Why is there still no SOTA open-weights image editing model?
Rheumi · reddit · 2026-09-17
The poster notes that open weights have reached SOTA or near-SOTA for LLMs, text-to-image (Krea2), music (Yue2), and video (Minimax H3), but not for image editing.
- Flux2-Klein 9B is fine for small edits, but out-of-the-box reference-to-image and major edits largely fail — and it launched 9 months ago, ancient in AI terms.
- Since Qwen Image 2.0, Alibaba has gatekept its models; Hidream image o1.5 edit isn't open either, and no Z-image edit or krea2 edit is on the horizon.
- The author asks which lab might deliver in 2026.
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