I got into AI graphics when it just first started and for two reasons, my innate curiosity for anything graphic, and my constant need for graphic illustrations to feed my daily blog on Facebook, Substack, Medium, Instagram, and BlueSky.
Any image work I have ever done is prompted by my need for images, whether by photograph, AI, or what-have-you. Otherwise, I would not have the patience to persevere. I have chosen the Midjourney AI graphic engine because it appeared early on and has met my needs enough that I have not had to look elsewhere, but below I will list some other AI graphic engines.
I have never wanted to be a professional photographer because it’s hard to make money at it, I have had to shell out fees to license images for my various online blogs.
And the first version of Midjourney was poor to say the least, only a little better than nothing, but at least a step or two closer to illustrating the articles, essays, and blogs that I write daily.
Otherwise, for many years (since around 2007) I have scoured the graphic databases for images, hundreds of thousands of them over the years, for images to illustrate articles I have written. I licensed the images.
In the beginning there were many people interested in AI graphics, and they treated them like you would fine art, meaning creative fine art. However, to my eyes, their efforts to be ‘great’ graphic artists never impressed me because they all looked the same.
As mentioned, I wanted illustrations, not fine art. And within six months or so, many (perhaps most) folks dropped out, gave up celebrating themselves as the next Rembrandt or Da Vinci, and turned their attention elsewhere.
As for me, I was still there prompting away each day creating my much-needed illustrations. I had no interest in AI as fine art.
And over time Midjourney, which first appeared in July of 2022, progressed, at first just a little each month, but the curve of progress was exponential. Today Midjourney is, within the next couple of years, being indistinguishable (if we wish) from photographs. That is saying something!
There are, however, some hard facts to digest and take in. Perhaps first and foremost, while Midjourney does (or did) offer folks a free version of Midjourney, it was almost impossible to use because every prompt you made, in order to see the result, you had to scroll down through thousands of other free image-results to find your most recent image. Trust me, this gets old fast.
So, to really learn Midjourney you have to subscribe which is $30 a month, so that’s nothing to sneeze at. I bit the bullet early on, why? Because I needed images and was paying for them and while they were at first barely useful, they were better than nothing.
Midjourney grew in quality by leaps and bounds. It’s not a walk in the part to manage the learning curve, but like any image creation, photography or otherwise, AI admits and demands expertise. I often have to make up to a dozen trials before I get an image I want to post.
While Midjourney is brilliant, it also is, in some ways, as dumb as a pound of bricks. It took them about a year to get the right number of fingers and a thumb on a human hand, for instance. You have to work at it.
I’m glad I put in the time because it is so useful to me, and I now see where ai is going. Within a year at most, we will be unable to tell a Midjourney “photo” from a photography photo and no one will care.
I remember well when I was first doing focus stacking, years ago now, and was attacked, right and left, by photographers claiming this was not photography. There are luddites everywhere and always. I am now getting the same kind of attacks when I mention AI graphics, as if they are not legitimately graphics. How ignorant is that? Obvious, they don’t see what is coming and already here!
Below are some links to graphic AI engines. I don’t personally know and use any of them because it’s all I can do to keep up with Midjourney AI.
Midjourney Official Website:
https://www.midjourney.comHere are some other AI graphic engines similar to Midjourney, along with their URLs:
1. DALL·E 2 by OpenAI: A powerful AI system that generates images from textual descriptions.
URL:
https://openai.com/product/dall-e-2 2. Stable Diffusion by Stability AI: An open-source model that creates detailed images based on text prompts. Wikipedia
URL:
https://stability.ai/stable-image 3. Adobe Firefly: Adobe's AI tool integrated into Creative Cloud, offering features like Generative Fill and Expand in Photoshop. Lifewire
URL:
https://www.adobe.com/sensei/generative-ai/firefly.html 4. NightCafe Creator: Supports multiple AI models, including Stable Diffusion and DALL·E 2, for diverse image generation. Lifewire
URL:
https://creator.nightcafe.studio 5. RunwayML: A platform offering AI tools for creatives, including image and video generation capabilities. AI Art Generator
URL:
https://runwayml.com 6. Leonardo.Ai: An AI image generator known for creating high-quality images with various customization options.
URL:
https://leonardo.ai 7. Lexica: An AI image generator and search engine for Stable Diffusion-generated images. Beebom
URL:
https://lexica.artThese platforms offer a range of features and capabilities for AI-driven image generation, catering to both beginners and professionals.
[Midjourney graphic prompted by me.]
