A scratch-built image model looked perfect until zoom exposed the VAE flaws
Creative-Listen-6847 · reddit · 2026-07-21
A Reddit author documents training an image model from scratch and explains how a VAE can look perfect on familiar data while failing on unseen images. Their key lesson is that reconstruction previews can be deceptive: the model seemed great on training-set images and even on random photos at a glance, but zooming in revealed major detail collapse such as smeared fabric, washed-out forests, and broken teeth.
The post frames the trade-off as speed vs. quality and asks for honest OOD tests, VAE sanity checks, and opinions on whether open-source base models should prioritize throughput or fidelity.
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