I do so it’s not a surprise.
Look at the update though.
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You guys are so amazing… I am floored!
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Oh, I forgot that I did this, for a sec:
I find it harder to draw on this phone because the photo editing program it has is junk and all the downloads piss me off.
But I can scribble to this level:
To get very specific details out, you have to be great about feeding it prompts, but I’m descriptive-minimalist, and that sketch was crud. You don’t have to have a ton of talent to make these things work for you–you just have to have the persistence to sit through about 20 of them until you find what you really want.
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I did a thing with pretty flowers. Yay. Now this is a pic I’m okay making public.
I must say, I like this watercolor style. I think going forward, I’ll use it more.
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On behalf of us, thank you. 
Like J.L.O said, it takes a lot of persistence to get nice results (though for me I think it’s closer to 200 than 20 - I’m picky).
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Version 5 of the Mid Journey AI software was released a few days ago. My character prompts for v4 are not compatible (they produce inferior images). Guess I need to reformat them, or start the prompt experiments from the beginning again. However, the few successful vehicle experiments do appear more (photo) realistic.
Playing with MJ v5
^A dingo ate my Holden
^experimented with another user’s prompts for a catwoman character
With the rapid developments in various AI software,* and the recent banking / finance markets skulduggery, the urge to buy a AI-capable PC and switch to a localised Stable Diffusion + Daz 3D image creation (and sim driving / flying) setup continues to grow. MJ’s subscriptions are starting to add up.
*A brief summary…
Also check out the new Microsoft Co-Pilot AI software for the Office 365 suite.
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Your results are awesome. I’m impressed.
I do worry if a local version of stable would be better than MJ.
They update those models every now and then and when they do, it’s often for the better, but once you have one locally, you’re stuck with that version.
Let’s say, I train my model. New version of stable comes out and I’ll have to retrain from start?
I’m speculating at this point. I haven’t actually looked into it enough. I guess I’ve been doing okay with the free ones for now. I only worry when the free stuff will end.
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Well, for me, I’m not looking for specific features because I’m not visual, so I’m just looking for something “good enough”.
I mean, the way I root around is not to match my face–thwt would take me tons more trying to find a program I like, for one.
The other issue is I that I’ve got 20 years predating AI art and having to edit what I want without this aid–so I can take most imperfections and edit them out by hand if it bothers me enough. So if a nose isn’t high enough, I know how to move it. If there’s not enough fingers, I can edit that too. For some people coming into AI, they don’t have that, and it will be harder for them.
But I guarantee you, getting “free help” where all I have to do is edit a hand or arm is a great deal easier than asking me to do something from scratch.
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I’m similar though I’ve noticed that it’s the character vibe that I want to capture.
Editing is always an option and that’s what I do with my favorites but it takes me a while to land on a favorite.
There’s been a curious, but not exactly good, development in my prompt prowess. I’ve been working with Dream so much more lately, I feel very comfortable there but the resolution is poor so I wanted to see what I could do in NightCafe.
But the more I work in Dream, the harder it is to work in NightCafe. The same prompts don’t work there.
I’m a bit annoyed with that.
It’s like using the different platforms require your brain to sort of switch to a different mode in how you approach words and directions.
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I def admire you guys for that.
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Microsoft Designer is out. There’s a wait list but apparently I can invite 10 people so you can skip the line. Let me know if you want to play and I’ll set you up.
You need a Microsoft account for this. Free as of now. Could change later.
So far it looks like a combination of an AI and a graphic content design. Sort of like AI-guided Canva.
Cool things:
It gives you tips and ideas for prompts.
You could have a design in seconds. And then you can edit it too.
You can create an AI image right there or a stock image or upload your own. I like the options.
Cons.
Doesn’t work on the phone. I mean, it does but it’s a bit tricky and limited. Not meant for a phone.
I’m having a hard time figuring out how to save things.
As far as AI images, quality is questionable.
It takes some time getting used to it.
I need to use it on my laptop to give it a good shot and my final verdict.
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Some other AI related videos…
Photoshop’s Firefly AI
GPT-4 upgrades
Microsoft Image AI (probably the same as Kamiccola’s post)
Upscaling with SD + A1111
Gen-2 AI video creation
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These look great.
Another experiment just because I was curious.
