VSF: Simple, Efficient, and Effective Negative Guidance in Few-Step Image Generation Models By Value Sign Flip
On the map: Diffusion models → Diffusion foundations and sampling
Abstract (arXiv)
We introduce Value Sign Flip (VSF), a simple and efficient method for incorporating negative prompt guidance in few-step diffusion and flow-matching image generation models. Unlike existing approaches such as classifier-free guidance (CFG), NASA, and NAG, VSF dynamically suppresses undesired content by flipping the sign of attention values from negative prompts. Our method requires only small computational overhead and integrates effectively with MMDiT-style architectures such as Stable Diffusion 3.5 Turbo, as well as cross-attention-based models like Wan. We validate VSF on challenging datasets with complex prompt pairs and demonstrate superior performance in both static image and video generation tasks. Experimental results show that VSF significantly improves negative prompt adherence compared to prior methods in few-step models, and even CFG in non-few-step models, while maintaining competitive image quality. Code and ComfyUI node are available in https://github.com/weathon/VSF/tree/main.
Key facts. Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Diffusion foundations and sampling, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 35 of its 54 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 11 Aug 2025.
Builds on
35 of 54 references.
Closest ancestors · 6
Same direction, newest first
- 2025Feedback Guidance of Diffusion Models6 Jun
- 2025Normalized Attention Guidance: Universal Negative Guidance for Diffusion Models27 May
- 2024Dynamic Negative Guidance of Diffusion Models18 Oct
- 2024Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesis5 Mar
- 2024SDXL-Lightning: Progressive Adversarial Diffusion Distillation21 Feb
- 2022Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidance26 Jul
Other references · 29
- 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,744
- 2019Exploring the Limits of Transfer Learning with a Unified Text-to-Text Transformercited by 14,599
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- 2022BLIP: Bootstrapping Language-Image Pre-training for Unified Vision-Language Understanding and Generationcited by 4,322
- 2025Wan: Open and Advanced Large-Scale Video Generative Modelscited by 2,708
- 2023FlashAttention-2: Faster Attention with Better Parallelism and Work Partitioningcited by 2,598
- 2023MMMU: A Massive Multi-discipline Multimodal Understanding and Reasoning Benchmark for Expert AGIcited by 2,080
- 2023ImageReward: Learning and Evaluating Human Preferences for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 1,045
- 2025FLUX.1 Kontext: Flow Matching for In-Context Image Generation and Editing in Latent Spacecited by 1,006
- 2023Human Preference Score v2: A Solid Benchmark for Evaluating Human Preferences of Text-to-Image Synthesiscited by 890
- 2025Janus-Pro: Unified Multimodal Understanding and Generation with Data and Model Scalingcited by 812
- 2023Attend-and-Excite: Attention-Based Semantic Guidance for Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 702
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- 2023Diffusion Self-Guidance for Controllable Image Generationcited by 305
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- 2023ITI-GEN: Inclusive Text-to-Image Generationcited by 64
- 2024Understanding the Impact of Negative Prompts: When and How Do They Take Effect?cited by 51
- 2024Learn "No" to Say "Yes" Better: Improving Vision-Language Models via Negationscited by 46
- 2025Know "No" Better: A Data-Driven Approach for Enhancing Negation Awareness in CLIPcited by 28
- 2025LAPIS: A novel dataset for personalized image aesthetic assessmentcited by 16
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- 2024FairQueue: Rethinking Prompt Learning for Fair Text-to-Image Generationcited by 7
- 2024GraPE: A Generate-Plan-Edit Framework for Compositional T2I Synthesiscited by 4
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2025: 1; 2026: 3.
4 papers.
- 2025Position: Universal Aesthetic Alignment Narrows Artistic Expressioncited by 1
- 2026Orthogonal Negative Guidance in Attention Feature Space for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 0
- 2026MissingBench-Verified: Probing Vision-Language Models' Inability to Detect Missing Object Partscited by 0
- 2026NegT2IBench: When Negation Changes the Picture. A Polarity Benchmark for Text-to-Image Modelscited by 0
- 2026NegT2IBench: When Negation Changes the Picture. A Polarity Benchmark for Text-to-Image Models2 Oct 2026
- 2026MissingBench-Verified: Probing Vision-Language Models' Inability to Detect Missing Object Parts21 Jul 2026
- 2026Orthogonal Negative Guidance in Attention Feature Space for Text-to-Image Generation28 May 2026
- 2025Position: Universal Aesthetic Alignment Narrows Artistic Expression9 Dec 2025
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