really want to see crazy stuff in your own private space, by all means go ahead. You do you. We will take down any content if asked by that person, of course.
But please do us all a favor: Whatever or Whoever you are into, do it for your own personal enjoyment, in your private drive, and don’t go sharing it on social media for cash or internet points. And that’s the rule — don’t make people feel bad. In the case of sites like Reddit or services like Discord, they’ll ban all of us asap.
See rule#1 – Be cool.
What is NOT OK is distributing deepfake content, especially porn. In some areas like California this actually carries heavy fines, so please be careful. You can get in trouble with your local area for certain kinds of content. So please, use your common sense. Will Smith eating spaghetti is probably fine.
Consent
We don’t look at your private uploads, but we do block uploads in public groups for your protection. We don’t want to look at your private photos, either. Please don’t upload photos that don’t belong to you, that’s all there is to it.
No underage
Underage prompts trigger an automated nudge to our moderation staff, and we review accounts on a case by case basis to make sure nobody gets in trouble over a false positive.
Privately created models using Graydient Catalog / Graydient Model Maker will be scanned
3rd party loaded models from sites like Civitai and Huggingface are also scanned
These are the early days of AI and there’s a lot to discuss and figure out, we’re sensitive to this and don’t kneejerk ban people. We review account intent history.
Nude or suggestive images of children will not be tolerated in group or private spaces. It doesn’t matter if its a fake person, real person, illustrated, anime, or 3d cgi, there are laws against this. What specifically isn’t ok:
Toddler models of any kind are not allowed
Age Slider LoRAs are specifically over-monitored for abuse
Loli/JS/JD/JK/etc
Iffy chibi/doll models
We’re aware that there are legit use cases for these, but unfortunately some bad eggs ruined it for everyone.
Triggering content
Keep your religious renders private, whatever you believe in.
Please think twice about gaslighting cultures, religious people, such as those people whose families have been impacted by the Holocaust, the war in Ukraine, recent immigration policies, and so on.
Look, we get it. We all have rendered The Pope wearing something stupid. But it would be in bad taste to take that too far, too often. Beyond the novelty gag here and there, we don’t particularly condone any kind of religious rendering in public groups.
Think twice about rendering:
Nationalist themes aka “alternative” history
Racist themes and iconography (nazi, etc)
Prompts that make fun of minorities
Fake News
Gore
That said, we don’t really care if you’re making Satanic dance sex raves or hot WW2 waifus in your own private channel. But in a public group, it’s going to trigger someone, so don’t.
Everything else
Case by case. Just use your common sense on what should be public and what is OK in groups and you’ll be fine!
We surely missed some things, so we’ll keep this document updated.
We can install models from Huggingface or Civitai for you. How to check if we already have it:
Search our models collection – and toggle nsfw if applicable. If its not there, we’ll try to add it within 72 hours. (Checkpoints, Locon, Lycoris, and SDXL models may require a little more time)
To be honest, we weren’t sure if anyone was going to show up, but we’re so happy that you all did. We’ve met so many great creators and it’s a joy to see all of your images everyday. There are too many people we want to thank to name, so let’s get straight to the drinking. We are celebrating our birthday with a massive list of new features, including a major new product release.
Here’s a hint:
CORE FIXES
It’s not your imagination, Pirate Diffusion is now much faster.
We’ve upgraded servers, database, and optimized a lot of little things to bring you features like faster infinite scrolling in your archives page and a punchier bot response. Just look at these sexy stats! We have more improvements on the way to bring you even faster service. These upgrades were made possible by our loyal supporters, thank you so much!
POLLY GPT
Polly is our brand new, hyper smart Large Language Model. It’s also a drunken pirate parrot with a fowl mouth. It can tell jokes, use Stable Diffusion commands, help you come up with new prompt keywords, and render images. Polly is only open to our Patrons at this time, and appears on the new menu bar next to Render.Polly goes live today!
To access the Polly beta, first login to your account. Pro 15GB members are invited for a limited time, and Plus 30GB members have unrestricted access.
To use it in Telegram, just type /polly like this:
Please note that this is a very early release, and not reflective of the final speed/quality. Polly is the first agent you’ll meet in our cast of many characters. When our LLM technologies are ready for primetime, you’ll be able to create your own characters and train them, too. Way cool.
