Meet the artists of AI! They are like wizards who can read words and magically draw pictures based on them. You tell them about a cat, and voilà, they create an adorable cat drawing!
When it comes to idling away time, the Internet offers a plethora of engaging options even if you stay away from social media! With the advent of text-to-images AI, striking the balance between productivity and entertainment has become even more difficult. You can literally spend hours watching AI generate images based on your descriptions, i.e. prompts.
But there is another way of looking at it. Generating images with AI can save hours of work, which in business circles also leads to saving loads of money! In a matter of minutes, you can not only design original images for your project but also edit existing ones avoiding quite complicated and pricey tools like Adobe Illustrator, for example. But keep in mind that AI can also be hallucinating sometimes!
"In the context of AI, hallucinations refer to a phenomenon where an artificial intelligence system generates outputs that are not based on real or existing data but instead are entirely fabricated by the model. These hallucinations can occur in various AI applications, such as image generation, text generation, or even video generation." ChatGPT
Remember to share your feedback or even your visual projects in any of the AI tools you used in the comments under this blog!
High-quality Artwork & how to get started in MidJourney.
MidJourney is considered the forerunner in the field of AI-generating art. It is powerful indeed. DALL-E 2 by OpenAi is breathing down its neck and there are others! Most of them are not free, nor do they offer a free subscription because the images are of extremely good quality that would be difficult to distinguish from real artwork, and the demand is too high! Both Midjourney and DALL-E are 10 $ a month. I have intentionally created a series of images for one of the blog posts here using a variety of styles to illustrate what Midjourney can do. But honestly, the sky is the limit.
The only thing that I disliked about MidJourney is that its interface is not that self-explanatory, and getting started might seem confusing as you need to create two accounts. That is why I wanted to share some tips.
Step 1: Download Discord
To be able to use MidJourney you need to download Discord, which will eventually be a place where you will generate your art. Why? There is a story behind that.
The Midjourney team has always been remote, and during the development, they used Discord to debug the system internally. It is like a huge chat space where you can generate your art and share it with the world. People loved the communal discovery and anticipation of seeing their images emerge and being shown to other people in the group. So, the Mid Journey team decided to stick with Discord and build the Midjourney experience through a bot.
Step 2: After you have download Discord, you can join the MidJourney Server
This is the site that I found most useful in getting started. It was created by Midjourney itself. It gives a step-by-step description of what to do! Do not skip any steps!
Here is a tutorial that illustrates these steps.
If you are ready for something more advanced, which includes creating your own channel in MidJourney rather than using numerous #newbies, adjusting your settings, and making art-like projects. You can watch this tutorial.
Moderate-quality Images & Tools like Craiyon
There are some free tools that can help you get an idea of what it is like to generate images from prompts. For example, you can visit Craiyon which used to be a DALL-E mini. Just enter your prompt and see the magic unfold. There may be loads of hallucinations, though. The interface is quite straightforward and clear except for some distracting ads.
Step 1: Go to Craiyon
Step 2: Type your prompt in the search line.
Craiyon and other image-generating tools are not like ChatGPT. That is why keep your prompts short and precise!
Step 3: Select style: Art, Drawing, or Photo.
Step 4: Type what you do not want to see in the generated picture in the Negative words.
Step 5: Scroll down for preliminary results.
Note that you may sometimes have to wait for a couple of minutes.
Step 6: Edit or save images you like.
Craiyon will generate 9 sample images. You can click the one you like most and adjust it further by clicking the crayon in the bottom right corner.
The image that I am attaching below not only highlights the pencil tool that can be used to upscale the image but also demonstrates the quality of generated images with Craiyon. You can tell that some of the parts are a bit off.
Does Canva AI generate Art as well?
If you have ever created or edited some images for your projects, you are likely to know about Canva! It has long been everybody’s savior! And it is a pleasure to see that it remains up-to date-and introduces AI-generated images as well.
What do you need to get started? Just go to the left panel, click Apps, and find Text to Images. It would be unfair to compare Canva with such titans as MidJourney and DALL-E2 that specialize solemnly in art and whose output is sometimes mind-blowing, but Canva can anyway offer a basic text-to-images generating experience for free!
Here is a sample image generated using the prompt "a student working online" in Watercolors. I liked it!
