Firefly Reference-Image Consistency Broken

I’m genuinely frustrated with the recent changes to Firefly.

I’ve been using Firefly consistently to create content for my page, and up until August, I was able to get reliable results using the same general workflow and reference images. Since the recent updates, that workflow has basically become unusable.

I’ve tried adjusting my prompts. I’ve tried simplifying them. I’ve tried being more descriptive. I’ve even followed the positive prompting recommendations suggested by contributors here. The result is still the same: Firefly seems to do whatever it wants with the reference images.

At this point, I’m honestly not sure what the purpose of uploading reference images is if the generated image is going to completely change the character’s proportions, features, style, clothing construction, or overall appearance anyway. I can provide multiple clear references of the same established character and explicitly ask Firefly to preserve those characteristics, and somehow end up with a completely different character.

This isn’t a minor consistency issue. The entire reason I use reference images is for consistency.

On top of that, generations are randomly failing, prompts that previously worked no longer work, and I’m getting messages telling me to “slow down” even when I haven’t used Firefly for HOURS. How exactly am I supposed to slow down from not using it?

I create an ongoing visual series, so consistency is not optional for me. I haven’t been able to successfully create the content I normally make since August, and I’ve now gone almost a month without posting because I cannot get Firefly to reliably reproduce a workflow that was working before.

And that is probably the most frustrating part: it worked before.

I know generative tools will never produce the exact same result every time, and I’m not expecting them to. But there is a huge difference between natural variation and a reference feature simply not doing its job.

I really hope Adobe is listening to the people who actually use Firefly regularly for ongoing creative projects, because something has changed and the experience has gotten significantly worse. Adding new models and features doesn’t mean much if the basic tools creators were already relying on become less reliable in the process.

Please fix the reference-image consistency, generation failures, and unnecessary usage restrictions. I genuinely enjoy creating with Firefly when it works. Right now, it doesn’t.