git:20260819.9fe9ea3 to git:20260825.cab59a6

- description: Build Baidu ERNIE-Image / ERNIE-Image-Turbo workflows — primarily TEXT-TO-IMAGE. Pick ERNIE when you need precise multilingual text rendering, posters/signage, manga/anime multi-panel layouts, or strong instruction following for complex multi-object scenes. Also supports denoise-based image-to-image refine (NOT instruction-grounded editing — use Qwen-Image-Edit or Flux Kontext for "change X in this photo" edits).

- **ERNIE-Image is Baidu's open-weight TEXT-TO-IMAGE model** — an ~8B single-stream Diffusion Transformer (DiT), Apache-2.0, released April 2026, repackaged for ComfyUI by Comfy-Org. It is **not** an instruction-based image editor.

- - **ERNIE-Image** (base): ~50 steps for peak quality.

- - **ERNIE-Image-Turbo**: distilled (Distribution Matching Distillation + RL), high-fidelity in **~8 steps, cfg 1**. The downloaded pack uses **Turbo** (`ernie-image-turbo-*.gguf`).

- **Pick ERNIE when** the job is: precise text/typography rendering (multilingual, including Chinese), posters/signage/UI mockups, manga/anime storyboards and multi-panel layouts, or structured multi-object scenes from a complex prompt.

- **Do NOT pick ERNIE for** "edit this photo / change the shirt / swap the background" — that is instruction-grounded editing, which ERNIE does **not** do. Use `qwen-image-edit` or Flux Kontext for those. ERNIE's "image-to-image" here is plain denoise-based refinement (style pass / detail pass), not reference-grounded editing.

- > Niche vs siblings: ERNIE = best open-weight **text rendering + layout** T2I. Qwen-Image-Edit = instruction editing. Flux Kontext = reference editing. Z-Image Turbo = fast general T2I (and this same pack pairs the two — see Combo pipelines).

- The original `ernie` monolith was a single toggle-template graph (every pipeline shipped bypassed; you activated one via the rgthree group toggles). It's now split into standalone, single-purpose packs — each a clean activated graph that renders headlessly with no group-toggling:

- Working details verified live: the **prompt-enhancer LLM is OFF by default** (the `ENHANCE PROMPT` boolean is false; leave it off unless you want the 3B enhancer to rewrite the prompt). The grain/sharpen post-proc (`FastFilmGrain`/`FastLaplacianSharpen`, comfyui-vrgamedevgirl) needs **librosa** installed. In `ernie-combo` the Z-Image half's VAE is saved as **`z-image-ae.safetensors`** (its weights differ from Flux/ERNIE's `ae.safetensors` despite the same size — avoids a filename clash).

- - `ERNIE-IMAGE-ULTRA-WORKFLOW.json` (authoritative — the ComfyUI graph)

- > **Installer warning (verified):** the three install scripts are copy-pasted from a **Z-Image** pack. Their headers literally say "Z-IMAGE-BASE"/"Z-IMAGE Base", and they download **both** ERNIE *and* Z-Image files. The model URLs/folders below are taken from those scripts but mirror this confusion — they pull `z_image_turbo-*.gguf`, `Qwen3-4B-*.gguf`, and `ae.safetensors` which belong to the **Z-Image** half of the combo, not ERNIE. The ERNIE-only files are flagged below. All weights come from a third-party mirror `huggingface.co/Aitrepreneur/FLX`, **not** the official `huggingface.co/Comfy-Org/ERNIE-Image` (which hosts the same filenames — see Official sources).

- Confirmed from the workflow's virtual wires (`Set_*`/`GetNode`): the nodes tagged **"ERNIE"** resolve to these exact files.

- > Quant guidance from the installer: **Q5_K_S** GPUs <8 GB · **Q6_K** 8–12 GB · **Q8_0** 12–16 GB+.

- The workflow also wires a parallel Z-Image Turbo pipeline for ERNIE→ZIT / ZIT→ERNIE combos. These files are **Z-Image's, not ERNIE's** — do not confuse them:

- `hirohiko-araki-style-ERNIE_000001250.safetensors`, `ernie-anime-v1.safetensors` — community ERNIE style LoRAs, loaded via `Power Lora Loader (rgthree)` (both toggled **off** in the shipped graph). Not in the installer; user-supplied.

- The graph also uses `TextGenerate`, `TextBox1`, `StringReplace`, `ComfySwitchNode`, `PreviewAny`, `SetNode`/`GetNode`, `PrimitiveBoolean`, `ModelSamplingAuraFlow`, `ConditioningZeroOut`, `EmptySD3LatentImage`, `EmptyFlux2LatentImage` — most are builtin or come from the packs above. `SetNode`/`GetNode` are from KJNodes. `TextGenerate` (runs the prompt-enhancer LLM) — verify which pack provides it via ComfyUI-Manager if it shows as missing (**unverified pack origin**).

- The same filenames are hosted officially at **`huggingface.co/Comfy-Org/ERNIE-Image`** (`unet|diffusion_models/`, `text_encoders/`, `vae/`). Apache-2.0. Original model: `github.com/baidu/ERNIE-Image`. Comfy day-0 docs: `docs.comfy.org/tutorials/image/ernie-image/ernie-image`. The official repo also ships non-GGUF `ernie-image.safetensors` / `ernie-image-turbo.safetensors` (load with `UNETLoader` instead of `UnetLoaderGGUF`).

