📷Base Model Loader from hub🤗

PhotoMaker doesn't replace the checkpoint - it rides on top of one, and this node is how you hand the pack its SDXL base. BaseModel_Loader_fromhub pulls an SDXL model straight from Hugging Face by repo name, no local files needed. You type (or paste) a model id, and it downloads the whole diffusers pipeline into the HF cache on first run.

This is the first node in the graph for anyone who wants the zero-friction path: it feeds a pipe into the PhotoMaker Adapter Loader, which then feeds the generation node. There's a sibling node, BaseModel_Loader_local, that does the same job from a checkpoint you already have on disk - pick this one when you don't want to hunt down a file, and the local one when you're on a metered connection or want to reuse something you've already downloaded.

Mechanically, from the source, it's PhotoMakerStableDiffusionXLPipeline.from_pretrained(...) in float16 with safetensors and the fp16 variant. Two things that implies. First, it needs an SDXL model - the PhotoMaker adapter is SDXL-only, so feeding it an SD 1.5 repo will fail down the line. Second, it expects a diffusers-format repo, not a single .safetensors; that's a real difference from the ComfyUI checkpoint loaders you're used to.

The one input is base_model_path, defaulting to SG161222/RealVisXL_V3.0. That's a sensible default and a good photorealism base - RealVisXL is the quieter half of the SDXL realism duopoly (Juggernaut is the louder half), known for clean skin and faces rather than cinematic drama. You can swap in almost any SDXL diffusers model id; popular picks in the era this pack shipped were RealVisXL and the various Juggernaut repos. Give it the steps RealVisXL wants if you go that route - DPM++ SDE Karras at 30+ - and don't bother arguing with it.

The output is a single pipe (typed as MODEL), which you wire into PhotoMakerAdapter_Loader_fromhub (or its local twin) before anything else can happen.

Installing the pack itself, once: ComfyUI Manager (search "PhotoMaker") or

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/ZHO-ZHO-ZHO/ComfyUI-PhotoMaker-ZHO
cd ComfyUI-PhotoMaker-ZHO
pip install -r requirements.txt

Then restart ComfyUI. Heads up: the first run of this node downloads several gigabytes - the full SDXL diffusers pipeline, not a single file. It's a one-time cost, but don't click it on a metered connection expecting a quick test. And be aware this pack is a diffusers wrapper that's been quiet since April 2024; it still works, but it's heavier than the native PhotoMaker nodes that later landed in ComfyUI core.