Seeds make a picture repeatable
What a seed is in AI Pics, how it makes a result repeatable, how variations change it, and why keeping the seed in the history matters.
A seed is a number. It is the smallest idea in picture-making and one of the most useful.
What it does#
A picture is made from your words plus some randomness. The seed fixes the randomness. With the same words, the same shape and the same seed, you get the same result. Change only the seed, and you get another take of the same idea.
In AI Pics#
The composer lets you set a seed, or leaves it to chance. Either way, every run keeps its seed in the history, together with the prompt, the shape, the count and the model. So you can come back to a run from last week and make it again, or change one thing, such as the shape, and keep the rest.
Variations#
Making variations of a picture takes its settings and gives new seeds. That is why a variation looks related: the words and the settings are the same, and only the randomness differs. You can make one to four at a time.
Seeds and the Preview#
With today's Preview, the seed also decides the palette and the motif. That makes the Preview a good place to see how seeds behave: change one digit and the picture changes, change nothing and it is identical.
Seeds and a real model#
With a real model the seed is a request, not always a promise. Some models honour it exactly, some roughly. The history shows the seed used either way, which is why it is worth keeping.
A habit#
When you like a picture, look at its seed in the history. When you make a variation, note which seed you liked. When you hand a picture on, hand the seed and the prompt with it: saving to Geenius OS Media does that for you, as its provenance.
What it does not do#
A seed does not make a picture better. It makes it repeatable, and repeatability is what lets you improve a picture on purpose.
One more reason to keep them#
When you hand a picture to a colleague, the seed and the prompt are the recipe. With them they can make the same picture again, or change one thing. Without them they have a file and a guess. The history and the saved provenance make sure the recipe never gets lost.
See history and variations.