What changes will Seedream 4.0 bring to AI painting models?

ByteDance’s Seed research team today announced the release of Seedream 4.0, the next generation of its image-creation models that the company says delivers faster high-resolution generation, stronger scene and layout understanding, and finer-grained editing controls for professional workflows.

Seedream 4.0 is a “new-generation image creation model” that unifies generation and editing, supports complex multimodal prompts, and targets professional creative pipelines as well as consumer applications. The official announcement highlights the model’s ability to handle both text-only generation and reference-based editing with consistent outputs across multiple images.Seedream 4.0 uses a mixture-of-experts (MoE) architecture to deliver fast, high-resolution results — with some reports putting 2K generation times at roughly 1.8 seconds per image, while offering deterministic editing controls that preserve key elements across iterations.

Jimeng Image 4.0 supports multimodal image generation for the first time, enabling text-based image generation, image editing, and image group generation using the same model:

• Text-based image generation: Enhanced command compliance, higher resolution support, and faster generation speed.
• Image editing: Input single or multiple images and natural language commands to perform any type of editing.
• Image group generation: Generate multiple related images at once, a great helper for your inspirational brainstorming.

Key capabilities

• Text-to-image generation up to commercial-grade resolution (ByteDance and partners report 2K output).
• Ultra-fast inference: third-party reporting indicates Seedream 4.0 can produce a 2K image in roughly 1.8 seconds in text-to-image mode — a performance target aimed at real-time creative use.
• Precise image editing: improved edit instruction fidelity and higher feature retention when modifying existing images (natural-language driven edits).
• Multi-image reference / multi-input support: users can supply multiple reference images to inform style, composition, or object relationships during generation.

Seedream 4.0’s combination of speed, 2K output and stronger editing controls positions it to compete with other recent commercial image models in both consumer creative apps and enterprise design tooling. Faster generation times reduce iteration friction for designers and content teams; stronger edit fidelity addresses a long-standing pain point where edits degrade original image structure or detail. Early distribution through ByteDance consumer apps plus enterprise APIs suggests a dual consumer-to-B2B go-to-market strategy.

Seedream 4.0 — strong fit for:

Seedream 4.0 shines in multiple professional and creative workflows, thanks to its blended generation and editing capabilities, fast performance, and high-resolution output:

• E-commerce / product variants: batch multi-reference generation and consistent style across product shots (product catalogs, A/B creative).
• Ad agencies & creative teams: fast generation + integrated editing for quick iterations and multiple consistent outputs.
• Localized / bilingual workflows: ByteDance emphasizes Chinese/English prompt handling and tight integration into its apps/creative pipelines (helpful for APAC markets).
• Enterprise integration at scale: Volcano Engine hosting and resource packages make it suitable for companies that want cloud SLAs and regional data controls.

Getting Started

CometAPI is a unified API platform that aggregates over 500 AI models from leading providers—such as OpenAI’s GPT series, Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, Midjourney, Suno, and more—into a single, developer-friendly interface. By offering consistent authentication, request formatting, and response handling, CometAPI dramatically simplifies the integration of AI capabilities into your applications. Whether you’re building chatbots, image generators, music composers, or data‐driven analytics pipelines, CometAPI lets you iterate faster, control costs, and remain vendor-agnostic—all while tapping into the latest breakthroughs across the AI ecosystem.

Developers can access  Seedream 3.0 through CometAPI, the latest models version listed are as of the article’s publication date. To begin, explore the model’s capabilities in the Playground and consult the API guide for detailed instructions. Before accessing, please make sure you have logged in to CometAPI and obtained the API key. CometAPI offer a price far lower than the official price to help you integrate.

The latest integration Seedream 4.0 will soon appear on CometAPI, so stay tuned！Ready to Get Started editing images? → Sign up for CometAPI today !