⚡ 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
Workflow built and tested while using comfyui (portable) 0.3.76 and comfyui-frontend v1.34.6
This workflow is simple by my standards, but it does the basics:
Generate Image
Upscale
Detailer
Color Correction
Save Image
There is only one upscale group and one detailer in this workflow. Since the workflow is relatively small (by my standards) it should be much easier for people to add whatever they want to the workflow.
I incorporated an upscale node normally used in video workflows (from Whiterabbit) to upscale the image prior to being fed into Ultimate SD Upscale. This is experimental, but I have been very satisfied with the results. No need for upscale models!
None of the nodes or groups are pinned in this version, so it will be easy to move things around to suit your needs.
I'm using 4 Load Lora nodes from good old Comfyroll Studio. Feel free to change these out for your preferred Lora loader. I'm basically done with stacker type nodes while things are breaking on the daily with each comfyui update.
Detailer behavior seems different, but that could just be me. I have found that I have to use more aggressive detection thresholds more often than not, but YMMV.
Just like with the Nodes 2.0 workflow, this will be using the standard Save Image node.
This means you will have to add your resources manually.
AFAIK all of the custom save image nodes are busted as far as being able to take your generated image and dropping into comfy to load up the workflow.
The way it behaves now is like if you took and image you generated in A1111 and dropped it into comfy.