⚡ Illustrious Workflow as of version 18
🛠️ Purpose & Design Philosophy
This workflow is a high-fidelity environment built for Illustrious XL. It prioritizes stability and professional texture over generation speed. It follows an "all-in-one" philosophy: configure your prompts, hit queue, and let the workflow handle the multi-stage refinement from start to finish.
Not for Speed: This is a heavy-duty refinement tool. If you want 2-second previews, use a basic SDXL workflow.
Personal Use: Built for my specific production needs. It is shared as-is for those who want a "set-and-forget" pipeline for Illustrious.
All-in-One Logic: The workflow handles generation, detailing, and upscaling in one continuous pass.
🚀 Key Features & 2026 Logic
Global Model Patching (RescaleCFG): Includes a pre-configured RescaleCFG patch (Multiplier: 0.7) applied globally. This acts as "HDR Insurance," preventing the "deep-fried" or over-saturated look common in high-CFG Illustrious runs.
Detail Daemon Sampler: Integrated to enhance structural depth. In this version, it is tuned to start at 0.4 to preserve the core Illustrious character proportions while sharpening hair and eye details.
Hybrid Upscale Strategy: * Group Bypass Switch: Easily toggle between a Pixel-only (Lanczos) path for flat anime styles and an Upscale-Model path for 2.5D/highly detailed renders.
Ultimate SD Upscale: Re-draws the upscaled canvas at a 0.35 denoise to lock in fine textures.
Power LoRA Loader: Manage multiple Illustrious-specific LoRAs without messy wiring.
Triple Detailer Groups: 3-stage targeted refinement for faces, hands, and clothing using standard detection models.
CivitAI Meta-Sync: Images are saved with full metadata (Model, LoRAs, Sampler info) for automatic site parsing.
⚠️ Disclaimer & Compatibility
Install at Your Own Risk: Custom nodes can break your environment. I am not responsible for troubleshooting your specific installation.
ComfyUI Portable: Built and tested on the Portable version. Desktop app users may face additional hurdles.
The "Your Version" Factor: Your node versions and environment are 99.9% likely to differ from mine.
Nodes 2.0: I do not recommend using Nodes 2.0. It creates unpredictable UI behavior; I will not provide support for issues involving this feature.
🤝 Support & Boundaries
No DMs: DMs are disabled due to repeat spam. Please check the Discussions tab below; most questions have already been answered.
Modifications: You are free to hack this workflow apart. However, you are responsible for fixing it if it breaks.
Custom Requests: I do not make private workflows. If you need a custom solution, post a Bounty on CivitAI. There are many talented creators ready to help you for a fee.
Description
v4f changes:
Generation time from start to finish on a 3060 RTX:
Everything but wildcards enabled took 133 seconds.
Bypassing all the extras and doing 2x upscale in the 2nd KSampler took 73 seconds.
Testing used euler_ancestral_cfg_pp (sampler) + karras (scheduler) on lobotomizedMix_v10 (v-pred model).
Adjusted the prompting order. It seems to give better results. YMMV.
Thanks to @TsunSayu for the suggestion
Adjusted the layout (again).
Changed groups names to reflect what can and cannot be bypassed in the workflow.
You can see on the Fast Groups Bypasser Node that anything marked with DNB is what cannot be bypassed for the workflow to run from start to finish.
Some of the items not marked DNB are situationally able to be bypassed. Example: if you bypass the Detailer Loaders groups, then obviously the Detailers are not going to work and cause the workflow to stop before finishing.
Same with the Watermark stuff. If you bypass any part of it, you need to bypass all the Watermark Groups. The only exception is the Alternative Watermark Removal group since it’s not connected to anything.
The v-pred group should be bypassed if you are not using a v-pred model.
Technically, you can bypass/change whatever you want, but then it is on you to figure out why the workflow stopped working.
Detailers have been moved to after upscaling:
This has yielded better results for me. I do the face first and then the eyes.
Info regarding the Color Correction groups:
These cannot be bypassed.
You can either delete these from the workflow or change all the settings in the Color Correct nodes to 0 except for gamma.
Why do I use the Color Correction nodes?
Upscaling with KSampler/Ultimate SD Upscale strips/alters the color from the original image (in my experience).
Using these nodes helps bring the color closer to the original image colors.
Altering any of the settings in the Watermark portion of the workflow will probably break the watermark removal. All that should be changed there is:
Detection Threshold (higher = less detection, lower = more aggressive detection)
Watermark Detection Model (use whichever one you prefer)
Steps, scheduler, denoise on the Watermark Remover node can be adjusted.
Anything else, I do not recommend messing with in the watermark portion of the workflow. I didn’t come up with it and cannot advise you on what all the buttons, numbers, and settings will do.