What is image to video?

Text to video starts from words alone, so the model decides how everything looks. Image to video starts from a picture, so the subject, the light and the style come from your image and the prompt describes the motion.

Most models make one shot of about 4 to 15 seconds from a picture. Longer videos are built from several shots, which is how the DreamBench composer makes a film.

Yes, on models that support first and last frame: you give two pictures and the model generates the motion between them. Some models take a first frame only.

Yes. An image-to-video model takes your photo as the first frame and generates the motion that follows from a short prompt: a person turning, waves breaking, a camera moving in. The clip is usually 4 to 15 seconds and opens on your picture exactly. A sharp photo with one clear subject, even light and room around it for movement animates best; DreamBench’s tool keeps the photo’s own shape, so crop it first if the clip needs another.

The face changes because only the first frame is your photo; every later frame is generated, and a face that turns away and back is redrawn from the model’s memory. Keep the camera and head movement small, keep the clip short, and start from a sharp, well-lit photo with the face large in frame.

On models that generate sound, yes: the clip opens on your picture and the model generates effects, ambience or dialogue with the motion. The table above shows which models always, optionally or never make sound.

Yes, in two ways: a first and a last frame on models that support both, or several reference pictures of a character or product that keep them recognizable across the shots of a film in the DreamBench composer.

Yes. DreamBench’s image-to-video tool works in a phone browser, with nothing to install: choose the photo from your camera roll and the clip downloads as an MP4.

With some models. On DreamBench, Seedance refuses reference images that show a real person’s face, so a video made from such a photo uses another model. Only animate photos you have the right to use.

It depends on the app. On DreamBench you create a free account and choose a plan before the first clip, and each clip uses credits from the plan.

Image to video keeps your photo’s aspect ratio on DreamBench’s one-photo tool: a vertical photo gives a vertical clip and a landscape photo a landscape one, at about 720p. In the composer you choose the clip’s frame first, and a start frame is scaled to fill it and cropped at the center, so crop the photo to that shape yourself, or expand it with the AI image expander, before you start.

A photo for image to video on DreamBench can be a JPEG, PNG, WebP or any format your browser opens, up to 40 MB; it is scaled to 2048 pixels on its long edge before the run, so a larger file adds nothing. What matters more than pixels is a sharp, well-lit picture with one clear subject kept clear of the edges, since the clip opens on it exactly and every later frame is invented from it.

Image to video takes a few minutes for one five-second clip on DreamBench’s tool, and the page shows the clip as soon as it is ready. If the first model declines your photo, a second tries once, which adds a little time; if that one declines too, the credits for the run come back. In the composer a shot takes from under a minute to several minutes, by model, length, resolution and sound.

The photo you upload for image to video stays in your browser until you make a clip. Then it is used to make that clip and nothing else, and removed from the tool’s storage after 7 days along with the result; a result you keep in your library stays as long as you keep it. The MP4 carries a label in its file data saying it was made with AI on DreamBench, with nothing drawn over the picture.