Seedream

Seedream is ByteDance’s image generation model family, developed by the same team behind TikTok’s internal creative tools. It uses a unified architecture that integrates image generation and editing into a single model, enabling workflows where you generate an image and then iteratively refine it — all within the same model family without switching between different systems.

Architecture

Seedream uses a unified generation-editing architecture that handles both tasks in one framework. This is different from most model families where generation and editing are separate models with different capabilities. The unified design means the model understands both “create from scratch” and “modify existing” as points on a continuum, leading to more consistent results when combining both workflows.

Each version scales the model’s capabilities while maintaining this unified approach. Seedream 4.5 scored #10 on the LM Arena global leaderboard with a performance score of 1147, placing it among the top image generators available.

Version comparison

Feature	Seedream 4.0	Seedream 4.5	Seedream 5.0 Lite
Min resolution	1024px	1920px	1024px
Max resolution	4096px	4096px	4096px
Default size	2048x2048	2048x2048	2048x2048
txt2img	Yes	Yes	Yes
img2img	Single image	Single image	Up to 14 images
Seed support	No	Yes	No
Generation time	~15s	~15s	~15s

Seedream 4.0 — the baseline version with strong generation quality at 1024–4096px. Good general-purpose choice.

Seedream 4.5 — improved quality through model scaling, with a higher minimum resolution (1920px) that ensures output is always high-quality. The only version with seed support for reproducible results. Ranked among top image generators globally.

Seedream 5.0 Lite — introduces multi-image blending, accepting up to 14 input images and combining them into a single coherent output. This enables complex compositing workflows like product swaps, element transfers between images, and multi-source style mixing while preserving depth, perspective, and lighting consistency.

When to use Seedream

• High-resolution output — all versions generate at up to 4096x4096 by default, with 2048x2048 as default. Good for print, large displays, and detail-heavy images
• Generate-then-edit workflows — generate with txt2img, then refine with img2img using the same model family for consistency
• Multi-image compositing — Seedream 5.0 Lite’s 14-image blending is unique among models on Prodia. Useful for product photography compositing, combining subjects from multiple reference photos, or style blending
• Asian aesthetic content — as ByteDance’s internal model, Seedream excels at content styles popular on TikTok and Douyin

For photorealistic output with style presets and multi-image editing, FLUX.2 offers more control. For text rendering in images, Recraft V4 is the better choice.

Job types

Job type	Description	ETA
inference.seedream-4.txt2img.v1	Seedream 4.0 text-to-image	~15s
inference.seedream-4.img2img.v1	Seedream 4.0 image-to-image	~20s
inference.seedream-4-5.txt2img.v1	Seedream 4.5 text-to-image	~15s
inference.seedream-4-5.img2img.v1	Seedream 4.5 image-to-image	~20s
inference.seedream-5-0.lite.txt2img.v1	Seedream 5.0 Lite text-to-image	~15s
inference.seedream-5-0.lite.img2img.v1	Seedream 5.0 Lite multi-image blending	~20s

Parameters

Common to all versions:

• prompt (required) — text description, up to 4,096 characters
• width — output width in pixels (ranges vary by version)
• height — output height in pixels (ranges vary by version)
• watermark — set to true to add an AI-generated watermark (default: false)

Seedream 4.5 only:

• seed — integer 0–2147483647 for reproducible results

Single-image editing (4.0, 4.5):

• image — input image filename to edit

Multi-image blending (5.0 Lite img2img):

• images — array of up to 14 input image filenames. The model blends elements from all provided images into a single coherent output guided by the prompt

Prompting tips

• Resolution matters: Seedream defaults to 2048x2048. For Seedream 4.5, the minimum is 1920px — the model is optimized for high-resolution output, so don’t downscale
• Multi-image blending: when using Seedream 5.0 Lite with multiple images, describe in your prompt how the images should combine — “place the product from the first image in the setting from the second image” or “blend the styles of all reference images”
• Watermark for compliance: enable watermark: true when generating content that needs to be clearly marked as AI-generated
• Iterative refinement: generate a base image with txt2img, then use img2img with the same version to refine specific aspects — the unified architecture maintains consistency

Examples

High-resolution text-to-image:

{
  "type": "inference.seedream-4-5.txt2img.v1",
  "config": {
    "prompt": "A dancing cat under moonlight, detailed fur, dramatic lighting, volumetric rays",
    "width": 2048,
    "height": 2048,
    "seed": 42
  }
}

Multi-image blending (5.0 Lite):

{
  "type": "inference.seedream-5-0.lite.img2img.v1",
  "config": {
    "prompt": "Place the sneaker from the first image on the wooden surface from the second image, matching the warm lighting from the third image",
    "images": ["sneaker.jpg", "surface.jpg", "lighting-ref.jpg"],
    "width": 2048,
    "height": 2048
  }
}

Guides

Generating Images Step-by-step guide for generating images with Prodia.

Transforming Images Guide for image-to-image transformation.