Freepik Now Supports Flux Image Models

In recent weeks, Flux.1, the latest image model from Blackforest Labs, has been going viral in the AI community. This open-weight model has been getting a lot of praise from both casual users and startups for creating images that are as impressive as those from Midjourney V6.1.

The question now is, how do you get access to Flux?

One of the first on the market to offer the full power of the Flux model in an easy-to-use product is Freepik. But before I get into the specifics of how Flux works on Freepik, it’s important to understand what this new image model brings to the table.

What is Flux?

Flux.1 is a new state-of-the-art (SOTA) suite of text-to-image models that set a new standard in image detail, prompt accuracy, style variety, and scene complexity for text-to-image generation.

It comes in three variants:

• Flux.1 Pro: This model delivers next-level performance in image generation, excelling in prompt adherence, visual quality, image detail, and output diversity.
• Flux.1 Dev: A guidance-distilled model tailored for non-commercial use, Flux.1 Dev is derived from Flux.1 Pro, offering comparable quality and prompt accuracy while being more efficient than typical models of its size.
• Flux.1 Schnell: The fastest model in the suite, designed for local development and personal use, is available under an Apache 2.0 license.

All public Flux.1 models feature a blend of multimodal and parallel diffusion transformer blocks, boasting 12 billion parameters. These models outperform previous diffusion models by leveraging flow matching — a straightforward method for training generative models that incorporates diffusion.

Moreover, the models achieve better performance and hardware efficiency through the use of rotary positional embeddings and parallel attention layers.

Flux on Freepik

Freepik, already known as a massive repository of high-quality stock photos, videos, and vector illustrations, has taken a step forward by integrating Flux models into its AI tools. If you’re familiar with Freepik’s offerings, you’ll know they’ve been expanding their range of AI tools, including an AI image generator and mockup generator, as well as an AI image upscaler.

Recently, Flux models were added to Freepik’s lineup of supported image models within their AI image generator tools.

• Flux Fast: The current model is in production. It excels at prompt adherence and generating text within images. It’s close to Midjourney in quality but not quite there yet.
• Flux: This variant, on par with Midjourney, will be available under the name Flux.
• Flux Realism: This is the top choice for photorealism, surpassing even Midjourney in creating lifelike photos.

To try it out, go to Freepik’s Pikaso suite of AI tools and select the “AI Image Generator.”

The image generator tool looks like this:

Under the model tab, select your preferred Flux mode. It’s not clear which image model is underneath each mode. My guess is that the model powering Flux fast is Schnell, while Flux Realism is the Pro model.

In the example section, I’ll demonstrate the image differences using a similar prompt. Also, take note that if you set the mode to Flux Realism, you won’t be able to change the style — it will stay on default.

Example Image Generation

There are two ways to generate an image on Freepik. You can either start with a text description or use an existing image as a reference. Let me give you an example that showcases the realism capability of the Flux model.

Prompt: A beautiful female from hungary, green stunning eyes, brown wavy hair, soft smile. holding a bouquet of red yellow and brown maple leafs. in cozy burgundy sweater, empty space above her head and around her shoulders, white background

For each generation, you’ll get two variations of the result.

The initial output already looks impressive, but what if you could take it a step further? When you open an image, notice that there are set of tools on the left side. CLick on the “Upscale” button.

Set the parameters to your liking and click on the Upscale button to enhance the image.

Here’s a closer look at the before and after results.

Pretty cool, right? After upscaling, the difference in image quality is noticeable. The level of detail and realism that Flux can achieve is remarkable, especially when considering the speed at which these images are generated.

Now, let’s do another example. This time, let’s see how well the text rendering performs. Here’s a sample prompt:

Prompt: Polaroid photo with VSCO filter, 1990, gorgeous woman, morning, flash photo, blonde, cute, young face, beautiful shadows, tropical plants, urban clothing, inside an apartment, DSLR, holding a sign written in ballpoint pen on a notebook saying “This photo was created for Generative AI Publication using Grok 2 Mini.

The text rendering here is nothing short of amazing. No other image generator tool comes close to this level of accuracy—not even Midjourney. Take a look at how Midjourney renders the same text on the result.

It’s a mess, despite David Holz’s claim that V6.1 has improved the text rendering capability.

Generating from existing images.

One of the challenges with AI image generation is coming up with ideas for what to create. This is especially true when you’re just experimenting or trying to have some fun with the tool.

Fortunately, Freepik has an “inspiration” tab that offers a curated selection of some of the best AI-generated images on the platform.

You can use these as a starting point or reference for your own creations.

Using Freepik generated images for AI videos.

Given the level of photorealism and prompt coherence that Flux offers on Freepik, it’s also an excellent tool for creating content that can be used on image-to-video platforms like Kling AI.

For example, I generated an image using the following prompt:

Prompt: A young woman with long dark hair wearing a burgundy jacket, gray beanie, and sunglasses, standing in front of snow-capped mountains

I then fed this image into Kling AI and used my daily free credits to produce a wonderful video.

Here’s the final result:

How much does it cost?

Free users will have access to the Flux Fast model. Flux and Flux Realism will be available only to premium users. Here’s a breakdown of the pricing.

Here’s the pricing in USD:

Freepik offers a Free plan that includes:

• 10 daily downloads
• 20 daily AI image generations
• 2 daily AI image upscales.

The Premium plan, available for 9 EUR per month (billed annually) or 15 EUR per month (billed monthly), offers :

• Unlimited downloads
• AI image generations, sketch-to-image conversions
• 20 daily image upscales
• Additional benefits include access to premium content, ad-free browsing, and priority support.

You’ll notice that although Premium users are supposed to get unlimited AI image generations, Freepik is currently controlling server load by limiting the number of AI image generations using the Flux and Flux Realism models. The company is scaling up its AI infrastructure and plans to make this process seamless in the near future.

Final Thoughts

Flux from Blackforest Labs may have only been around for a short time, but it’s already made a significant impact in the generative AI world. It’s arguably the best image model out there for generating realistic photos and accurately rendering text. The fact that it’s an open-weight model means we’re likely to see it integrated into more platforms as time goes on.

Freepik’s decision to incorporate Flux into its AI tools is a smart move, and by far, I’ve been impressed with the results. The workflow is smooth, the image quality is fantastic, and the tools are intuitive. Once Freepik’s servers become more stable and users gain more image generation credits, the experience will only get better.

Looking ahead, I’m particularly excited about the potential future improvements to this platform. Blackforest Labs is reportedly working on a video generator tool, which, if integrated into Freepik, could open up even more creative possibilities.

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