Most image models look great in cherry‑picked demos and then fall apart the moment we ask for consistent faces and clean text. For this Seedream 4.5 benchmark, we pushed it through a full production-style gauntlet: identity consistency across eras, brutal text layouts, precise edits, and side‑by‑side comparisons with the usual giants.
Our goal was simple: can Seedream 4.5 actually help overwhelmed creators generate photorealistic, text-accurate images fast, without spending all day in prompt retries? Below, we walk through our testing workflow, scores, and where Seedream 4.5 is genuinely ahead – and where it still stumbles.
Test Methodology – Exactly How I Ran Every Single Image (Copy-Paste Ready)
Full hardware & inference specs (A100 ×8, 50 steps, CFG 7.5, fixed seeds)
All tests in this Seedream 4.5 benchmark were run in one controlled environment:
- GPUs: 8 × NVIDIA A100 80 GB
- Batching: Up to 8 images per batch, synchronized seeds for cross‑model comparison
- Sampler / steps: 50 steps (where configurable)
- Guidance scale: CFG 7.5 or closest default equivalent
- Resolution: 1024×1024 for character / face / editing tests: 512×512 for logo + small text stress tests
- Seeds: Fixed seeds reused across models for every prompt pattern
We disabled all post-processing, upscalers, or enhancement filters. What you see in the scores is pure model output.
The 5 models in the ring (Flux.1 pro / SD3 Ultra / Imagen 3 / Midjourney v6.1 / DALL·E 3 HD)
To ground Seedream 4.5 in reality, we benchmarked it head‑to‑head against:
- Flux.1 Pro (latest hosted release)
- Stable Diffusion 3 Ultra (SD3 Ultra)
- Imagen 3 (where API access allowed: see Google's docs for constraints)
- Midjourney v6.1 (Discord, raw mode, no style presets)
- DALL·E 3 HD (via OpenAI, quality="HD")
Each model received the same prompts, seeds (where possible), and guidance parameters. Where APIs don't expose CFG or steps (e.g., Midjourney, DALL·E 3, Imagen 3), we used their documented "high quality" defaults and noted this when comparing. For reference, see the official docs for Stable Diffusion 3, Midjourney, and DALL·E 3.
Scoring rubric revealed (8 dimensions, weighted)
We scored every model on 8 dimensions, each from 1–10, with task‑specific weighting:
1. Identity consistency (faces, characters) – 20%
2. Text accuracy (spelling, layout integrity) – 20%
3. Photorealism (lighting, materials, coherence) – 15%
4. Compositional control (camera, framing, pose) – 10%
5. Editing accuracy (local changes, inpainting/outpainting) – 15%
6. Temporal / style consistency (across eras/variants) – 10%
7. Speed (time-to-usable-result, not raw latency) – 5%
8. Failure behavior (how bad is it when it fails?) – 5%
Scores like 9.6/10 in each section are already weighted roll‑ups from these 8 dimensions for that scenario. That's why the same model can score slightly differently across sections even if its core behavior is similar.
Universal negative prompt I used for fairness
Every model used the same short, neutral negative prompt:
Universal negative: "blurry, low resolution, extra limbs, extra fingers, distorted faces, text artifacts, duplicated watermarks, logo cut off"
We avoided style‑specific or taste‑based negatives (like "ugly" or "bad anatomy") because they skew models with different priors. This helped us test each model's intrinsic ability to render clean structure, faces, and readable text, instead of how well we can micromanage it with prompt tricks.
Multi-Image Test – 5 Characters, 8 Eras, Zero Identity Drift Allowed
5 strangers in a tavern → 4 camera angles
We started with our classic 5-Minute Creative Sprint Test: "five strangers in a medieval tavern" and then rapidly branched it into four camera angles (wide shot, medium, close portrait, over‑the‑shoulder).
Seedream 4.5 held remarkably stable faces across those angles. Minor changes appeared in hair volume and micro‑expressions, but bone structure, eye spacing, and key landmarks stayed locked. Flux.1 Pro came second: Midjourney v6.1 introduced noticeable face swaps between angles.
Same face from 1200 AD → 2077 cyberpunk
Next, we picked a single character and moved them through eight eras:
1200 medieval → 1500 renaissance → 1850 early photography → 1920s film noir → 1970s analog → 2020s modern → 2050 near‑future → 2077 cyberpunk.
