Seedream 5.0 Flash Image Generator for Quick Drafts

Flash is the cheapest image model on Sonata AI, so an idea that goes nowhere costs very little. Try four compositions of the same scene, compare them in your history, and save extra effort, or a pricier model, for the version you actually want to keep.

1K, 1.5K and 2K are billed at the same credit cost. There is no reason to draft small and enlarge later: generate at 2K from the first attempt, and any draft that turns out well is already full size.

There is no automatic ratio. Before each run you pick 1:1, 4:3, 3:4, 16:9, 9:16, 2:3, 3:2 or 21:9, so the picture is composed for the poster, banner or phone screen you have in mind instead of being cropped to fit afterwards.

Switch from plain text to an edit and attach as many as ten reference pictures in JPEG, PNG or WebP, each up to 30 MB. One can be the photo you want changed; the others can show a product, a color palette or a texture to borrow.

The prompt field takes 4 to 5000 characters. A short phrase is enough for a first sketch, and once a direction holds up you can grow that same prompt into a detailed description of light, materials and layout without changing tools.

Results are saved as PNG, a lossless format, so flat colors and sharp edges stay clean. That helps when the image is headed for a layout, will get text placed on top, or needs more work in another editor.

If a generation fails, the credits go back to your balance automatically. The cost is shown on the button before you start, so you always know what a round of experiments will take from your balance.

A tall 9:16 frame fills a phone screen. Keep the top third quiet, such as sky, a plain wall or fog, so the clock and notifications do not land on the subject, and place the focal point a little below the middle.

Portrait ratios suit posters, flyers, book covers and event pages. Ask for empty space in the prompt, for example 'plain dark area above the figure', so a title or date can be added later without covering anything important.

21:9 is a wide strip for hero banners and page headers; 16:9 fits slides, video thumbnails and blog headers. Put the subject on one side and describe open space on the other, where the headline will go.

Square images work in social feeds, profile grids and marketplace listings. 4:3 is a slightly wider rectangle that sits well in presentations and on product pages showing a single item against a simple background.

3:2 is the shape of a classic camera frame, so landscapes, street scenes and interiors in this ratio read naturally as photographs. It is a sensible default for article illustrations and travel-style images.

Add a product shot as a reference and ask for the same item on a marble counter, in a forest clearing or in three different colors. Each variation is a separate low-cost run, which makes it easy to show options before choosing one.

Begin with subject, place and mood, nothing more: 'a ceramic teapot on a windowsill, rainy morning'. The first result shows how the model interprets your idea, and you have spent very little to find out.

If you rewrite the light, the style and the camera angle at once, you cannot tell which change helped. Adjust one thing, for example 'late afternoon sun' instead of 'rainy morning', generate again and compare the two.

A 21:9 banner and a 9:16 wallpaper need different compositions. Settle the ratio in the first round or two; switching it after ten careful refinements usually means rebuilding the layout from scratch.

Treat your best prompt as a living document. Copy it, add the next change at the end, and note which words made a difference, so you can rebuild a good result later or apply the same look to a new subject.

With several reference images, describe what each one should contribute: 'keep the red jacket', 'use the colors of the sunset photo', 'place everything in the night street'. Naming the content is clearer than leaving the model to guess.

When the composition is settled, you can keep the Flash result or recreate the final version with another model. If the job needs 4K, GPT Image 2.5 is the next step, and your tested prompt gives it a solid starting point.