Midjourney

In July 2022, David Holz's independent research lab launched the beta version of the Midjourney program . It is a tool for generating images using artificial intelligence, from text descriptions. Midjourney is intended, among others, for people without specific graphic design skills, as well as those who lack time, creativity or technique.

The advent of Midjourney, in the wake of OpenAI's DALL-E , has been very rapid, since it is now at version 5, released on March 15, 2023. This is the reason why its interest and use still raise many questions. Follow the guide to learn more about this tool that is all the rage!

What is Midjourney?

Midjourney is an image generation program based on artificial intelligence that analyzes keywords. The system is based on machine learning, with continuous automatic learning, which allows it to provide ever better results. Little information has been revealed about the technology used by Midjourney, but the company boasts of taking into account billions of parameters to create the images.

The launch of the beta version of Midjourney followed only a few weeks after that of its competitor DALL-E, published by OpenAI, the designer of the conversational artificial intelligence ChatGPT. Today, version 5 of Midjourney offers more styles and improved image quality. It is also with this version that the possibility of choosing the width/height ratio for the generated image arrived, which is square by default.

Midjourney currently only works in English, meaning it only gives a correct result for commands placed in that language. The user support is a Discord bot. At the moment, there is no more ergonomic web interface or app to install, but development is said to be underway.

What can you do with Midjourney?

Midjourney can be used by individuals as well as professionals and its applications are very numerous. Among them, we can mention:

• fashion (haute couture or ready-to-wear);
• the design concept;
• literature (book covers and illustrations);
• virtual reality (video games and animation);
• marketing campaigns;
• advertising;
• web design;
• architecture and decoration;
• the press (realistic images and caricatures);
• education…

The images created by Midjourney are free to use for private use. If you want to use them for commercial purposes, you must have chosen one of the paid versions.

How to use Midjourney?

Midjourney is only available on the dedicated Discord server . It is therefore essential to have a Discord account to start generating images. Discord can be launched from a browser or via the app. The Discord server brings together many channels, including some specifically intended for beginners.

Is Midjourney free?

There is a free version of Midjourney, the "free trial" plan, with reduced features. But since March 29, 2023, to cope with exponential demand, Midjourney has stopped making this version available. Today, it is essential to subscribe to a paid offer to generate images.

The basic plan is $10 per month, the standard plan is $30 per month, and the pro plan is $60 per month. Companies with an annual turnover of over $1 million are required to subscribe to the "Pro" plan. With an annual payment, the rates are reduced by 20%. The differences between the plans are in terms of usage time, the number of simultaneous or queued requests, fast server access, execution in private messages, etc.

Midjourney, instructions for use

In the free version of the application or at the beginning of its use with a paid account, simply join one of the #newbies-xx channels on the Discord server. For advanced users, the #general-xx channels are the ones that receive commands. With paid offers, it is possible, via the /settings prompt, to adjust the settings of the Midjourney account (version, quality, style, public or private mode, fast or slow mode).

But it is not essential to generate your first image. To do this, you must enter a command line in one of the rooms, which is called a "prompt". The prompt first contains the /imagine prompt (you ask the AI to imagine a scene), followed by the description of the visual to be designed, in natural language. A few moments later, the creation is complete and the 4 generated images are displayed publicly on the room. For the images to be delivered in a private message, you must have subscribed to a paid version. Once the 4 images have been produced, it is possible to choose one and improve it.

The fact that the generation is done publicly can be a disadvantage for professional use, but it allows you to get started with prompts by observing the requests made by other users and the results obtained.

What commands are available in Midjourney?

There are about twenty command prompts that can be used with Midjourney. The most common are:

• /settings to adjust settings;
• /imagine to introduce the prompt;
• /info to find out everything about your profile and the status of current creations.

On the other hand, it is possible to apply specific parameters to each prompt, written at the end of the command and preceded by a double hyphen. For example, the --niji parameter imposes a manga style on the generated images, the --no parameter allows you to exclude certain things from the image (--no red removes the red color), --ar indicates the ratio to respect, because by default the images are square (--ar 16:9 for a 16/9 image), etc. All the parameters and command prompts are available on the Midjourney website. The AI can also be inspired by an existing image, just specify the URL where it is located in the prompt.

What Midjourney Can't Do

Some content is prohibited in prompts. This is the case for ultra-violence or pornography, and more generally for "shocking or disturbing" content. Particular attention is also paid to deepfakes, following abuses with, among other things, photos of Donald Trump being arrested by law enforcement.

In March 2023, the use of the name of Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China, was banned in Midjourney prompts. This blockage could prevent diplomatic incidents, but also a possible total censorship of the tool in China.

Midjourney Competitors

Midjourney followed shortly after its competitor DALL-E , created by OpenAI, the publisher of conversational artificial intelligence ChatGPT. The operation is similar, but it is accessible directly online, without having to go through a Discord server. It is also possible to install an API for use outside the site. Craiyon (DALL-E mini) is the open source version of its big brother, offered in free mode (with advertising) and without credit limitations. This version is trained on smaller amounts of data. Bing Image Creator , developed by Microsoft, is also a competitor of Midjourney that works with keywords. Stable Diffusion , meanwhile, is an open source image generator that is already implemented on several sites thanks to its API.