Reverse Stable Diffusion: What prompt was used to generate this image?
On the map: Diffusion models → Image generation, text-to-image and editing
Abstract (arXiv)
Text-to-image diffusion models have recently attracted the interest of many researchers, and inverting the diffusion process can play an important role in better understanding the generative process and how to engineer prompts in order to obtain the desired images. To this end, we study the task of predicting the prompt embedding given an image generated by a generative diffusion model. We consider a series of white-box and black-box models (with and without access to the weights of the diffusion network) to deal with the proposed task. We propose a novel learning framework comprising a joint prompt regression and multi-label vocabulary classification objective that generates improved prompts. To further improve our method, we employ a curriculum learning procedure that promotes the learning of image-prompt pairs with lower labeling noise (i.e. that are better aligned). We conduct experiments on the DiffusionDB data set, predicting text prompts from images generated by Stable Diffusion. In addition, we make an interesting discovery: training a diffusion model on the prompt generation task can make the model generate images that are much better aligned with the input prompts, when the model is directly reused for text-to-image generation. Our code is publicly available for download at https://github.com/CroitoruAlin/Reverse-Stable-Diffusion.
Key facts. Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Image generation, text-to-image and editing, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 66 of its 85 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 2 Aug 2023.
Builds on
66 of 85 references.
Closest ancestors · 5
Same direction, newest first
- 2022DiffusionDB: A Large-scale Prompt Gallery Dataset for Text-to-Image Generative Models26 Oct
- 2022DreamBooth: Fine Tuning Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Subject-Driven Generation25 Aug
- 2022Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding23 May
- 2022Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents13 Apr
- 2021Blended Diffusion for Text-driven Editing of Natural Images29 Nov
Other references · 61
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38 more
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50 most cited of 61 All 61 (JSON)
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2023: 1; 2024: 2; 2025: 2; 2026: 2.
7 papers.
- 2024Diffusion Facial Forgery Detectioncited by 41
- 2025Principled Data Selection for Alignment: The Hidden Risks of Difficult Examplescited by 37
- 2024PQPP: A Joint Benchmark for Text-to-Image Prompt and Query Performance Predictioncited by 2
- 2026Small-Margin Preferences Still Matter-If You Train Them Rightcited by 2
- 2025Prompt Pirates Need a Map: Stealing Seeds helps Stealing Promptscited by 1
- 2026PromptEvolver: Prompt Inversion through Evolutionary Optimization in Natural-Language Spacecited by 1
- 2023Reinforcement Learning from Diffusion Feedback: Q* for Image Searchcited by 0
- 2026PromptEvolver: Prompt Inversion through Evolutionary Optimization in Natural-Language Space3 Apr 2026
- 2026Small-Margin Preferences Still Matter-If You Train Them Right1 Feb 2026
- 2025Prompt Pirates Need a Map: Stealing Seeds helps Stealing Prompts11 Sep 2025
- 2025Principled Data Selection for Alignment: The Hidden Risks of Difficult Examples11 Feb 2025
- 2024PQPP: A Joint Benchmark for Text-to-Image Prompt and Query Performance Prediction7 Jun 2024
- 2024Diffusion Facial Forgery Detection29 Jan 2024
- 2023Reinforcement Learning from Diffusion Feedback: Q* for Image Search27 Nov 2023
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- 2025Reusing Computation in Text-to-Image Diffusion for Efficient Generation of Image Sets
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