One of the most notable use cases of AI tools is definitely image creation. These tools can create images by using the textual descriptions provided by the user within minutes. The AI can generate images in different art forms, from super realistic to cubism. While it is fun to see the reflection of your imagination on your screen, it is also very beneficial in some situations. For example, you can let AI create an image that can take hours if you try to make it yourself with Photoshop.
Midjourney is one of the most popular text-to-image AI services online. Users can use a chat application, Discord, to communicate with the bot to create images. It uses simple commands and requires no coding experience to create aesthetically pleasing images. Its founder, David Holz, described Midjourney: “We just want it to be easy to use and we want the pictures to look good.”
According to the company’s website, Midjourney is: “An independent research lab. Exploring new mediums of thought. Expanding the imaginative powers of the human species.” Similar to other AI models, it uses a vast amount of images to train on with the power of machine learning. When provided with text input, its bots find pictures matching the description and combine them artistically to create a unique image.
A brief history of Midjourney
Midjourney is a research lab and creator of text-to-image AI with the same name. It was founded by David Holz, who is also a co-founder of Leap Motion. The service entered its open beta in July of 2022. The alpha iteration of version 4 was released in November of 2022. Unlike other popular AI tools, Holz stated that the was already profitable in August of 2022.
Is Midjourney free?
Midjourney allows users to try the service for free. Users can create 25 images for free, then they need to choose one of two plans.
The basic membership costs $10 month a month. This plan allows users to create up to 200 images per month. After 200 images, users can continue generating images for $4 per 60 images. It also offers free friend passes and access to the member gallery.
The standard membership offers unlimited personal users along with free friend passes and access to the member gallery. It also comes with 900 minutes of fast time, enabling users to generate images as fast as possible.
For an additional $20 per month, an option for private visibility can be included in both plans. Those plans can be changed anytime, however, corporate plans can’t be downgraded.
Is there any limitation for Midjourney?
Compared to other text-to-image AI tools, Midjourney has fewer limitations. Midjourney prevents users to create images including gore violence or sexual content. However, Midjourney has no rules against images that show violence, illness and disease, political content, or images of public figures.
How to start generating images with Midjourney?
To be able to try Midjourney, you should have a Discord account. Midjourney runs on Discord, thus you either need to open Discord in a browser or download the app, which is also available for smartphones. Once you created an account, you need to visit Midjourney’s website and click the “Join the Beta” button. By accepting the invite, you join Midjourney’s Discord server. You can also add to the bot to your Discord server.
How to generate images using Midjourney?
There are several easy-to-use commands to create images using Midjourney. Let’s take a closer look at those commands and the results generated by the AI bot. To start generating your first image, you can use the “/imagine” command.
/imagine an editor writing a tech related article on his laptop computer in a home office at night while it is snowing outside
As you can see, the bot provides 4 variations for the prompt you provided, along with a few buttons. The button with two circular arrows creates new images based on your description. For now, let’s say we liked the first one, but we still want to see some alternatives. By clicking the “V1” button, we get new images based on that image.
Let’s say we liked the fourth image now. By clicking the “U4” button, we can upscale that image.
Finally, by clicking the “Light upscale redo” button, we can get the upscaled version.
By opening the image in a browser, you can save the image to the browser.
What are the Midjourney’s commands?
Although Midjourney is an easy-to-use tool, there are also some advanced parameters.
- /ask: This command is used to get answers from the bot.
- /blend: For blending two or more images together.
- /help: Shows basic information and tips about the bot.
- /imagine: The command to generate images by using a prompt
- /info: To view information about the account and queued or running jobs.
- /settings: To view and adjust the bot’s settings.
- /prefer option: To create or manage custom options.
- /prefer option list: To view current custom options.
- /prefer suffix: To specify a suffix for every prompt.
Along with commands, there are also parameters that can affect your creations. Some of them are:
- ‐‐aspect or ‐‐ar changes the aspect ratio of the image.
- ‐‐chaos <number 0-100> changes how varied the results will be. Higher numbers will generate more unexpected images.
- ‐‐no is used for negative prompting, such as removing an element from the image.
- ‐‐quality <.25, .5, 1, or 2> or ‐‐q <.25, .5, 1, or 2> changes the rendering quality for the image. The default value is 1.
- ‐‐seed <integer between 0–4294967295> The bot uses a seed number to create a field of visual noise. With seed numbers, you can designate a starting point to generate the initial image grids.
- ‐‐stop <integer between 10-100> is used to finish a job partway through the process, which can cause blurrier images.
- ‐‐style <4a or 4b> to switch between versions of the Midjourney.
- ‐‐stylize <number> or ‐‐s <number> can influence the bot’s default aesthetic style is applied to images.
- ‐‐uplight uses an alternative upscaler with U buttons.
- ‐‐upbeta uses an alternative beta upscaler with U buttons.
- ‐‐niji an alternative model for anime style images.
- ‐‐test uses a special test model.
- ‐‐testp uses a special photography-focused test model.
- ‐‐version <1, 2, or 3> or ‐‐v <1 2, or 3> allows users to use an earlier version of the bot’s algorithm.
- ‐‐upanime is an alternative upscale to work with the niji model.
- ‐‐creative modifies the test and testp models.
- ‐‐iw sets image prompt weight relative to text weight.
- ‐‐sameseed seed values create a single random noise field across all images in the initial grid.
- ‐‐video enables users to save the progress video of the initial image while it is being generated.