- **Prompt enhancer path (optional):** the short user prompt + `{width}`/`{height}` are templated into a Chinese system prompt, fed to `TextGenerate` (which runs `ernie-image-prompt-enhancer`), and a `ComfySwitchNode` chooses raw prompt (switch=false) vs. enhanced prompt (switch=true) before `CLIPTextEncode`.

- **Image-to-image (refine) path — NOT editing:** the graph's "ERNIE IMAGE TO IMAGE" groups take a `LoadImage → ImageResize+ (1024, keep proportion, lanczos)` and `VAEEncode` it, then run KSampler at **low denoise (0.35–0.4)** to refine/restyle. This is a denoise pass over a single source image; it does not follow edit instructions.

- **About the ~5 LoadImage + ~5 VAEEncode nodes:** they are **not** multi-reference compositing. Each LoadImage feeds a *separate* pipeline variant (single-image img2img, or the combo refine stages). One source image per pipeline. The extra VAEEncodes are the encode steps for those independent img2img / two-pass refine chains.

- **Combo pipelines (ERNIE↔ZIT):** group titles `ERNIE ---> ZIT COMBO`, `ZIT ---> ERNIE COMBO`, `TWO TIMES COMBO ...` chain ERNIE and Z-Image Turbo as a two-pass generate→refine, with optional film-grain (`FastFilmGrain`) or sharpening (`FastLaplacianSharpen`) finishing and `SIMPLE UPSCALE`.

- - **`ModelSamplingAuraFlow` shift = 3.1** is applied to the ERNIE model before sampling (flow-matching shift). Keep it.

- - **CFG = 1** for Turbo → negative conditioning is effectively inert; the graph still wires a `ConditioningZeroOut` as the negative.

- - **Resolution:** shipped latent is **1920×1088** (`EmptySD3LatentImage`). ERNIE is a high-res-capable DiT; 1024–2048 on the long edge is reasonable. Use `EmptySD3LatentImage` for ERNIE latents.

- - Base (non-Turbo) `ernie-image`: bump steps to ~50 and raise cfg (e.g. 3.5–5) since it is not distilled.

- ERNIE rewards **descriptive, structured natural-language prompts**, and is unusually strong at **literal text rendering**. Write the exact text you want to appear in quotes.

- - For **typography/signage**: state the literal string ("a neon sign that says 'OPEN'"), placement, and font feel.

- - For **layout**: name the panel/grid structure and what goes in each region.

- - Multilingual prompts (incl. Chinese) work — the built-in enhancer's system prompt is Chinese.

- - This is **txt2img phrasing**, not edit phrasing. Do not write "change the…/remove the…" expecting grounded edits.

- Derived from the source graph, flattened to API format (no subgraphs/virtual wires). Enhancer omitted for clarity — `CLIPTextEncode` takes the prompt directly.

- Replace the empty latent with an encoded source image and lower denoise. **This restyles/refines a single image; it is not instruction editing.**

- - ERNIE-Image-Turbo GGUF: **Q5_K_S** <8 GB · **Q6_K** 8–12 GB · **Q8_0** 12–16 GB+ (installer's own guidance).

- - Ministral-3-3B encoder + Flux2 VAE add a few GB. The graph includes `easy cleanGpuUsed` / `easy clearCacheAll` nodes between stages — keep them for the combo/two-pass pipelines so VRAM is freed before swapping models.

- - Running the ERNIE↔ZIT combos loads **two** UNets; budget for both or run the single-model ERNIE group only.

- - **`UnetLoaderGGUF` / `CLIPLoaderGGUF` missing** → install **ComfyUI-GGUF** (city96).

- - **`Power Lora Loader` / `Image Comparer` / `Label` missing** → install **rgthree-comfy**.

- - **`ImageResize+` missing** → install **ComfyUI_essentials**.

- - **`TextGenerate` missing** (prompt enhancer) → install via ComfyUI-Manager search; pack origin unverified. If unavailable, just set the `ComfySwitchNode` to use the raw prompt (switch=false) and skip enhancement.

- - **CLIP type error on ministral** → ensure `CLIPLoader` `type` is **`flux2`** (not `qwen_image`/`lumina2`). The `lumina2` type belongs to the Z-Image (Qwen3) encoder, not ERNIE.

- - **Wrong VAE artifacts** → ERNIE must use **`flux2-vae.safetensors`**; `ae.safetensors` is the Z-Image VAE.

- - **Blurry / undercooked output** → confirm `ModelSamplingAuraFlow shift=3.1` is wired and steps ≥8 for Turbo; for base `ernie-image` use ~50 steps + higher cfg.

- - **You wanted to EDIT a photo and it ignored the instruction** → expected. ERNIE is txt2img; use the `qwen-image-edit` skill or Flux Kontext for grounded edits.

- - **Installer pulled Z-Image files too** → expected (the scripts are Z-Image-derived). Harmless; those files only feed the combo pipelines.

- 1. Lead with the **literal text** you want rendered, in quotes — that's ERNIE's headline strength.

- 2. Use the **prompt enhancer** for short/lazy prompts; turn it off (`ComfySwitchNode` false) when you've written a detailed prompt yourself.

- 3. Use **`get_workflow (action:"analyze")`** before executing the shipped graph — it has dozens of group-boxed variants gated by `Fast Groups Bypasser (rgthree)`; the analyzer summary is far easier than reading raw JSON.

- 4. Most groups are **bypassed (mode 4)** by default in the source file — enable only the pipeline you want via the group bypasser, or build the clean API workflow above.

- 5. To choose a model: **ERNIE = text/layout T2I**, **Z-Image Turbo = fast general T2I**, **Qwen-Image-Edit / Flux Kontext = actual editing**.

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