This guide aims to help you understand ComfyUI’s basic operations and complete your first image generation. We’ll cover:

  1. Loading example workflows
    • Loading from ComfyUI’s workflow templates
    • Loading from images with workflow metadata
  2. Model installation guidance
    • Automatic model installation
    • Manual model installation
    • Using ComfyUI Manager for model installation
  3. Completing your first text-to-image generation

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About Text-to-Image

Text-to-Image is a fundamental AI drawing feature that generates images from text descriptions. It’s one of the most commonly used functions in AI art generation. You can think of the process as telling your requirements (positive and negative prompts) to an artist (the drawing model), who will then create what you want. Detailed explanations about text-to-image will be covered in the Text to Image chapter.

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ComfyUI Text-to-Image Workflow Tutorial

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1. Start ComfyUI

Make sure you’ve followed the installation guide to start ComfyUI and can successfully open the ComfyUI page.

If you have not installed ComfyUI, please choose a suitable version to install according to your device.

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2. Load Default Text-to-Image Workflow

ComfyUI usually loads the default text-to-image workflow automatically when opened. However, you can try different methods to load workflows to familiarize yourself with ComfyUI’s basic operations:

Follow the numbered steps in the image:

  1. Click the Fit View button in the bottom right to ensure any loaded workflow isn’t hidden
  2. Click the folder icon (workflows) in the sidebar
  3. Click the Browse example workflows button at the top of the Workflows panel

Continue with:

  1. Select the first default workflow Image Generation to load it

Alternatively, you can select Browse workflow templates from the workflow menu

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3. Model Installation

Most ComfyUI installations don’t include drawing models by default. After loading the workflow, if you don’t have the v1-5-pruned-emaonly-fp16.safetensors model installed, you’ll see this prompt:

Models are stored in <your ComfyUI installation>/ComfyUI/models/ with subfolders like checkpoints, embeddings, vae, lora, upscale_model, etc. ComfyUI detects models in these folders and paths configured in extra_models_config.yaml at startup.

You can install models through:

After you click the Download button, ComfyUI will execute the download, and different behaviors will be performed depending on the version you are using.

The desktop version will automatically complete the model download and save it to the <your ComfyUI installation location>/ComfyUI/models/checkpoints directory. You can wait for the installation to complete or view the installation progress in the model panel on the sidebar.

If everything goes smoothly, the model should be able to download locally. If the download fails for a long time, please try other installation methods.

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4. Load Model and Generate Your First Image

After installing the model:

  1. In the Load Checkpoint node, ensure v1-5-pruned-emaonly-fp16.safetensors is selected
  2. Click Queue or press Ctrl + Enter to generate

The result will appear in the Save Image node. Right-click to save locally.

For detailed text-to-image instructions, see our comprehensive guide:

ComfyUI Text-to-Image Workflow Guide

Click here for detailed text-to-image workflow instructions

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Troubleshooting

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Model Loading Issues

If the Load Checkpoint node shows no models or displays “null”, verify your model installation location and try refreshing or restarting ComfyUI.

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