Qwen-Image-Edit Skill

AI-powered image editing using Qwen-Image-Edit-2511 via RunPod serverless.

Status: Evolving - learnings being captured as we experiment

When to Use This Skill

Use when the user wants to:

• Edit/transform photos while preserving identity
• Reframe cropped images (fix cut-off heads, etc.)
• Change clothing, add accessories
• Change pose (arm positions, hand placement)
• Apply style transfers (cyberpunk, anime, oil painting)
• Adjust lighting/color grading
• Add/remove objects
• Character transformations (Bond, Neo, etc.)

When NOT to Use

• Background replacement (single image) - creates cut-out artifacts, halos
• Face swapping - cannot preserve identity from reference
• Outpainting - can't extend canvas reliably

Use With Care

• Multi-image compositing - CAN work with explicit identity anchors (see examples.md for prompt patterns). Requires describing distinctive features (hair texture/color, ethnicity, outfit) and using guidance ~2.0
• Camera angle changes - Inconsistent results. Vertical angles (low/high) work better than rotational (three-quarter view)

Quick Reference

# Basic edit
uv run tools/image_edit.py --input photo.jpg --prompt "Add sunglasses"

# With negative prompt (recommended)
uv run tools/image_edit.py --input photo.jpg \
  --prompt "Reframe as portrait with full head visible" \
  --negative "blur, distortion, artifacts"

# Style transfer
uv run tools/image_edit.py --input photo.jpg --style cyberpunk

# Background (use cautiously - often fails)
uv run tools/image_edit.py --input photo.jpg --background office

# Higher quality
uv run tools/image_edit.py --input photo.jpg --prompt "..." --steps 16 --guidance 3.0

# Multi-image composite (identity-preserving)
uv run tools/image_edit.py --input person.jpg background.jpg \
  --prompt "The [ethnicity] [gender] with [hair description] from first image is now in [scene] from second image. Same [features], [outfit]." \
  --negative "different ethnicity, different hair color, different face shape, generic stock photo" \
  --steps 16 --guidance 2.0

Key Files

• prompting.md - Prompt patterns and structure
• examples.md - Good/bad examples from experiments
• parameters.md - Tuning steps, guidance, negative prompts

Tool Location

tools/image_edit.py - CLI wrapper for RunPod endpoint

Related Docs

• docs/qwen-edit-patterns.md - Character transformation patterns
• .ai_dev/qwen-edit-research.md - Research notes