Midjourney is an AI image generator that offers a dream-like arty style to your requests. It is the AI generator for creatives who want to add some flare to their prompts. Unlike other AI generators like Dall-E or Google’s Imagen, Midjourney is more of a painting tool. As the brand’s website states, it aims to ‘explore new mediums of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species’.
How to use MidJourney ?
To use Midjourney, you will be required to download and use Discord – a chat forum-style app. Once you’ve been accepted onto Midjourney’s Beta, you’ll be sent an invite to the Midjourney Discord. You get 25 free queries and then, if you want to keep using the software, you need to sign up for a paid membership (costing between $8 and $60 a month depending on the plan you choose).
Midjourney asks you to input a worded prompt for an image, for example ‘a fox wearing a top hat in the style of a Roald Dahl illustration’ and in a few seconds, you’ll be returned multiple attempts at this image. However, things can go wrong with your image and the model isn’t perfect. For example, it can struggle to generate hands or other complicated objects, and backgrounds can often be blurred or confused, but these are problems you’ll find with any of these models.
What are the Engineering Behind MidJourney ?
The team behind Midjourney have been consistently updating the software since it was first launched, and they are now on the fifth iteration. This version offers higher image quality, more diverse outputs, wider stylistic range, support for seamless textures, wider aspect rations, better image promoting, and dynamic range. Midjourney is more capable of creating faces in the latest version.
For most of the major AI image generators, the creators have offered reams of information on how they work, along with publishing their source code – this isn’t the case for Midjourney. The team behind it has kept somewhat quiet on its background and training. However, it is most likely that Midjourney uses a similar system to both Dall-E 2 and Stable Diffusion, especially as both companies have explained their training methods in detail.
What is Stable Diffusion ?
Stable Diffusion represents a groundbreaking text-to-image diffusion model that harnesses the power of latent intelligence to create astonishingly realistic imagery based on any textual input. With the ability to produce an infinite range of visually stunning compositions, this advanced AI technology empowers individuals around the globe to unleash their creativity and produce beautiful artwork at the touch of a button. It is a deep learning, text-to-image model released in 2022. It is primarily used to generate detailed images conditioned on text descriptions, though it can also be applied to other tasks such as inpainting, outpainting, and generating image-to-image translations guided by a text prompt.
Conclusion
Midjourney, an AI image generator that has taken the art world by storm, has also been a topic of controversy. The use of copyrighted art in their dataset has resulted in legal action from a group of artists. While Midjourney’s founder, David Holz, admitted to using open datasets available on the internet, it has raised questions about the ethical use of copyrighted material.
Holz has stated that they are working on providing artists with the option to opt-out of having their work used in the future. However, the challenge lies in identifying the rightful owners of the artwork and determining if they are willing to have their names removed from the dataset.
Despite the legal challenges, Midjourney has shown incredible potential in generating photorealistic images based on text inputs. As technology continues to evolve, it is crucial to consider the ethical implications of its use, especially when it comes to intellectual property. It is a complex issue that requires a balance between innovation and respect for the creativity of artists.