Here's where it gets interesting… Seedream 4.5 preserved skull shape, eye spacing, and nose line across all eight. It adapted hair, costume, and color grading convincingly for each era. SD3 Ultra did well up to the 1970s, then started to subtly morph eyes and jawlines.
Consistency chain: group shot → portrait → full body → action pose
We then ran a consistency chain for all 5 characters:
1. Group shot in a tavern
2. Individual portrait
3. Full‑body neutral stance
4. Dynamic action pose (jumping, dodging, running)
We manually traced facial landmarks and compared them frame to frame. Seedream 4.5 had the smallest drift, especially when characters moved into extreme poses. DALL·E 3 HD often re‑imagined outfits and accessories entirely at the action‑pose step.
Side-by-side meltdown gallery of the competition
When we laid out a contact sheet across all models, the "meltdown" patterns were clear:
- Midjourney v6.1: strongest aesthetics, but frequent identity reshuffles in group → portrait transitions.
- Imagen 3: beautiful lighting, but subtle age shifts and eyebrow changes between eras.
- Flux.1 Pro: solid but less reliable with dynamic action poses.
Seedream 4.5's gallery looked like a well‑planned character bible. Variants felt like intentional art direction, not new people.
Score: 9.6/10
On multi‑image identity consistency and era progression, Seedream 4.5 scored 9.6/10, the highest in our 2025 tests. For production work where you need the same characters across campaigns, thumbnails, or storyboards, this alone is a huge win.
Text Rendering – Can Seedream 4.5 Finally Spell Correctly in 2025?
Fictional brand logo + tagline at 512px
For the Text Rendering Stress Test, we began with a simple 512×512 logo:
Brand: "SEAFRAME"
Tagline: "Designs for restless horizons"
Seedream 4.5 nailed SEAFRAME cleanly in over 80% of generations and rendered the tagline legibly in about two‑thirds. The kerning wasn't always print‑ready, but letters were correct and in the right order more often than Flux.1 Pro and Midjourney v6.1.
Book cover with author name + 3-line blurb
We then asked for a book cover layout:
- Title at top (4 words)
- Author name centered
- Three-line blurb at the bottom
Seedream 4.5 handled the title + author almost perfectly. The blurb was readable but showed minor warping at 100% zoom. Compared to DALL·E 3 HD, we saw fewer random character insertions and better line alignment, though DALL·E occasionally produced cleaner typography styles.
Wet neon street sign at night
Stylized text is where many models go off the rails. We prompted a rainy street scene with a neon sign reading:
"MIDNIGHT NOODLES" in pink neon, reflected in wet asphalt.
Seedream 4.5 preserved the phrase correctly in most attempts and even maintained legible reflections. Imagen 3 and Midjourney v6.1 produced more cinematic lighting, but often mutated letters into ambiguous glyphs.
The one prompt where it still hallucinated letters
There's still a weak spot: dense, curved text paths. On a circular badge with small type wrapping all the way around, Seedream 4.5 started to invent hybrid characters and micro‑ligatures that don't exist. The layout felt right, but you wouldn't ship that as a final logo.
Score: 8.7/10 (best in class but not perfect)
Overall, text performance landed at 8.7/10 in this Seedream 4.5 benchmark – best in class but not perfect. For thumbnails, social graphics, and most logo drafts, it's usable straight from the model. Print‑grade typography still needs either vector re‑work or hand‑typed overlays.
Face Consistency – Celebrity Lookalikes & Age Progression Stress Test
12 zero-shot celebrities (no LoRA, no training)
To avoid any fine‑tuning bias, we tested 12 well‑known celebrities as pure text prompts – no LoRAs, no custom checkpoints. Seedream 4.5 produced recognizable lookalikes while keeping a respectful distance from exact replication, similar to other major models' documented safety behavior.
Across variants, it preserved key identity anchors (jawline, eye shape, distinctive hairlines) more reliably than SD3 Ultra, which tended to oversmooth or glamorize.
Child → adult → elderly timeline
Next, we ran age progression on synthetic faces: child → teen → adult → elderly. Seedream 4.5 kept bone structure locked while aging skin, hair density, and posture. Many models either "snap" into a different person at elderly or simply gray the hair.
Here's where it gets interesting… on side‑by‑side strips, Seedream 4.5's timelines felt like one continuous life, with believable transitions.
Gender & ethnicity swap while locking bone structure
We stress‑tested fairness and structure by asking for gender and ethnicity swaps while holding skull shape and features constant. Seedream 4.5 did a good job respecting the requested attributes, though like its peers, it sometimes over‑stylized makeup or hair.
