# Cones 2: Customizable Image Synthesis with Multiple Subjects

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.19327 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.19327/

## Key facts

- Cited by 101 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 36 of its 42 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 30 May 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 36)

- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Training language models to follow instructions with human feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.02155/) (2022)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06125/) (2022)
- [Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11487/) (2022)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [Zero-Shot Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.12092/) (2021)
- [GLIDE: Towards Photorealistic Image Generation and Editing with Text-Guided Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10741/) (2021)
- [DreamBooth: Fine Tuning Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Subject-Driven Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.12242/) (2022)
- [Prompt-to-Prompt Image Editing with Cross Attention Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.01626/) (2022)
- [An Image is Worth One Word: Personalizing Text-to-Image Generation using Textual Inversion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.01618/) (2022)
- [DPM-Solver: A Fast ODE Solver for Diffusion Probabilistic Model Sampling in Around 10 Steps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00927/) (2022)
- [T2I-Adapter: Learning Adapters to Dig out More Controllable Ability for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.08453/) (2023)
- [Scaling Autoregressive Models for Content-Rich Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.10789/) (2022)
- [Multi-Concept Customization of Text-to-Image Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04488/) (2022)
- [Attend-and-Excite: Attention-Based Semantic Guidance for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.13826/) (2023)
- [CogView: Mastering Text-to-Image Generation via Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.13290/) (2021)
- [Zero-shot Image-to-Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.03027/) (2023)
- [Scaling up GANs for Text-to-Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.05511/) (2023)
- [Paint by Example: Exemplar-based Image Editing with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13227/) (2022)
- [Make-A-Scene: Scene-Based Text-to-Image Generation with Human Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.13131/) (2022)
- [ELITE: Encoding Visual Concepts into Textual Embeddings for Customized Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13848/) (2023)
- [Training-Free Structured Diffusion Guidance for Compositional Text-to-Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.05032/) (2022)
- [Uni-ControlNet: All-in-One Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.16322/) (2023)
- [Analytic-DPM: an Analytic Estimate of the Optimal Reverse Variance in Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.06503/) (2022)
- [Composer: Creative and Controllable Image Synthesis with Composable Conditions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.09778/) (2023)
- [StyleGAN-T: Unlocking the Power of GANs for Fast Large-Scale Text-to-Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.09515/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 101)

- [VACE: All-in-One Video Creation and Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.07598/) (2025)
- [AnyDoor: Zero-shot Object-level Image Customization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.09481/) (2023)
- [PhotoMaker: Customizing Realistic Human Photos via Stacked ID Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.04461/) (2023)
- [Subject-Diffusion:Open Domain Personalized Text-to-Image Generation without Test-time Fine-tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.11410/) (2023)
- [DreamVideo: Composing Your Dream Videos with Customized Subject and Motion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.04433/) (2023)
- [MS-Diffusion: Multi-subject Zero-shot Image Personalization with Layout Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.07209/) (2024)
- [GenArtist: Multimodal LLM as an Agent for Unified Image Generation and Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.05600/) (2024)
- [VideoBooth: Diffusion-based Video Generation with Image Prompts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00777/) (2023)
- [UniReal: Universal Image Generation and Editing via Learning Real-world Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.07774/) (2024)
- [MotionBooth: Motion-Aware Customized Text-to-Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.17758/) (2024)
- [Controllable Generation with Text-to-Image Diffusion Models: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.04279/) (2024)
- [CustomVideo: Customizing Text-to-Video Generation with Multiple Subjects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.09962/) (2024)
- [Zero-shot Image Editing with Reference Imitation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.07547/) (2024)
- [OMG: Occlusion-friendly Personalized Multi-concept Generation in Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.10983/) (2024)
- [DreamMatcher: Appearance Matching Self-Attention for Semantically-Consistent Text-to-Image Personalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.09812/) (2024)
- [Magic-Me: Identity-Specific Video Customized Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.09368/) (2024)
- [LoRA-Composer: Leveraging Low-Rank Adaptation for Multi-Concept Customization in Training-Free Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11627/) (2024)
- [λ-ECLIPSE: Multi-Concept Personalized Text-to-Image Diffusion Models by Leveraging CLIP Latent Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.05195/) (2024)
- [FreeCustom: Tuning-Free Customized Image Generation for Multi-Concept Composition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.13870/) (2024)
- [UniPortrait: A Unified Framework for Identity-Preserving Single- and Multi-Human Image Personalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.05939/) (2024)
- [MultiBooth: Towards Generating All Your Concepts in an Image from Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.14239/) (2024)
- [LivePhoto: Real Image Animation with Text-guided Motion Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02928/) (2023)
- [DreamVideo-2: Zero-Shot Subject-Driven Video Customization with Precise Motion Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13830/) (2024)
- [RealCustom: Narrowing Real Text Word for Real-Time Open-Domain Text-to-Image Customization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.00483/) (2024)
- [AutoStory: Generating Diverse Storytelling Images with Minimal Human Effort](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.11243/) (2023)
- [StableIdentity: Inserting Anybody into Anywhere at First Sight](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.15975/) (2024)
- [Identity Decoupling for Multi-Subject Personalization of Text-to-Image Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.04243/) (2024)
- [How to Continually Adapt Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Flexible Customization?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.17594/) (2024)
- [SubjectDrive: Scaling Generative Data in Autonomous Driving via Subject Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.19438/) (2024)
- [FlashFace: Human Image Personalization with High-fidelity Identity Preservation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17008/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Synthesizing images with user-specified subjects has received growing attention due to its practical applications. Despite the recent success in single subject customization, existing algorithms suffer from high training cost and low success rate along with increased number of subjects. Towards controllable image synthesis with multiple subjects as the constraints, this work studies how to efficiently represent a particular subject as well as how to appropriately compose different subjects. We find that the text embedding regarding the subject token already serves as a simple yet effective representation that supports arbitrary combinations without any model tuning. Through learning a residual on top of the base embedding, we manage to robustly shift the raw subject to the customized subject given various text conditions. We then propose to employ layout, a very abstract and easy-to-obtain prior, as the spatial guidance for subject arrangement. By rectifying the activations in the cross-attention map, the layout appoints and separates the location of different subjects in the image, significantly alleviating the interference across them. Both qualitative and quantitative experimental results demonstrate our superiority over state-of-the-art alternatives under a variety of settings for multi-subject customization.