MagicQuill
VerifiedOpen-source image editor that turns brush strokes into precise AI edits
Product preview
MagicQuill
What it is
MagicQuill is an interactive image editing system presented at CVPR 2025 by researchers from HKUST, Ant Group and partner universities. Instead of writing long prompts, you draw on an image with simple strokes to add an element, erase an object or change a color. A multimodal language model reads those strokes, predicts what you want and fills in a suggested prompt, and a diffusion model then applies the local edit. The code is open source with a Gradio interface, Docker setup and a ComfyUI custom node, and it runs on GPUs with about 8 GB of VRAM. Hosted demos on Hugging Face and ModelScope let you try it without installing anything.
Key features
- Stroke-based add, erase and recolor edits
- Automatic prompt suggestions from sketches
- ComfyUI custom node
- Hosted Hugging Face and ModelScope demos
What we liked
- + Free and open source
- + Edits stay local to the area you draw
- + Little prompt writing required
Worth noting
- · Local use needs a capable GPU
- · Research project with no formal product support
Editor's notes
More context from AI BirdView
Most AI image editors still depend on wording a prompt just right. MagicQuill flips that around by letting your brush strokes carry the intent, then asking a multimodal model to work out what you meant. Drawing a rough shape and having the system suggest what it should become feels more natural than describing a change in text.
- Three focused brush types cover adding content, removing objects and changing colors
- The guessing feature proposes a prompt from your sketch, which you can accept or edit
- Changes are applied only to the region you mark, leaving the rest of the image intact
- A ComfyUI node lets it slot into existing node-based workflows
- The team has since released a MagicQuill V2 with layered editing controls
MagicQuill is a great match for hobbyists, illustrators and researchers who are comfortable with open-source tools and want fine control over local edits. A practical tip: try the Hugging Face demo first to see whether the stroke workflow suits you, and if you install it locally, turn off the automatic prompt guessing on slower machines, as the project notes this can speed things up considerably.
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