Issue 03: Permutations and Multi-Prompts

Hello Friends!

Thank you again for joining me here on my creative journey with AI art direction. This Issue will see us dive back into some meanderings. I think it will be fun.

I snuck some actual instruction in the last issue! Did you notice? Instead of wild AI art, I put in slides with my curated commands and primer-style commentary. I feel very strongly about including basic how-to stuff early in our process.

As adult learners, we get so busy and have several many distractions coming at us at the same time. And that's on a good day! It can be a challenge to find time and focus to really learn new things. I like to think we are setting ourselves up for success by getting some concise instructions in a tidy package we can bookmark.

And now you know my motivation for the prior Issue! With that level-setting out of the way, you should be able to re-create anything we discuss here. So let's get back to the tangent-making...

Permutations and Multi Prompts

1. We are going to work with the advanced permutation prompts parameter in Midjourney, and
2. We are going to also deploy the multi-prompt feature for a little extra control! Permutations really are tangent factories, even with the multi-prompts reining them back in just a bit. We won't have time to explore them all, but I predict at least a side trip or two along the way.

I am really enjoying playing around with permutations, and I am thinking they'll be a good tool to use when I need to cast a wide net quickly to see what avenues of exploration appeal to me.

I noticed some of my permutations were giving me results out of line with my expectations! I'm still learning how Midjourney decides which words to emphasize, and how it strings concepts together. So I decided to loop in another advanced parameter called the multi-prompt to see how it works with

In a work setting, I can see this combo helping rapidly prototype in the early stages of campaign and branding development.

Permutation Prompts

From a single /imagine command, nest a comma-separated list inside with curly brackets { } to quickly create multiple, similar prompts.

The permutation prompt is the comma-separated list inside the soft brackets. This list is going to give us six different prompts, each with its own subject to be rendered playing poker, in the style of velvet paintings.

First, we must say "yes" we want to slice this request up into six prompts. We have six items on our list, so that's correct! And now for some real art...

The nutria look more like generic rodents. The bottom-right image gets the nutria look better, but what are they up to on that table? Like playing poker and making dinner at the same time.

These three are all basically what I had in mind. Except I didn't figure on each of the "Golden Girls" to look like a mashup of each character in some strange way. Not sure how I feel about that.

Multi-Prompts

Place a double colon (::), with no spaces, after the last word of each part of the prompt to be considered equal to the other part(s).

I'm projecting my desire for cooler temps with this prompt. A simple request for some lovely Fall foliage is our subject, and we will add that we want a color to be considered equally to the Foliage bit. That's the double colon hiding behind the foliage, as it were. This is the multi prompt symbol.

After the text description is our list of colors, inside of soft brackets, with commas. This is the permutation prompt and it will launch 10 individual prompts, one for each Fall color in our list. Each of these prompts will generate a grid of four images to get us started. Let's have a look.

Notice how the top left image in the orange grid has oranges in it. Interesting.

I would say it does a decent job of working these more eclectic shades. The top left cordovan image with the blue pop of sky and greenish water in the stream is very pleasing.

Also, check out the wild mushrooms on the bottom left puce image! Not what I was going for, but very cool and it could be a tangent all of its own.

These are all really moody, and are giving me fairy tale vibes. I can see how these color schemes could fit in certain campaigns. Maybe I'll grab a palette from one.

This was a fun idea spark! I love sepia toned anything, so I figured I'd include the color it in the prompt list. I was thinking Midjourney would return four images where the fall colors with the sepia color were woven in, as with most of the other prompts.

The top-right sepia picture, however, looks just like an old photograph to me! And that got me wondering whether I could imagine stuff and make it look old and funky and weathered. My first pass was definitely a touch light for my eyes, preferring the moodier look of the central picture, but I bet I can work towards that fairly quickly.

Congratulations! This is an actual tangent we have experienced together. Maybe you'll be inspired to go try it out yourself!

Key Takeaways

Last Issue we went over the basics to get a solid foundation for exploration. Now we can see how to achieve a fast start in our creative projects when we are brainstorming. Midjourney and the AI image generators can help us by returning a plethora of great results to help us activate our creative brains.

Using just two of the more advanced prompts, permutations and multi prompts, we were able to easily cast a wide net, and also direct some of the guidelines to help us achieve helpful image grids. I think some of them turned out great!

I'm feeling more confident after preparing this Issue, for sure. Hopefully you will feel confident in your own creative direction abilities, too! I look forward to our next Issue. Talk soon!

-Graham