The same prompt in a few different places:
silhouette of a young couple holding hands on teal background, small town, trees, romantic, vector illustration
Designer output is similar to NightCafe’s Dalle output but actually Dalle quality is better.
NC Stable 1.5 output is rather boring. Would need more modifiers.
NC Stable 2.1 has a little more interesting output but still boring. Need modifiers.
Dream Buliojourney has a nicer output though too simple again.
Wombot - just okay. A bit boring.
Huggingface Stable 2.1 has the most interesting outputs but quality is questionable.
I think this settles it that this prompt is bad everywhere. lol. I’m not even going to upload the examples.
Okay. Let’s try another prompt. I saved this one once upon a time so it must have produced something for me.
beautiful young woman, dark blond ponytail, gray eyes, jean shirt, mystery girl , brilliant stunning, photo, soft focus, Mark Mann
Designer - poor quality.
NightCafe’s Dalle - Poor quality.
NC Stable 1.5 Very AI-like.
NC Stable 2.1 - nice quality but eyes are messed up.
Dream - Buliojourney is okay but very doll-like. Realistic is very AI-like.
Wombot - nice, realistic quality but eyes are AI-like.
Huggingface Stable 2.1 is somehow very good structurally and very bad in details. lol
I think that prompt only works with a starting image. Hmmm.
Okay. Let’s try something simpler.
cute black kitten with huge eyes, chibi style
Designer - amateur chibi drawings.
NightCafe’s Dalle - Super cute chibi drawing.
NC Stable 1.5 almost real looking
NC Stable 2.1 - better defined than 1.5 but still not 100% real
Dream - Realistic - looks like a real picture. Bulio - almost real.
Wombot - almost real
Huggingface Stable 2.1 - drawings and pictures. worse than all of the above.
So at least in this last attempt I’ve got a winner.
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I gave Designer a good try and it’s actually really cool.
Btw, it uses Dalle so there’s that.
I created this in less than 5 minutes. I kept the words exactly as Designer generated them. I only moved them around and added paw prints.
It’s too large to upload here so now it lives on Giphy.
It actually took me longer to get it on giphy than to create it.
Lessons learned.
-
Their AI image generator is limited. It’s only square and has no upscaling options. Might be worth it to generate elsewhere and import.
-
The AI designer part is great to give you layout ideas. It doesn’t create graphics, it only arranges elements (it might create titles and subtitles for you though - you can change them in the editor later). Using the chibi cat generated in there, I used this prompt:
animated Instagram story, paw prints, cute and artsy
thinking it would give me ideas how to use those elements to create a graphic, but it doesn’t do that. Instead, it interpreted that I wanted to make an Instagram story about paw prints, lol.
And it gave me a bunch of options. I chose one, and then in the editor, I generated the paw prints and used their background remover. It was actually really cool that the paw prints were added in the order I placed them so I didn’t have to specify the order of the animation.
- Their editor is very easy to use and very responsive. It reminds of Canva so much that I’m convinced that either:
a) Microsoft collaborated with Canva.
b) Microsoft ripped off Canva, stealing all their UI ideas.
And I know that everyone here is likely wondering if they can use it to create book covers.
Yes, but…
Remember that the designer part is for layout.
So if you type this in,
book cover for a story about a superhero cat
You get this:
It gives you stock images, not all of them are cats, lol.
If you enter that in the image generation, you get this:
These are kind of funny. lol. They could work for a children’s book.
(isn’t it funny that I came up with that prompt and was treating this nonexisting book about a superhero cat as a superhero book and not a children’s book?)
So, anyway. I think for book cover design, you have to get creative. Create the image first (don’t mention book cover or you’ll get AI words), then use it in a design.
Or use their stock images. That works too. For some reason, they didn’t have a lot of stock images of superhero cats (who knows why), but a more common stock image would be easy to use in a design.
But even with that, the designs aren’t really optimized for book covers. I don’t think they had writers in mind when choosing the layouts. They likely just thought of brands and promos.
Yeah, even Wattpad newbs do better than this.
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Another successful collage experiment to create a complex image and I think I finally generated one that was worth the trouble and is good enough for the book cover.
All made with Dream.
