The above image shows a photorealistic image of monkey in a damp forest.
If you are a fan of AI-generated art, you might have heard of Midjourney, a popular online platform that lets you create stunning visuals with just a few words. Midjourney uses a powerful neural network to interpret your text prompts and generate images that match your imagination.
But did you know that Midjourney has recently released a new version of its neural network, called Midjourney V5, that can produce even more realistic, diverse, and creative images than before? In this blog post, we will introduce you to some of the new features and improvements of Midjourney V5, and show you six great image prompts that you can try on it today!
Table of Contents
- What is Midjourney and how does it work?
- What is new in Midjourney V5?
- Six great image prompts to try on Midjourney V5
- A surreal collage with high contrast
- A school of fish with different styles
- A fancy peacock with anime aesthetics
- A vibrant California poppy with seamless tiling
- A photorealistic portrait of a mother
- A comparison between Midjourney V5 and Dall-e 2
- How to use Midjourney V5?
- Conclusion
What is Midjourney and how does it work?
Midjourney is an online platform that lets you create amazing visuals with just a few words. You can type any text prompt in the chat box, and Midjourney will use its neural network to generate an image that matches your prompt. You can also use image prompts, which are images that you upload or link to, and Midjourney will use them as inspiration for generating new images.
Midjourney is a type of artificial intelligence that learns from data and can perform complex tasks. The neural network behind Midjourney is trained on millions of images from various sources, such as art, photography, comics, games, movies, etc. The neural network learns to recognize patterns, shapes, colors, styles, and concepts from these images, and uses them to create new images based on your prompts.
Midjourney routinely releases new versions of its neural network to improve its efficiency, coherency, and quality. The latest version is the default one, but you can also use previous versions by using the --version or --v parameter in your prompts. Different versions excel at different types of images.
What is new in Midjourney V5?
The Midjourney V5 model is the newest and most advanced model, released on March 15th, 2023. It employs cutting-edge tools and a new neural architecture to generate aesthetics and designs. According to the developers, these are some of the changes that come with the update:
- Much wider stylistic range and more responsive prompting. The neural network can produce images in various styles, from photorealistic to abstract, from painterly to pixelated. It also understands user requests more accurately and can handle complex prompts with multiple characters or objects.
- Much higher image quality (2x resolution increase) improved dynamic range. The images generated by Midjourney V5 have twice as much resolution as before, which means more details and clarity. The images also have a wider dynamic range, which means more contrast and brightness.
- More detailed images. Details are more likely to be correct. The neural network excels at getting small details right, such as fingers, teeth, eyes, hair, etc. It also has more knowledge of creatures, places, objects, and more.
- Less unwanted text. The neural network produces less text in the images than before, which makes them look more natural and less cluttered.
- Improved performance with image prompting. The neural network can use image prompts more effectively and blend them with text prompts better.
- Supports --tile argument for seamless tiling (experimental). The neural network can generate images that can be tiled seamlessly without visible seams or edges. This is useful for creating textures or patterns.
- Supports --ar aspect ratios greater than 2:1 (experimental). The neural network can generate images with wider aspect ratios than before, such as panoramas or banners.
- Supports --iw for weighing image prompts versus text prompts. The neural network can adjust the influence of image prompts versus text prompts by using the --iw parameter. This is useful for fine-tuning the balance between the two types of prompts.
Six great image prompts to try on Midjourney V5
Now that you know some of the new features and improvements of Midjourney V5, let's see some examples of image prompts that you can try on it today. These prompts showcase the versatility, creativity, and realism of the neural network, and how you can use different parameters and options to customize your results.
- A surreal collage with high contrast
One of the strengths of Midjourney V5 is its ability to create surreal and imaginative compositions that combine different elements in unexpected ways. You can use the --contrast parameter to increase the contrast of the image and make it more striking. For example, you can try this prompt:
a surreal collage with high contrast --v 5 --contrast
You might get something similar to this:
As you can see, the image is composed of various elements, such as a woman's face inside a crimson orb, a mountain, a clock tower, a waterfalls, moons, and a hand. The image has a high contrast that makes it more vivid and dramatic.
2. A school of fish with different styles
Another feature of Midjourney V5 is its wide stylistic range and responsiveness to prompting. You can use the --style parameter to specify different styles for the image, such as 4a, 4b, 4c, or niji. These styles are slightly different variations of the neural network that have different aesthetic preferences and tuning. For example, you can try this prompt:
a school of fish --v 5 --style 4b
You might get something like this:
The picture has a painterly and colorful style that resembles watercolor or oil painting. The fish are detailed and realistic.
