Midjourney is a gem among AI art generators. It’s an aesthetic art engine that allows even the simplest prompts to produce beautiful results. It’s also a little bit of a contradiction: It’s incredibly easy to use on one hand and full of all kinds of hidden complexities on the other. Midjourney is an app you can get started on within minutes, and yet months later, you realize you’ve only just scratched its shiny pixel-perfect surface. So let’s see how we can improve our Midjourney AI art game.
There are a lot of myths about this kind of software, including that it’s difficult (or easy) to use and requires no skill. It’s just’ generating’ images. These things are true, but they’re also not. Midjourney is an ‘image engine’, and it’s up to you to drive it. You can do so automatically, with not much knowledge, and still get amazing results. But, if you take the time to get under the hood, it’s an app that will keep giving.
Midjourney AI art creation process
So, first things first. Let’s go ahead and get you set up:
Step 1: Download the Discord App
Midjourney is currently migrating its entire user base away from Discord. Anybody who’s generated more than 1000 Midjourney images (a lot of people) is now using the Web Alpha app. It’s a massive upgrade on some of the difficulties of using Discord. Midjourney has promised that everybody will be in the web Alpha very soon. When they say that, they normally mean weeks. But currently, if this is your first time accessing my journey, you will need to enter through the Discord door.
Step
Download Discord to start with Midjourney AI art
- Head here to download Discord.
- Create an account on the Discord registration page, or use the app. and complete the verification process. If you get stuck there’s a guide here.
- Next, head to the Midjourney website and click “Join the Beta” in the bottom right corner.
- Accept the invitation to the Midjourney Discord channel.
- You need to subscribe to a plan. Midjourey isn’t free, and all those compute cycles cost money! The Basic plan is $10 a month, the Standard is $30, the Pro is $60, and the mega is $120. But, as our Midjourney review shows, it’s worth it.
- Go to a #newbies or general channel and type /subscribe.
- You can now start using Midjourney with the /Imagine command.
However, these channels are noisy. So, what you want to do is invite the Midjourney bot to your own Discord server. Here’s how to do that:
- First, create your own Discord server.
- Click the “+” button on the left-hand column.
- Choose “Create” in the next window.
- Enter your server information and type in a name.
- Change the server icon by selecting your image from your computer.
- The “+” button is always present, so you can create more servers whenever you like.
- Now, you can access Midjourney’s server. Hop into a “general” channel, click the green “Midjourney Bot,” and invite the Bot to your server. You’ll be able to create images in silence.
If you made it through all of that without losing your marbles, well done! You’re now ready to type your first prompt in Midjourney!
“/Imagine” – Your gateway to the world of MidJourney AI art
Now, you’re in the Imagine window and free to type anything you like. What should you say? What do you want to say?
There’s a lot said online about AI prompts. They need this parameter or that set of words like you’re casting some magic spell. All of that is valuable, but if you’re just starting out, it can all seem a bit intimidating. But, did you know you can do some pretty cool stuff with just single words?
Surely, you can’t get anything great out of a single word, can you? Yes, you can. But you need to understand how to apply a couple of parameters. In this case, we’ll look at –stylize and –chaos.
Stylize
The Midjourney Bot has been trained on millions of images. It understands them. It knows who artists are and what art styles mean. It understands cameras, composition, lighting, aesthetics, tone, and mood. It’s fair to say, in its own way, it’s an art savant!
The --stylize or --s parameter influences how strongly mIdjourney’s knowledge or training is applied. Low stylization values produce images that closely match the prompt but are less artistic. High stylization values create images that are very artistic but less connected to the prompt.
Chaos
The—-chaos or—-c parameter is simply an instruction to Midjoureys’ image generator to vary the grid. Each prompt produces a grid of four images. With very low or zero chaos, they all look very similar to the initial image grids. The chaos parameter ranges from 0 to 100. With moderate chaos values beginning around –c 25. High-chance values will produce more unusual and unexpected results and compositions. Lower—c values are more repeatable.
Let’s test it out! The following images are generated using single words. Yes, I chose evocative ones but there are a lot of those!
The prompt format was simply: /Imagine {word} –style raw (tells Midjourney to favor a photographic style) –chaos 30/40 –ar 4:3 (an aspect ratio), –s 500.
As you can see, Midjourney can more than interpret words like serenity, peace, war, impossible, eternity, AI, or silence. Yes. you’re relying on its incredible training, but it shows you that no matter what people tell you about AI art, the generative AI is capable of helping you to produce some stunning images.
Of course, prompting for specificity and particular results is also important. Midjourney is a deep well. But, when you’re just getting started, it’s good to know that your words count!
So, enjoy the process, take a look at some of our other articles and links, and come back for more top tips and tutorials. We promised you we could help you create stunning images easily. Mission accomplished
