ERNIE Image API for Readable Text in Images

The ERNIE Image API gives developers programmatic access to Baidu's open-weight text-to-image model, an 8B single-stream Diffusion Transformer paired with a Prompt Enhancer that expands short prompts into richer, more structured descriptions. On Atlas Cloud you reach it through one OpenAI-compatible endpoint with pay-as-you-go pricing and Day-0 access.

Its standout strength is legible in-image text. The model scores 0.9733 on LongTextBench in English, the top result among open-weight models, which makes it dependable for posters, comic speech bubbles, infographics, and UI mockups where every character has to be spelled correctly.

Both variants share the same 8B architecture but trade quality against speed. The Standard model runs 50 inference steps at guidance scale 4.0 for maximum fidelity on final assets, while the Turbo variant is distilled with DMD and reinforcement learning down to roughly 8 steps for rapid, high-volume generation.

Yes. Prompts are supported in English, Chinese, and Japanese through the same encoder, and text stays reliable across scripts, scoring 0.9661 on the Chinese LongTextBench. Where several competing models degrade sharply on Chinese characters, this one keeps Simplified, Traditional, and mixed bilingual copy clean.

The Turbo endpoint accepts seven preset sizes through a single size parameter, ranging from a 1024x1024 square to 1376x768 landscape and 768x1376 portrait formats. You can also request up to ten images per call, fix a seed for reproducible results, and toggle the built-in Prompt Enhancer with the use_pe flag.

Getting started takes a single API key. Sign up on Atlas Cloud, point your existing OpenAI-compatible client at the endpoint, and send a prompt with an optional size and seed to receive image URLs in the response. Billing is pay-as-you-go per call with Day-0 access to the model.

In published benchmarks the model outperforms comparable open releases such as FLUX.2-klein-9B, scoring 0.8856 against 0.8481 on GenEval overall. Its widest lead is in text rendering, where FLUX.2 collapses to 0.2183 on Chinese while ERNIE Image holds above 0.96. For workloads built around readable in-image text and structured layouts, it is currently the strongest open-weight choice.

Yes. ERNIE Image is released under the Apache 2.0 license, which permits commercial use, modification, and redistribution. Generated images can go into advertising, merchandise, publications, and other commercial products without license friction.