VELVET VICE KREA — Create Refinement Preview

"VELVET VICE KREA - Create Refinement Preview" is the output node at the end of the CREATE branch in the Velvet Vice Krea 2 Vision Prompter workflow. Its job is to show you (and save) the refined image - the one that came out of the second sampler - and it's deliberately built to only do that when you're actually in CREATE mode. Set the workflow to Native Edit or Classic Img2Img and it quietly skips itself instead of wasting GPU time pulling an image nobody asked for.

How it's different from a plain PreviewImage

The trick is the workflow_mode input. A stock PreviewImage doesn't know or care what branch of the graph you're on - it previews whatever lands on it. This node checks the mode first:

• CREATE → it resolves the refined_image input and saves a preview under the VELVET_VICE_KREA_REFINEMENT_PREVIEW prefix, with a status line saying "CREATE refinement complete - after Mild Refinement".
• anything else → it returns early with a status of "Refinement Preview skipped - selected mode is not CREATE" and never touches the image input.

That early-return is backed by ComfyUI's lazy evaluation: refined_image is marked lazy, so when the mode isn't CREATE, the node tells ComfyUI it doesn't need that input at all. The sampler upstream doesn't run, the image isn't generated, nothing is wasted. This is the same lazy-routing pattern the whole pack leans on to keep four independent branches from rendering at once - it's just wearing a preview's clothes here.

Inputs and outputs

Only two inputs, and no outputs at all - it's a terminal output node:

• workflow_mode - a VELVET_VICE_KREA_MODE value, almost always wired from the pack's Mode Selector. This is the switch that decides whether the preview happens.
• refined_image - the IMAGE from the CREATE refinement sampler. It's lazy, so it only gets pulled when CREATE is active.

If you see a "selected mode is not CREATE" status and you do want the preview, don't stare at the node - check your Mode Selector. That's the single knob controlling whether this node works, and it's easy to forget it exists when you're deep in the graph.

Installing

It's part of the velvet-vice-krea pack, one of thirteen nodes that ship together:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/Velvet-Vice/velvet-vice-krea

Restart ComfyUI afterward, or grab it through ComfyUI Manager by searching "VELVET VICE - KREA". No pip installs, no bundled models. The workflow_mode custom type comes from the same pack, which is why you'll normally wire this node to the Mode Selector rather than typing anything by hand.

When you'd actually use it

If you're iterating on CREATE outputs and you want a saved copy of the pre-detailer, pre-upscale result - the "honest" image before SeedVR2 gets its hands on it - this is the node you're looking at. If you're not in the Velvet Vice workflow at all, a plain PreviewImage will do the same job with less ceremony. This node's whole point is being branch-aware, and that only matters inside a multi-branch workflow like this one.