VMix: Improving Text-to-Image Diffusion Model with Cross-Attention Mixing Control
On the map: Diffusion models → Image generation, text-to-image and editing
Abstract (arXiv)
While diffusion models show extraordinary talents in text-to-image generation, they may still fail to generate highly aesthetic images. More specifically, there is still a gap between the generated images and the real-world aesthetic images in finer-grained dimensions including color, lighting, composition, etc. In this paper, we propose Cross-Attention Value Mixing Control (VMix) Adapter, a plug-and-play aesthetics adapter, to upgrade the quality of generated images while maintaining generality across visual concepts by (1) disentangling the input text prompt into the content description and aesthetic description by the initialization of aesthetic embedding, and (2) integrating aesthetic conditions into the denoising process through value-mixed cross-attention, with the network connected by zero-initialized linear layers. Our key insight is to enhance the aesthetic presentation of existing diffusion models by designing a superior condition control method, all while preserving the image-text alignment. Through our meticulous design, VMix is flexible enough to be applied to community models for better visual performance without retraining. To validate the effectiveness of our method, we conducted extensive experiments, showing that VMix outperforms other state-of-the-art methods and is compatible with other community modules (e.g., LoRA, ControlNet, and IPAdapter) for image generation. The project page is https://vmix-diffusion.github.io/VMix/.
Key facts. Cited by 9 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Image generation, text-to-image and editing, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 18 of its 36 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 30 Dec 2024.
Builds on
18 of 36 references.
Closest ancestors · 5
Same direction, newest first
- 2024FreeStyle: Free Lunch for Text-guided Style Transfer using Diffusion Models28 Jan
- 2023IP-Adapter: Text Compatible Image Prompt Adapter for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models13 Aug
- 2023T2I-Adapter: Learning Adapters to Dig out More Controllable Ability for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models16 Feb
- 2022Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents13 Apr
- 2021GLIDE: Towards Photorealistic Image Generation and Editing with Text-Guided Diffusion Models20 Dec
Other references · 13
- 2021LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Modelscited by 14,084
- 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Modelscited by 9,655
- 2016Layer Normalizationcited by 5,579
- 2023SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,290
- 2022An Image is Worth One Word: Personalizing Text-to-Image Generation using Textual Inversioncited by 2,231
- 2017Decoupled Weight Decay Regularizationcited by 1,722
- 2021LAION-400M: Open Dataset of CLIP-Filtered 400 Million Image-Text Pairscited by 1,544
- 2022Scaling Autoregressive Models for Content-Rich Text-to-Image Generationcited by 1,287
- 2023Pick-a-Pic: An Open Dataset of User Preferences for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 950
- 2023ELITE: Encoding Visual Concepts into Textual Embeddings for Customized Text-to-Image Generationcited by 414
- 2023Emu: Enhancing Image Generation Models Using Photogenic Needles in a Haystackcited by 278
- 2023FreeU: Free Lunch in Diffusion U-Netcited by 195
1 more
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2025: 6; 2026: 3.
9 papers.
- 2025Less-to-More Generalization: Unlocking More Controllability by In-Context Generationcited by 153
- 2025Seedream 2.0: A Native Chinese-English Bilingual Image Generation Foundation Modelcited by 59
- 2025USO: Unified Style and Subject-Driven Generation via Disentangled and Reward Learningcited by 26
- 2026Lance: Unified Multimodal Modeling by Multi-Task Synergycited by 11
- 2025Translate Policy to Language: Flow Matching Generated Rewards for LLM Explanationscited by 6
- 2025AttriCtrl: Fine-Grained Control of Aesthetic Attribute Intensity in Diffusion Modelscited by 5
- 2025Anti-Aesthetics: Protecting Facial Privacy against Customized Text-to-Image Synthesiscited by 2
- 2026LACON: Training Text-to-Image Model from Uncurated Datacited by 0
- 2026Hierarchical Anti-Aesthetics: Protecting Facial Privacy against Customized Diffusion Modelscited by 0
- 2026Hierarchical Anti-Aesthetics: Protecting Facial Privacy against Customized Diffusion Models2 Jul 2026
- 2026Lance: Unified Multimodal Modeling by Multi-Task Synergy18 May 2026
- 2026LACON: Training Text-to-Image Model from Uncurated Data27 Mar 2026
- 2025USO: Unified Style and Subject-Driven Generation via Disentangled and Reward Learning26 Aug 2025
- 2025AttriCtrl: Fine-Grained Control of Aesthetic Attribute Intensity in Diffusion Models4 Aug 2025
- 2025Anti-Aesthetics: Protecting Facial Privacy against Customized Text-to-Image Synthesis16 Apr 2025
- 2025Less-to-More Generalization: Unlocking More Controllability by In-Context Generation2 Apr 2025
- 2025Seedream 2.0: A Native Chinese-English Bilingual Image Generation Foundation Model10 Mar 2025
- 2025Translate Policy to Language: Flow Matching Generated Rewards for LLM Explanations18 Feb 2025
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2023ControlStyle: Text-Driven Stylized Image Generation Using Diffusion Priors
- 2025PEO: Training-Free Aesthetic Quality Enhancement in Pre-Trained Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Prompt Embedding Optimization
- 2024Visual Style Prompting with Swapping Self-Attention
- 2023Harnessing the Spatial-Temporal Attention of Diffusion Models for High-Fidelity Text-to-Image Synthesis
- 2024Diffusion Soup: Model Merging for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models
- 2023Style Injection in Diffusion: A Training-free Approach for Adapting Large-scale Diffusion Models for Style Transfer
- 2024DiffX: Guide Your Layout to Cross-Modal Generative Modeling
- 2024ArtWeaver: Advanced Dynamic Style Integration via Diffusion Model