WEB UI 2.0 IS COMING
Your personal Stable Diffusion Web UI is currently called your community, which some people found confusing, as most use it solo. We are fixing this by calling things “projects” and the website is “my stable diffusion” so it’s easier to explain. So we are introducing two new logos:
Your WebUI will soon be called Stable2go, as in Stable Diffusion on the go.
We’re also going to split the tutorials section so WebUI and Telegram tutorials are on separate pages, so our videos and lessons don’t try to cram both in one place.
MORE STORAGE
Graydient Cloud Drive also has a new logo, and now comes in 50GB variants! We’ve upgraded all 30GB accounts to 50GB for free, you’re welcome!
AVATAR ON DEMAND
Render an image, and set it as your avatar
It’s much easier to tell when you’re logged in now — just glance at your avatar.
Want a fresh look? Any of your images can be used to set the avatar, like this: You can also set any rendered image as your avatar from either WebUI or Telegram.
It also works within Telegram, just use the new /avatar command.
FASTER WEBUI RENDER
Progressive rendering is here!
Before, it waited to receive all of the images. Now it displays them one by one as they render. No more waiting for the whole batch — they pop in one by one. This is trickier to do in Telegram, but we’ll eventually bring it to Telegram as well.
Now images appear one by one, instead of waiting for whole set.
SEND A RENDER TO TELEGRAM
The render details pane has two new buttons: avatar and send to telegram
This button puts a short code in your clipboard that will teleport the image to Telegram, so you can start in WebUI and continue in Telegram. It looks like this:
Paste that into your bot, and it zaps it there. How neat is that?
Remember, you also have the reverse workflow available to you. Any image you create in Telegram will appear in your Web UI’s Archive section, just type /webui in Telegram to find it.
IMAGE HISTORY
A new graphed Image Evolution family tree
After an image is modified, the evolution link appears at the bottom of the page.
This gives you a visual journey across the current branch of forked changes, and lets you track back to an old idea easily.
We’ve also split the Remix Too into positive and negative prompts, and it contains aspect ratio, guidance presets, steps, and image count.
FACELIFT MODES
WebUI Facelift has caught up to Telegram: You can now choose between anime/illustration, face retouch, or general AI upscale. The “Regular photo” mode will upscale the image without changing the facial details, and the anime mode will boost any kind of digital drawing. Improve face is trained on realistic faces, so that won’t work well on illustrations. Use the “anime” mode for your art.
You can also add additional commands before it runs, such as overriding the sampler.
INPAINT UPGRADES
Three new features:
No need to redraw masks:
A new radial button for “previous” remembers previous masks within last 7 renders
You can now upload images directly into inpaint (top right)
You can download your favorite masks and reupload them.
Note: It works best when both images and the mask are the exact same size.
Expanded Tools Menu
We’ve added more tools like /highdef and /more options in WebUI, when you’re looking at a Render.
These are rolling out slowly this week, look for more button options soon. No ControlNet over WebUI yet, but that’s clearly next. You can use 8 modes of ControlNet via Telegram though, with unlimited presets. And Roop-style FaceSwap! We’re also testing two more face-swapping commands right now, they’ll be in the next update. More superpowers coming.
FAVORITE MODELS
In case you missed it, last week we rolled out the ability to favorite your top concepts. Just login and click the heart button. It also works in Telegram, as shown below:
IN-BOT MODEL SEARCH
You can now search AI models with this command right within Telegram.
The command is /concepts /search: followed by your keywords, like this:
It looks at our short lora nicknames as well as the full title and creator of the model, so it will help you find those obscure ones.
SDXL READY
In preparation for SDXL, which is unfortunately not backwards compatible with SD 1.5 LoRAs and Textual Inversions, the software now has awareness of Families of Stable Diffusion models.
We’ll save you some grief instead of showing you a crazy error and catch these mismatched conditions.
THREE NEW RECIPES
Recipes are prompt templates created by the community, which you can add to your prompt like a cheat code to summon powerful effects. These three new recipes only include negative textual inversions, so they’re really good short cheat codes for boosting image quality fast. Here’s what they do, in order of intensity
#boost – adds very bad negative and a few mild fixer-upper keywords
#nfix – adds three powerful negative TIs and upscales images to 1200×1200 (pro users only)
#everythingbad – includes over 10 negative TIs, it’s the nuclear option
Try them out today! Add one them to the very start of your prompt for best results. If no base model is selected, it will default to the very excellent <photon> V1. And speaking of models:
