Stable Diffusion 3 Medium is another leap forward for AI image generation

Stability AI has announced the open release of Stable Diffusion 3 Medium. It's the first open release of the SD3 series and its most advanced image generation open model to date.

The company says the open-source model outperforms the best AI image generators (including its own) for photorealism capabilities. Meanwhile, text generation has also been improved.

Comprising two billion parameters, Stable Diffusion 3 Medium is Stability AI’s most advanced text-to-image open model yet. A smaller VRAM footprint is intended to make it more suitable for running on consumer GPUS as well as enterprise-tier GPUs.

Stability AI says the model overcomes common artifacts in hands and faces, to deliver more photorealistic images. It says the model can understand complex prompts involving spatial relationships, compositional elements, actions, and styles and can achieve "unprecedented results" for generating text without artifacting and spelling errors thanks to its Diffusion Transformer architecture.

The company also suggests that the model is ideal for customisation due to its ability to absorb nuanced details from small datasets.

Stability AI stresses that it has conducted extensive internal and external testing of the model. It plans to continuously improve Stable Diffusion 3 Medium based on user feedback and to expand its features.

Access for non-commercial use is via Hugging Face. The API is available on the Stability Platform, or you can try it out by signing up for a free three-day trial on Stable Assistant and on Discord via Stable Artisan.

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Joe is a regular freelance journalist and editor at Creative Bloq. He writes news, features and buying guides and keeps track of the best equipment and software for creatives, from video editing programs to monitors and accessories. A veteran news writer and photographer, he now works as a project manager at the London and Buenos Aires-based design, production and branding agency Hermana Creatives. There he manages a team of designers, photographers and video editors who specialise in producing visual content and design assets for the hospitality sector. He also dances Argentine tango.