ERNIE image generation

Baidu's ERNIE Image is a distillation-friendly text-to-image family hosted on Civitai's Comfy workers. Single engine path, one operation (createImage — no img2img, variant, or edit support), two model variants that differ only in speed vs. quality:

engine: "comfy", ecosystem: "ernie"
Only createImage — ERNIE doesn't expose createVariant or editImage. Use Flux 2 Klein or Qwen if you need img2img or prompt-driven editing.
Built-in diffuser, VAE, and text encoder — no model URN to pick. The only model field is the variant selector (ernie or turbo).
LoRA support (ERNIE-tagged LoRAs only).

Variants

`model`	Steps (default)	`cfgScale` (default)	Best for
`ernie`	`20`	`4`	Default — full-quality output, standard sampling
`turbo`	`8`	`1`	Distilled for speed — 3–4× faster and ~⅓ the Buzz per image; use for drafts, batches, and iteration

Leave cfgScale: 1 on turbo — it's a distilled model and doesn't respond to classifier-free guidance the way the standard variant does.

Prerequisites

A Civitai orchestration token (Quick start → Prerequisites)
No checkpoint URN required — both variants ship with built-in diffuser / VAE / text encoder

Standard (`model: "ernie"`)

http

POST https://orchestration.civitai.com/v2/consumer/workflows?wait=60
Authorization: Bearer <your-token>
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "steps": [{
    "$type": "imageGen",
    "input": {
      "engine": "comfy",
      "ecosystem": "ernie",
      "model": "ernie",
      "operation": "createImage",
      "prompt": "A red panda wearing a yellow rain jacket, cinematic soft light, highly detailed",
      "width": 1024,
      "height": 1024,
      "steps": 20,
      "cfgScale": 4,
      "sampler": "euler",
      "scheduler": "simple",
      "quantity": 1
    }
  }]
}

Set your Civitai API token via the Token button in the navbar to enable Try It.

Request body — edit to customize (e.g. swap the image URL or prompt)

Valid JSON

Parameters

Field	Default	Range	Notes
`prompt`	— ✅	≤ 10 000 chars	Natural-language descriptions work well; ERNIE handles complex scenes better than tag-soup.
`negativePrompt`	(none)	≤ 10 000 chars	Optional. Shorter is usually better — ERNIE's defaults are already clean.
`width` / `height`	`1024`	`64`–`2048`, divisible by 16	Trained around 1024². Well-behaved near ~1 megapixel total.
`steps`	`20`	`1`–`150`	Diminishing returns past ~25.
`cfgScale`	`4`	`0`–`30`	`3`–`5` is the sweet spot.
`sampler`	`euler`	enum	`ComfySampler`. `euler` is what the model was tuned against.
`scheduler`	`simple`	enum	`ComfyScheduler`.
`loras`	`{}`	`{ airUrn: strength }`	Stack multiple. Only `urn:air:ernie:lora:...` LoRAs work here.
`quantity`	`1`	`1`–`12`	Number of images per call.
`seed`	random	int64	Pin for reproducibility.

Portrait aspect ratio

json

{
  "steps": [{
    "$type": "imageGen",
    "input": {
      "engine": "comfy",
      "ecosystem": "ernie",
      "model": "ernie",
      "operation": "createImage",
      "prompt": "Portrait of a woman with flowing hair standing in a blooming cherry blossom field, golden hour lighting",
      "negativePrompt": "worst quality, blurry, low resolution",
      "width": 832,
      "height": 1216,
      "steps": 20,
      "cfgScale": 4,
      "sampler": "euler",
      "scheduler": "simple",
      "seed": 42
    }
  }]
}

Set your Civitai API token via the Token button in the navbar to enable Try It.

Request body — edit to customize (e.g. swap the image URL or prompt)

Valid JSON

Turbo (`model: "turbo"`)

Distilled variant — same input surface as standard, just lower defaults for steps and cfgScale. Use this as the default when you're iterating on prompts or generating batches; fall back to ernie for hero shots.

http

POST https://orchestration.civitai.com/v2/consumer/workflows?wait=60
Authorization: Bearer <your-token>
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "steps": [{
    "$type": "imageGen",
    "input": {
      "engine": "comfy",
      "ecosystem": "ernie",
      "model": "turbo",
      "operation": "createImage",
      "prompt": "A red panda wearing a yellow rain jacket, cinematic soft light, highly detailed",
      "width": 1024,
      "height": 1024,
      "steps": 8,
      "cfgScale": 1,
      "sampler": "euler",
      "scheduler": "simple",
      "quantity": 1
    }
  }]
}

Set your Civitai API token via the Token button in the navbar to enable Try It.

Request body — edit to customize (e.g. swap the image URL or prompt)

Valid JSON

Turbo-specific tuning:

Field	Default	Notes
`steps`	`8`	Stay in `6`–`12`. Pushing past `~16` wastes Buzz without improving output on the distilled model.
`cfgScale`	`1`	Distilled — leave at `1`. Raising it usually over-saturates / burns the output.

Everything else (prompt, negativePrompt, dimensions, sampler, scheduler, seed, quantity, loras) matches the standard variant.

