mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Prompt-aware classifier free guidance for diffusion models

arXiv 2509.22728 ↗First posted 25 Sep 2025cs.SD cs.AI cs.MMcited by 0

On the map: Diffusion models → Image generation, text-to-image and editing

Abstract (arXiv)

Diffusion models have achieved remarkable progress in image and audio generation, largely due to Classifier-Free Guidance. However, the choice of guidance scale remains underexplored: a fixed scale often fails to generalize across prompts of varying complexity, leading to oversaturation or weak alignment. We address this gap by introducing a prompt-aware framework that predicts scale-dependent quality and selects the optimal guidance at inference. Specifically, we construct a large synthetic dataset by generating samples under multiple scales and scoring them with reliable evaluation metrics. A lightweight predictor, conditioned on semantic embeddings and linguistic complexity, estimates multi-metric quality curves and determines the best scale via a utility function with regularization. Experiments on MSCOCO~2014 and AudioCaps show consistent improvements over vanilla CFG, enhancing fidelity, alignment, and perceptual preference. This work demonstrates that prompt-aware scale selection provides an effective, training-free enhancement for pretrained diffusion backbones.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Image generation, text-to-image and editing, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 18 of its 23 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 25 Sep 2025.

Builds on

18 of 23 references.

Closest ancestors · 3

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025Cost-Aware Routing for Efficient Text-To-Image Generation17 Jun
  2. 2024AutoLoRA: AutoGuidance Meets Low-Rank Adaptation for Diffusion Models4 Oct
  3. 2022Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding23 May

Other references · 15

  1. 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,744
  2. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 21,076
  3. 2014Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Contextcited by 17,608
  4. 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 9,122
  5. 2022Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidancecited by 5,847
  6. 2023SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,356
  7. 2020DiffWave: A Versatile Diffusion Model for Audio Synthesiscited by 1,354
  8. 2023AudioLDM 2: Learning Holistic Audio Generation with Self-supervised Pretrainingcited by 344
  9. 2024Guiding a Diffusion Model with a Bad Version of Itselfcited by 299
  10. 2023FreeU: Free Lunch in Diffusion U-Netcited by 196
  11. 2022Improving Sample Quality of Diffusion Models Using Self-Attention Guidancecited by 154
  12. 2025Meta Audiobox Aesthetics: Unified Automatic Quality Assessment for Speech, Music, and Soundcited by 137
3 more
  1. 2024Golden Noise for Diffusion Models: A Learning Frameworkcited by 92
  2. 2024AutoGuide: Automated Generation and Selection of Context-Aware Guidelines for Large Language Model Agentscited by 74
  3. 2025Token Perturbation Guidance for Diffusion Modelscited by 15

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  1. 2025Steer Away From Mode Collisions: Improving Composition In Diffusion Models
  2. 2025Inference-Time Optimization of Prompt Embeddings in Diffusion Models: A Comparison of sep-CMA-ES and Adam
  3. 2026Revisiting Classifier-Free Guidance Methods in Latent Diffusion Models
  4. 2023Bridging the Gap: Addressing Discrepancies in Diffusion Model Training for Classifier-Free Guidance
  5. 2025Feedback Guidance of Diffusion Models
  6. 2024Prompt Diffusion Robustifies Any-Modality Prompt Learning
  7. 2026Guiding a Diffusion Model by Swapping Its Tokens
  8. 2023Semantic Guidance Tuning for Text-To-Image Diffusion Models