What is MidJourney?
MidJourney is a cutting-edge photo editing platform that utilizes the latest artificial intelligence (AI) technology to create new images or new variations of photos you upload using keywords to describe the edits or changes you want the AI to make. I started by uploading a photo of myself which you can see below:
Using Keywords in MidJourney
Once the image was uploaded, I then provided keywords to describe what I would like MidJourney to “imagine” using that image. This is done using the command line and the “imagine” keyword. An example of how to do this is below:
MidJourney’s Initial 4 Variations
MidJourney then uses your keywords to generate 4 variations and display them. An example of the screen is below (numbers over the variations for display purposes they do not normally display). You can then select one of the “U” buttons number 1-4 to upscale the corresponding image if you like it or you can use one of the “V” buttons numbered 1-4 to create additional variations based upon the corresponding image if you would like to see other options for one of the generated images. The reroll button 🔄 can be used to re-run the job again creating 4 new variations based upon the previous keywords entered.
MidJourney Image Variation Outputs
Let’s try it out. I had MidJourney use the image I uploaded and the imagine command to generate variations of my photo as me as a “cowboy with a horse.” Here is one of the variations it created:
Next, I told MidJourney to imagine me as a “cowboy with a beard” and here is one of the variations it generated:
I decided to try something different. I had MidJourney imagine me as someone “who lived in the 1800’s” with the result of 4 variations. I then clicked the V button so it generated additional variations on one of the generated images:
I did the same with one of the other variations it generated so that it created additional variations:
I then asked MidJourney to imagine me as a honky-tonk country western guy with a pickup. Here are the variations it generated:
I also had it imagine me “on Star Trek.” Here is what it generated:
Finally, I had MidJourney imagine me “as a Cyborg” with the following result:
Conclusion
I found some of the results from MidJourney incredibly impressive and others not so impressive. This technology is just getting started and we can expect that it will improve exponentially over the next decade. This is definitely the future for photo editing. The days of manually editing photos is going to become a part of history like corded phones, cassette tapes and diskettes as MidJourney and other AI take over. It is so much easier, so much faster, and anyone can do it!
Give it a try! You can get started with MidJourney here: https://docs.midjourney.com/docs/quick-start and ChatGPT here: https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt
Contact the Author
Please feel free to contact me.
Luther Andal
[email protected]
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