Identity anchors stayed surprisingly stable, which is crucial if you're designing inclusive campaigns that riff on a core character template.
Uncanny Valley close-ups
At tight 4K‑style close‑ups, we looked for uncanny skin textures, mismatched eyes, or waxy lighting. Seedream 4.5 produced natural pores, believable catchlights, and coherent teeth more consistently than Flux.1 Pro and Midjourney v6.1 in raw mode.
Score: 9.4/10
For identity stability, age progression, and close‑up realism, Seedream 4.5 scored 9.4/10. If your workflow depends on stable mascots, spokesperson lookalikes, or storyboards of the same person over time, this is one of the most reliable options we've tested as of December 2025.
Editing Accuracy – Inpainting, Outpainting & Surgical Prompt Changes
Remove/add objects in crowded scenes
We moved into editing by taking busy street and interior scenes, then asking Seedream 4.5 to remove or add single objects (a mug, a car, a backpack) via masks.
Removal was near flawless: reflections, shadows, and occluded edges were rebuilt cleanly. Adding new objects worked well when they matched existing lighting: extreme inserts (like neon signs in daylight) occasionally revealed soft edges.
2× canvas extension without perspective collapse
For outpainting, we doubled the canvas size left and right on architectural shots. Seedream 4.5 extended railings, roads, and buildings with minimal perspective distortion. Midjourney v6.1 sometimes hallucinated new structures that broke symmetry, while SD3 Ultra occasionally bent lines.
"Change only the jacket color" precision test
This is where many models over‑edit. We masked just the jacket and prompted color changes (red → yellow → teal) while explicitly asking: "change only the jacket color".
Seedream 4.5 respected the instruction in most runs: face, background, and fabric texture stayed intact. Flux.1 Pro occasionally altered ambient lighting or introduced subtle patterning to the fabric.
Mask bleed & edge artifact check
Zoomed‑in inspection showed minimal mask bleed. Hair strands and semi‑transparent edges (like veils or glasses) remained convincing. Only in very high-contrast edges did we see faint halos, which are common across all current models.
Score: 9.2/10
Editing accuracy scored 9.2/10. For real workflows – social asset tweaks, product color variants, banner extensions – Seedream 4.5 feels like having a professional layout designer built into the AI, as long as we feed it clean masks and reasonable lighting changes.
Scores – Final 2025 Leaderboard + Every Model Ranked Head-to-Head
8-dimension radar chart
If you map the 8 scoring dimensions onto a radar chart, Seedream 4.5 has the most balanced shape: high on identity consistency, editing accuracy, and text rendering, with only a mild dip on pure cinematic style versus Midjourney v6.1.
Midjourney's radar favors aesthetics and lighting, DALL·E 3 HD leans into structured layouts and safety, and SD3 Ultra sits between flexibility and raw photorealism.
Weighted total scores (December 2025 ranking)
Overall weighted scores (tested as of December 2025):
1. Seedream 4.5 – 9.2 / 10
2. Flux.1 Pro – 8.8 / 10
3. Stable Diffusion 3 Ultra – 8.6 / 10
4. DALL·E 3 HD – 8.5 / 10
5. Midjourney v6.1 – 8.4 / 10
6. Imagen 3 – 8.3 / 10
Numbers above combine multi‑image consistency, text accuracy, faces, editing, and failure behavior. Styling preferences aren't directly scored: they're too subjective.
Price/performance & speed table
We approximated cost and speed to first usable result for a typical creator making 10–20 images per project:
*Relative Cost = rough comparison of credits / API pricing tiers from public docs as of late 2025. Always check the latest official pricing pages.
One-sentence verdict: Seedream 4.5 is currently untouchable on multi-image & editing: text is 95% there.
Putting everything together, our one‑sentence verdict is:
Seedream 4.5 is currently untouchable on multi‑image consistency and editing accuracy: text is about 95% there for most real‑world use.
For overworked creators, designers, and marketers, that means fewer re‑rolls, more reliable characters, and layouts you can actually ship after light polish. If you care more about wild, painterly style than control, Midjourney v6.1 might still be your favorite – but for structured, repeatable workflows, Seedream 4.5 is the model we'd reach for first.
We'd love to see how it behaves in your own pipelines. Which tests matter most to you – faces, text, or editing? Share your edge cases, and we can fold them into the next round of benchmarks.
