Photon 1

Photon 1 is a text-to-image generation model developed by Luma Labs, the company also known for its Ray video generation models. Released in early 2025, it is built on a proprietary Universal Transformer architecture rather than the diffusion-based approach used by many image generators, which enables it to produce 1920×1080 resolution outputs with accurate lighting, shadows, and textures. It accepts natural language prompts without requiring specialized prompt engineering, and supports up to four reference images to guide style, composition, or character appearance.

Photon 1 is available in two configurations: the standard variant targets maximum quality for professional and print-ready use cases, while Photon 1 Flash is a lighter variant optimized for speed, with generation times as low as 100–500 milliseconds. A beta character consistency feature allows the model to maintain a character's appearance across multiple generations using a single reference image. The model is well suited for designers, marketers, and content creators who need production-ready imagery for applications such as product photography, marketing campaigns, and character-driven visual projects.