Reading the result

ERNIE emits the standard imageGen output — an images[] array, one entry per quantity:

json

{
  "status": "succeeded",
  "steps": [{
    "$type": "imageGen",
    "name": "$0",
    "status": "succeeded",
    "output": {
      "images": [
        {
          "id": "aa6e7228-68cd-4d15-b4d7-5005b2bfbac6-0.jpg",
          "width": 1024,
          "height": 1024,
          "url": "https://orchestration.civitai.com/v2/consumer/blobs/…?sig=…",
          "urlExpiresAt": "2027-04-15T17:18:54.3195353Z",
          "previewUrl": "https://orchestration.civitai.com/v2/consumer/blobs/…?sig=…",
          "previewUrlExpiresAt": "2027-04-15T17:18:54.3196735Z",
          "available": true,
          "nsfwLevel": "pg13"
        }
      ],
      "errors": []
    }
  }]
}

url and previewUrl are signed and expire — refetch the workflow or call GetBlob for a fresh URL. The nsfwLevel field carries the moderation classification applied to the output.

Cost

Billed in Buzz on the workflow's transactions. Use whatif=true for an exact preview; see Payments (Buzz) for currency selection.

Per-pixel + per-step scaling against 1024² and the variant's default step count:

Standard (ComfyErnieStandardCreateImageGenInput.CalculateCost):

total = 20 × (width × height / 1024²) × (steps / 20) × quantity

Turbo (ComfyErnieTurboCreateImageGenInput.CalculateCost):

total = 8 × (width × height / 1024²) × (steps / 8) × quantity

Shape	Standard (Buzz)	Turbo (Buzz)
1024² / default steps / `quantity: 1` (defaults)	20	8
832×1216 / default steps / `quantity: 1`	~20	~8
1024² / default steps / `quantity: 4`	~80	~32
1024² / `steps: 40` (standard) / `steps: 16` (turbo)	~40	~16

Standard pricing is ~2.5× turbo at defaults — reach for turbo when iterating on prompts.

Runtime

Claim duration (job.startedAt → job.completedAt) measured against orchestration-next with quantity: 1:

Variant	Shape	Claim duration
`ernie` (standard)	1024² / 20 steps	~29 s
`ernie` (standard)	832×1216 / 20 steps	~27 s
`turbo`	1024² / 8 steps	~13 s

wait=60 covers single-image calls comfortably. For quantity > 1, larger dimensions, or high steps counts, compute + queue wait typically runs past the 60 s long-poll ceiling — submit with wait=60 and re-issue GET /v2/consumer/workflows/{id}?wait=60 on a loop until the response is terminal (see Submitting work → Waiting for results), or register a webhook.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
`400` with "No derived type found for discriminator value 'ernie'" on `ecosystem`	ERNIE not yet rolled out to the environment you're hitting	Confirm the target orchestrator lists `ernie` in `/openapi/v2-consumers.json` → `ComfyImageGenInput` `ecosystem` enum. Retry after rollout.
`400` with "operation must be createImage"	Passed `editImage` or `createVariant`	ERNIE only supports `createImage`. Use Qwen or Flux 2 Klein for img2img / edit.
`400` on `model`	Sent a full AIR URN or a value other than `ernie` / `turbo`	The `model` field is a variant selector, not a checkpoint URN. Only `"ernie"` and `"turbo"` are valid.
`400` on `width` / `height`	Value not divisible by 16, or outside `64`–`2048`	Round to a valid multiple of 16 inside that range.
Turbo output looks over-saturated / blown out	`cfgScale > 1` on the distilled model	Set `cfgScale: 1` for turbo. Raise `steps` instead if you want more fidelity.
Standard output ignores the prompt	`cfgScale` too low	Bump toward `4`–`6`. `cfgScale: 1` on standard barely steers the model.
LoRA silently has no effect	Wrong AIR URN, or ecosystem mismatch	Only `urn:air:ernie:lora:…` LoRAs work here. Verify the URN on the LoRA's Civitai page.
Request timed out (`wait` expired)	Large `quantity`, atypical dimensions, or high `steps`	Resubmit and resume with a `GET …?wait=60` loop, or register a webhook.
Step `failed`, `reason = "blocked"`	Prompt hit content moderation	Don't retry the same input — see Errors & retries → Step-level failures.

SubmitWorkflow — operation used by every example here
GetWorkflow — for polling
Qwen image generation — alternative with edit + variant operations and LoRA support
Flux 2 image generation — higher-fidelity general-purpose alternative with createVariant
Z-Image generation — the other distilled, extremely cheap + fast image recipe (sdcpp-based)
Anima image generation — anime-tuned sdcpp ecosystem, same single-operation shape
Image upscaling — chain after imageGen for higher-res output
Prompt enhancement — LLM-rewrite a prompt before feeding it in via $ref
Full parameter catalog: ComfyErnieStandardCreateImageGenInput and ComfyErnieTurboCreateImageGenInput in the API reference
imageGen endpoint OpenAPI spec — standalone OpenAPI 3.1 YAML covering the full imageGen surface; import into Postman / OpenAPI Generator

ERNIE image generation ​

Variants ​

Prerequisites ​

Standard (model: "ernie") ​

Parameters ​

Portrait aspect ratio ​

Turbo (model: "turbo") ​

Reading the result ​

Cost ​

Runtime ​

Troubleshooting ​

Related ​

ERNIE image generation

Variants

Prerequisites

Standard (`model: "ernie"`)

Parameters

Portrait aspect ratio

Turbo (`model: "turbo"`)

Reading the result

Cost

Runtime

Troubleshooting

Related