A Beginner's Guide to Creating Ai Art

As an emerging technology, Ai art is a new and exciting prospect. While still a work in progress, it allows people, including those who have no artistic talent (absolutely me) to dream up scenes and put their imagination into a photo.

Most people I know find this concept quite interesting and worth a try. However, most people I know also are unsure where to start, and don't want to start downloading random Ai art apps that they aren't sure they can trust. Look below for what I believe is the absolute best place to get an easy and free start to Ai art.

Getting In

The program we're going to use is called Midjourney. This program runs off of Discord, so you will need to create an account for that. If you follow the link above, click Join the Beta and it will take you straight to Discord. Once you create a Discord account, things will start moving quickly.

Getting Started

Once you've created a Discord account and entered the Midjourney section, you're ready to start creating.

The art creation is based on a prompt that you write for it. To begin your prompt, go to a #newbies-number channel. In the text, begin by typing /imagine. It will bring up a prompt for you to click on, and then it's off to the races!

The image will be based on the description you type in. You can set the scene, as well as other effects and an aspect ratio you want it generate as. For instance, if I use the prompt: /imagine man in a coffeeshop using photoshop on a macbook pro, cinematic shot, --ar 16:9, it will give me the series of images below:

In this prompt, it took my imagined scene and combined it with the cinematic effect and aspect ratio of 16:9 (--ar 16:9.) Not including an aspect ratio will simply give you a standard Instagram-sized square image. As you can see, there are some flaws in the program, the greatest of which I've found to be its ineptitude for making proper hands.

After it spits out the 4 images, you have a decision to make. You can select a redesign of the same prompt, any of the 4 images to upscale, or any of them to create another 4 variations of one specific image. If you'd rather move to a new prompt, move on.

Getting Better

As you experiment, you'll begin to learn which photo effects look nicer, how to write a clearer prompt, and maybe even how to get around the fiasco that is Ai generated hands! There are a number of websites that offer tips on getting your prompts to show up in certain styles.

Many people are taking their designs, moving them into photoshop and fixing inconsistencies, scrubbing backgrounds, or using various tools to personalize the designs. As this technology improves, we'll likely see fewer mistakes, more Ai knowledge of human objects, and images that match the prompts more closely.

While incredibly fun, this is a tool that can also be used to create useful content for your business as well. Note that you do need the subscription plan to qualify for commercial use. The Midjourney trial allows you to create roughly 25 creations before you need to start a subscription to continue(starting at $10 for 200/month).

Now, go forth and be creative!