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What is Midjourney?
In this article I'm going to show you how the Midjourney machine fits somewhere in the middle of DALL-E 2 and Craiyon, even for newbies.
The results are generally high quality, but not as breathtaking as those of DALL-E 2.
The important thing is that anyone can try a Midjourney beta right now (starting in July 2022), unlike DALL-E 2.
At the most basic level, we find Craiyon, formerly known as “DALL-E mini”.
It's its free app that anyone can use, even newbies, but it's nowhere near as sophisticated as an app like DALL-E 2. The illustrations are often odd and somewhat scary, but it's always a lot of fun to play with.
Who created Midjourney?
The person behind MidJourney is David Holz who founded this company in June 2019 in its beta version.
He wanted to create an app that would allow users and artists to exploit the advantages offered by artificial intelligence (AI).
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The product is available via the MidJourney page: a bot on a server Discord.
Latest Midjourney developments
Midjourney has regularly improved its model to provide more accurate and detailed results:
- Version 5.2 (June 2023) : Produces more detailed and sharp results, with better colors, contrasts, and compositions. Understands indications better than previous models and responds better to the full range of the --stylize parameter.
- Version 5.1 (May 4, 2023) : Stronger default aesthetics, which makes it easier to use with simple textual indications. It excels at accurately interpreting natural language indications, produces fewer artifacts and unwanted boundaries, provides increased image sharpness, and supports advanced features like pattern repetition with --tile.
- Version 5 (April 2023) : Produces more photographic generations than the default 5.1 model. This model produces images that closely match the indication but may require longer indications to achieve the desired aesthetic.
- Version 4 (Nov 2022—May 2023) : Featuring a new code base and an all-new AI architecture designed by Midjourney and trained on the new Midjourney AI supercluster. It increased the knowledge of creatures, places, and objects compared to previous models. This model has very high consistency and excels with image indications.
The constant evolution of Midjourney shows a strong commitment to improving the quality and accuracy of its image generations.
How does Midjourney work?
For most of the major artificial intelligence image generators, creators have provided tons of information about how they work at all stages and released their source code, but that's not the case with Midjourney.
The team behind it has remained fairly discreet about its architecture and how to use it.
However, it is more than likely that Midjourney uses a system similar to that of Dall-E 2, especially since both companies have explained their training methods in detail.
These models have learned a shared relationship between your image and the prompt used to describe it.
Midjourney has said in the past that, like its competitors, it searched the Internet for images and its request to describe them, using millions of published images to train it through the Machine learning.
The majority of AI art generators whose source code is public generate these images through a known process called “streaming.”
These models work by adding noise to your image, reducing it to a pixelated mess.
He then learns to recover this data by reversing the sound effects process. This process is repeated endlessly, causing the model to add noise and then remove it again.
The model can then apply the noise removal process to create realistic images with small variations in the image.
This goes hand in hand with a model's understanding of the relationship between its image and the prompt used to describe it by its members.
How do I use Midjourney?
Midjourney works differently than most AI tools.
While you can sign up for the beta directly on the company's website, use requires a server with the download and use of Discord.
Once accepted, go to the Midjourney website, click on the “Join the Beta” button and you will receive your invitation to the Discord account server.
It might seem pretty confusing at first, but the basics are simple.
You get 25 free requests, then you need to subscribe to a paid subscription of $8 and $60/month).
When you're on your Discord bot account server, all you need to do is go to one of the Beginner channels listed on the left-hand side menu of the page.
Then type “/imagine” on the server followed by the message with the parameters you want.
The server robot will respond to you with notifications with four versions of the message from your topics within a minute.
You can choose to get alternative versions of either of these images, or you can choose to make a larger, higher-quality image out of them.
In those bot channels where you ask for your images, it can be a bit hectic, so keep an eye on where your image is.
You can see all of your productions on the Midjourney website.
MidJourney Use Cases
The software is published by an independent laboratory, and is available in open beta to explore the powers of the creativity of and of people.
This program creates images from a command, or rather textual instructions. M
idjourney has numerous use cases for artists in the field of image creation and AI art:
- Creating unique works of art
- Creation of visuals for marketing campaigns
- Develop artwork for video game projects
- 3D model design
- Production of illustrations for books and magazines
- Abstract visual creations for music videos
Pricing
Here are the prices and the use for this artificial intelligence:
Basic plan
- Cost: $10/month
- Fast GPU hours: 200 min/month usage
- Relaxed GPU hours: Not available
Standard plan
- Cost: $30/month
- Fast GPU hours: 15h/month
- Relaxed GPU hours: Unlimited
- You get around 1000 actions, and when you use them, you can switch to “relax” mode to use midjourney and generate AI art and images endlessly.
Pro plan
- This plan was launched in mid-December 2022, at popular demand.