3. Next we have a fancy peacock with anime aesthetics
Speaking of anime, Midjourney V5 also supports the --niji parameter, which is a collaboration between Midjourney and Spellbrush that produces anime and illustrative styles. The --niji parameter has vastly more knowledge of anime, anime styles, and anime aesthetics. It's excellent at dynamic and action shots and character-focused compositions in general. For example, you can try this prompt:
a fancy peacock with anime aesthetics --v 5 --niji
This is the result:
All 4 image has a distinct anime style that captures the elegance and beauty of the peacock. The peacocks has expressive eyes and spectacular train of feathers.
4. A vibrant California poppy with seamless tiling
Another experimental feature of Midjourney V5 is its ability to generate images that can be tiled seamlessly without visible seams or edges. This is useful for creating textures or patterns that can be repeated infinitely. You can use the --tile parameter to enable this feature. For example, you can try this prompt:
a vibrant California poppy with seamless tiling --v 5 --tile
You might get something like this:
The image is composed of multiple California poppies that are arranged in a way that they can be tiled. It has a vibrant and cheerful color scheme.
5. A photorealistic portrait of a mother
One of the most impressive aspects of Midjourney V5 is its ability to produce photorealistic images that look like they were taken by a camera. The neural network has improved its facial detailing and accuracy significantly compared to previous versions. You can use a simple description of a person as a prompt and see how Midjourney V5 generates their portrait. For example, you can try this prompt:
photorealistic portrait of a loving mother and her baby --v 5
You might get something like this:
The image above looks very realistic and has high resolution and detail. This is the computational power of Midjourney V5.
A comparison between Midjourney V5 and Dall-e 2
Finally, let's compare Midjourney V5 with another AI image generator, Dall-e 2, which is a system developed by OpenAI that can also create realistic images and art from a description in natural language. Dall-e 2 is based on a different neural architecture and training data than Midjourney V5, and has its own strengths and weaknesses. To test it yourself, you can try this prompt on both systems:
a portrait of a african woman wearing a head wrap and necklace, by Bruce Onobrakpeya, featured on cg society, black arts movement, made of beads and yarn, angelic photograph, enchanting --v 5
On Midjourney V5, you might get a stunning image like this:
On Dall-e 2, you might get something like this:
Both images are impressive and capture the essence of the prompt. However, there are some noticeable differences. Midjourney V5's image has more details and realism, such as the skin texture and environmental bounce lighting. Dall-e 2's image has more stylization and abstraction, such as the brush strokes and the color palette. Midjourney V5's image also has a higher resolution and dynamic range than Dall-e 2's image.
According to a study by OpenAI, evaluators preferred Midjourney V5 over Dall-e 2 for its caption matching and photorealism when they were asked to compare 1,000 image generations from each model. However, this does not mean that Midjourney V5 is superior to Dall-e 2 in every aspect. Depending on your preferences and goals, you might find one system more suitable than the other for your creative needs.
How to use Midjourney V5?
If you are interested in trying Midjourney V5 for yourself, you can sign up for an account on their website and start generating images with your own prompts. I forgot to mention that you do need a Discord account to use the service. You can also follow their Instagram account to see more examples of their amazing creations.
To use Midjourney V5, you need to add the --v 5 parameter to the end of your prompt, or use the /settings command and select 5️⃣ MJ Version 5. You can also use other parameters and options to customize your results, such as --style, --contrast, --tile, --niji, --ar, --iw, etc. You can find more information about these parameters and options on their documentation page.
Conclusion
Midjourney V5 is an impressive AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language. It has many new features and improvements that make it more versatile, creative, and realistic than previous versions. It can also compete with other AI image generators, such as Dall-e 2, in terms of quality and accuracy.
We hope that this blog post has given you some insight into what Midjourney V5 can do and how you can use it for your own projects. We also hope that you have enjoyed seeing some of the amazing image prompts that you can try on Midjourney V5 today.
If you have any questions or feedback about Midjourney V5 or this blog post, please feel free to leave a comment below or contact us via email or social media. We would love to hear from you.
Reference:
Images came from Midjourney, Reddit and OpenAI docs: https://docs.midjourney.com/docs/models, https://www.reddit.com/, https://openai.com/product/dall-e-2
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