Process
Here are all the pieces I’ve used:
Ruby
Seri
The city
Seri’s overalls +wings
Crude collage made with Krita
Favorite result so far
The biggest issue I’m seeing is that it keeps getting confused on Seri’s face. Ruby’s face comes out well every time. The city looks good every time. Even the wings look good. But there’s something about Seri’s face Dream just can’t figure out. Maybe it’s because the proportions of the head and body are wonky. Maybe I need to use a different overalls image to use in the collage.
I’ll run it a few more times to see if I can generate anything better but this might be it.
Btw, NightCafe released a new model SDXL BETA. I played around with it but haven’t found the secret formula to make it work for me. Not yet. But it promises really good quality so I’ll give it a try again later.
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Update. I fixed Ruby’s image.
When I chose this image, I didn’t realize how messed up his hair was. It just looked like cotton or ragdoll hair in some places. I think I got most of it, at least the worst offenders are gone.
A ton of work on his eyes. I kept looking at it and couldn’t figure out what was wrong with his face. Then I realized that with the angle of his face, his left eye should be visible and the brow AI gave him made it that he had some kind of a face deformity.
Took forever to give him the left eye and recreate his brow, fill in the deformity with some hair and then to color both eyes, and I still think there’s something off about what I created (maybe some cheek should be visible?), but I’m tired. I want to be done with it so Ruby’s done.
Fixing Seri’s latest picture should be easy (the one posted yesterday). Only his lip looks weird and there’s a spot on his nose. I’ll do that quickly later and Seri will have a nice new official image too. I love how detailed the hair came out and he looks exactly like I pictured him.
They’re both absolutely perfect. Sigh. This is what I like about this process. The end result is my characters coming to life.
As to the book cover, I’ve created a ton of images that resembled the one in the post above but in the end, that one was the best so that’s what’s going on the cover. I fixed their eyes and smoothed out the pixels for a better quality and it’s now the cover.
Is this the last cover I’ll give this book? lol. Of course not. It’s also a trilogy so at some point I’m going to have to create three matching ones.
While working on these latest images, AI created me a bunch of images that absolutely floored me. I’d love to have a cover this cool.
This was one of the attempts at creating Ruby and while it didn’t come out well enough to use, it is a stunning book cover idea.
Edit. Why is the quality of Ruby’s image so bad? It’s not just here but the png I exported from Krita. I think I need to look at the settings when I export. Maybe I need to save it as a different size? Or jpg instead of png? I don’t know. This is very curious.
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A particularly clever bunny (or bunny cluster*) created a Stable Diffusion plug-in for Adobe Photoshop. *Location to be kept secret. Rabbits are illegal in Queensland, Australia.
Another useful video from this channel: Image composition tool / plug-in for SD (local install). I have seen videos with more accurate composition tools (like Canva), but this is a good summary video.
Some extra info in this video too.
And apparently there are AI plug-ins for Blender (and probably for Daz 3D as well) to get more control over AI image compositions / character poses.
…I’m running out of excuses to not upgrade my PC system (although that will cost about $4,000 AUS)…
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Finally had some luck with SDXL. I saw this technique of artsy layering in someone else’s prompt and gave it a try. Very interesting results.
I spent possibly 200 credits today trying to create Ian’s mom.
Getting the age right is a pain. It either gives me 20 year olds or 60 year olds and nothing in between because you know, God forbid women aged.
From the older women, this is my fave
Finally settled on this one for Ian’s mom.
I put it through Krita to fix her eyes (when will AI create good eyes? seriously), do a couple of touchups, hair color change, and Ian now officially has a new mom.
She’s pretty perfect. The only complaint I have is that she looks rather fierce and Ian’s mom is supposed to be gentle.
I don’t know if I have any more patience to keep trying.
As a comparison, this one came out better as far as her face reflecting her personality but well, she’s not supposed to be nakey and I don’t even want to try to understand what’s going on with her hands (knuckle to finger ratio seems to be off lol, I know, it can be fixed but I’d rather stay away from hands in general).
I could try to evolve this one some more but I’ve spent so many credits. I don’t know if I want to keep going.
Okay, okay. You convinced me. Let me try inpainting.
Hmm. It came out pretty nice but does she look too young for a forty year old? What do you think?
Which dress should I pick?
I’m leaning to either the first or the third one.
I’ll fix her up tomorrow because it’s 3 am and why am I still awake?
Is this ok to use to illustrate a fanfiction?