- Cost: $60/month
- Fast GPU hours: 30 hours/month
- Relaxed GPU hours: Unlimited
- Use in quick mode, perfect for artists that allows you to hide your productions, among others, on the Midjourney gallery.
Alternatives
1. Stable Broadcast
A free, open source alternative to Midjourney.
This model can be used even on a local PC with at least 8GB of VRAM.
Features
- Based on models like Latent Diffusion Models, Eleuther AI, LAION, OpenClip, OpenAI's ADM codebase, CompVis, and more.
- Fast image generation from commands.
- New, frequently updated versions of this tool, including Stable Diffusion XL in Beta.
Pricing
- Gratuit
A competent alternative to Midjourney for the production of images from text.
2. DALL-E 2
DALL-E 2 is an application developed by OpenAI, is a robust alternative to Midjourney for generating photorealistic images from natural language descriptions.
Features
- Creation of photorealistic images from natural language descriptions.
- This tool has the ability to understand indications and to merge various concepts, styles and attributes to create its unique image.
- Ability to enlarge images to create the new canvas, remove elements using the Inpainting tool, add shadows, textures, and highlights, and more.
Pricing
- DALL-E 2 is not free. After the 15 free credits have been used up, additional credits must be purchased.
Distinguished by its ability to generate accurate and realistic images, making it a powerful alternative to Midjourney.
3. Leonardo.Ai
Leonardo.Ai, this application is a completely new text-to-image generation model that is currently being compared to Midjourney.
Features
- Developed primarily to generate game elements, such as environments, buildings, objects, helmets, etc.
- A tool allows you to train your own AI model to create images adapted to your personalized environment.
- Ability to generate human faces without any eye imperfection in the creations.
Pricing
- Gratuit
- $10 premium offer
The Leonardo.Ai company, with its advanced artistic tools and its ability to generate flawless human faces, is presenting itself as an excellent alternative to Midjourney.
Critical sense
Like its competitors, it is not free from criticism.
The issue of copyright sometimes raises concerns, especially as the founder admitted that he did not receive the consent of the creators on whom the model was formed.
The legal notices and CGU/confidentiality remain opaque to the processing of your personal data and for the respect of your privacy.
In January 2023, 3 artists Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and DeviantArt, alleging that these companies infringed the rights of millions of artists by training AIs on five billion images taken from the web without the artists' consent.
Another controversy: On August 26, 2022, the work generated this time by this artificial intelligence won a fine arts competition, which was one of the magazines (competitions) of the Colorado State Fair Fine Arts. The jury and the other artists were not aware that this work had been artificially designed.
News: A platform executive openly acknowledges that political satire is “not tolerated” in China.
He states that it is better to prohibit Midjourney users from generating images of President Xi Jinping than to deprive all Internet users of access to the service and their personal data.
As such, Donald Trump remains one of the most used executives in MidJourney's production queue.
FAQs
What is the AI (artificial intelligence) used by Midjourney for images?
It uses large-scale AI (artificial intelligence) sound algorithms, or Big AI, for its deep learning models and others to generate images.
Big AI is a form of machine learning designed to process large data sets and provide more accurate and reliable results; it combines the use of artificial intelligence-related algorithms with Big AI technology to produce exceptional results and generate images.
Who is the research laboratory that is developing MidJourney?
This service was developed by the Midjourney laboratory, which developed it quite simply.
NT. The research lab explores technologies such as artificial intelligence and computer vision to improve Microsoft products and services. The lab created it, made to provide the solution to deep learning challenges.
How do I use the Midjourney bot?
Midjourney is a robot that uses Leap Motion you can use by following the steps in the guide below to bring your imagination to life:
- Midjourney registration: To get started, create an account on the Midjourney menu if you haven't already done so.
- Access: After logging in, go to the Midjourney bot page, which is usually found in the platform's navigation menu.
- Interaction: Interact with the bot by asking questions or giving specific commands. The bot can help you manage your tasks, find information, or get analytics based on your needs.
- Result: he will answer you with according to the commands and information requested or confirm the action that you asked him to perform with the generated images
- Finalization: If you have other requests, continue to interact with him. If not, you can simply close the chatbot window.
Remember, Midjourney allows you to create generated images whenever you need them!
Conclusion
In this article, we saw how Midjourney is amazing for creating art that makes sense (painting, drawing, magazine cover, other style, etc.) and creations from prompt.
This AI could become the reference for many when it comes to creating AI art from parameters and commands given by the user's hand.
Hopefully, this blog post has clarified everything there is to know about this AI and sheds light on some of the alternatives that exist. Feel free to share this reading on social networks.
If you want to fuel your creativity, take a look at Midjourney Beta and DALL-E, which are an incredible opportunity to learn, experiment, or have fun!
READ MORE >> Unleash your creativity with ChatGPT?
