Stain jobs are color-true stills; Flux volume is for the before batch

Draft stain tests on Flux 2 Pro. Hero still then I2V. The can is a colour. The fence is a surface. A cinematic paragraph about "rich cedar in golden hour" is how you sell a cousin of the stain you actually applied.

Flux 2 Pro is the stills row for that argument: professional-grade text-to-image, three credits flat per call, requires_image false, aspects 16:9 / 9:16 / 1:1 / 4:3 / 3:4. It is not a video family. Volume belongs here because each miss is a still, not a second of motion.

Stain colour is a stills argument

A fence job that converts is a board a homeowner would pick off a rack: this red cedar, this weathered grey, this near-black. Those are identity claims. Lock the still before you spend on motion is the credit rule. Video meters motion, physics, and (on some rows) audio. It does not meter "did the pigment match the can."

Run the before batch in text-to-image. Same fence, same grain, same standing spot. Change only the stain. Generate at the ratio you will ship — 9:16 if the clip is vertical, 16:9 if it is a site film. Square "for flexibility" is how every later crop becomes a new composition and a new colour.

Do not prompt the wet-to-dry as text-to-video. Paragraphs invent fences. The Flux roster is stills until you leave it. Rank on the text-to-image board is not a reason to skip the human yes. It is a reason to argue pigment at three credits.

Flux volume is the before batch

"Volume" here is not a marketing adjective. It is many cheap stills of the before (bare boards, faded previous coat) and of candidate afters (the stain tests). Three credits a call is the catalog sticker. Flat billing: min and max are both 3. That is the budget you can afford to throw away while colour is still a fight.

Approve one still. That file is the hero. Everything else in the batch is a discarded chip. Animating the whole rack is how you pay image-to-video to discover you preferred chip four.

max_output_resolution is unset on this slug. Do not quote 4K because a different Flux row prints it. If the still would not go on the estimate, do not buy seconds of it.

Animate the signed board, not the paragraph

Image-to-video is the tool shape after the yes. Seedance 2.5 Image to Video is the still-to-motion row: one approved still in, a continuous clip out, up to 720p, four to thirty seconds, native audio with the picture. You can add a last frame when the shot has a destination — wet to set, or a three-quarter walk along the same run.

Seedance I2V is still the still-to-motion job is the router. A thirty-second identity pass of the signed after-still is a hold of the colour you already picked. A thirty-second pass of the before is untreated wood pretending to become a job.

Prompt camera only. Slow locked-off settle. No new house. Do not re-describe the pigment — the still already did. 720p is the ceiling on this I2V endpoint. A print proof of the colourway is still a still.

The colour-true test

Pause on frame one. Would you send that chip to the homeowner as the sample?

Yes → animate that file. Ship the motion.

No, the boards went purple → you generated video from a paragraph, or you animated the wrong still. Go back to Flux. Fix the batch.

The still is right and the motion invents a second fence → shorten the take, or attach a last frame of the same run. Do not regenerate stills "to match the camera."

FAQ

Can I text-to-video the stain and skip Flux?

You can. You will get a fence. It will not be this stain often enough to run as the job. Flux 2 Pro exists so colour dies at three credits.

Why not animate every chip in the before batch?

Because I2V is the expensive meter. Volume is a stills word. Pick one hero. Then buy motion.

Do I need a last frame for a simple push along the boards?

No. One signed still plus a camera move is the usual clip. A last frame is control when you must land on a second approved still of the same run — wet to set, not a different colourway.

Is 720p enough for a stain ad?

For feed, yes. For a printed sample or a 2K plate, you are on a different generate — still start from the locked chip. Resolution is delivery. Colour is the I2V choice.