Anyone after photographic detail rather than illustration

Photographic work, on the Flux ladder

Three models from the same maker at 15,000, 32,000 and 74,000 credits. The skill is not picking one — it is knowing which rung a given attempt belongs on, so the expensive one only ever runs on a prompt you have already proved.

10 minutes · 6 steps

1. 1

   Start every idea on Klein

   Flux.2 Klein is 15,000 credits and badged FAST. It is not the model you finish on — it is the one that tells you within a few seconds whether the framing you have in your head survives contact with a generator. Most ideas do not, and finding that out cheaply is the whole point of the rung.

   

2. 2

   Expect one image at a time

   Every Flux model here generates one image per call — unlike GPT Image 2 or Seedream, which return up to ten. Asking for four means four round trips, so a Flux draft session is a sequence rather than a contact sheet. Plan the loop around that: change one thing, look, change one thing.

3. 3

   Know the reference ceiling before you plan the shot

   Klein takes 4 reference images; Pro and Max take 8. That is the lowest budget of any model in the featured set — Nano Banana takes 14 — so a composite built from many sources is the wrong job for this ladder no matter how good the output looks.

4. 4

   Go to Pro when the draft is worth finishing

   Flux.2 Pro is 32,000 credits, about twice Klein. Move up when the composition is settled and what you now want is detail: fabric, skin, metal, the texture that makes a photograph read as one. Re-run the same prompt rather than writing a new one — you are changing the model, not the idea.

5. 5

   Save Max for the frame that ships

   Flux.2 Max is 74,000 credits, nearly five times Klein and more than twice Pro. It earns that on the final frame of something that will be seen large. It does not earn it on a draft, and running it on an unproven prompt is the most expensive habit available in this studio.

   

6. 6

   Nine shapes, and no resolution dial

   All three take the same nine aspect ratios, from 1:1 up to 21:9, and none of them offers a resolution control — the bar shows a ratio and a count, and that is the whole of it. If you need 4K, or a strip wider than 21:9, that is a different model and a different playbook.