Visual Notebook
Chapter 1
Beginner Notes
Table Of Contents
Chapter 1: Beginner Notes
- MidJourney → A text-to-image artificial intelligence, that is awesome.
- Prompter → A free tool to assist and inspire prompt building.
- Beginner Tips → Useful info everyone starting out should know.
└ Signing Up (Discord and Subscriptions)
└ Pro Tips (what to know when you start)
Chapter 2: Discord Notes
Chapter 3: Prompting Notes
Chapter 4: Parameter Notes
MidJourney
MidJourney is a powerful artificial intelligence (AI) powered tool that turns text into imagery. You enter a prompt, a descriptive string of words, and the AI analyzes the language and outputs an image via diffusion (I am not going to get into diffusion models here, but it’s worth reading up on). Though the datasets were trained on billions of public images, what you get back in return is one that has never existed before – a completely novel product.
Among other popular AI options (such as Stable Diffusion, Dall-E 2, Craiyon, NightCafe) what makes MidJourney stand out above the rest is its amazing amount of flexibility with multiple algorithms (V3, V4, V5, Niji) and custom parameters (quality, stylize, chaos) that really let you get a lot of variety from a single idea. You can also make literally thousands of images per month on the Standard Plan, something hardly possible on other AI platforms (unless you are burning that 3080 GPU all day long).
The company is very community-driven as well, with active public channels on Discord for creating things together, an amazingly fun and active Facebook group (where I like to hang out) with weekly themes, prize winning contests, and a lot of fun people. MidJounrney also hosts weekly Office Hours on Discord every Wednesday that are open to the public. Anyone can join in the live chat while we listen in, or even ask the CEO David Holz questions – sometimes they get really philosophical, moral, or just plain silly too! It’s a fun time.
Want to try it out? Of course you do. Sign up for a free Discord account if you don’t have one, then head over to the MidJourney website to join in the fun… To summarize, if you have never heard of or seen text-to-image AI – it will blow your mind. No lie. If starting out seems intimidating, don’t stress, just read through my helpful MidJourney Notes and become a master!
Prompter
Prompter is my gift to the MidJourney AI creative community. What began as a personal project to better understand AI imagery since grew into a all-inclusive prompt builder and a multi-page visual notebook. With thousands of visits and a buzz on social media, I think we are onto something, so I plan to keep at it!
I created Prompter to assist, inspire, and ease prompt writing. A simple one-page user interface has everything you could possibly need. Select from common aspect ratios, various mediums, and even parameters like stylize, quality, chaos, and so much more… This project is completely free, though I appreciate all the donations and support many of you have given me.
Algorithm
(switch with one click)
Parameters
(no need for –codes)
Descriptors
(hundreds of terms)
Clusters
(brand new features)
Beginner Tips
This is not an official guide, just a passion project of mine. You can also browse the official MidJourney Documentation gitbook. That said, I like to organize things in different ways, so you might like my notes as well.
Signing Up
Discord → MidJourney runs through Discord, a popular chat application that (for meeeee) feels like you are in an awful 90’s chat room. That said, gamers love it, and a lot of people use it, so I’m probably finally just becoming an old grumpy man… If you do not yet have an account, hop over and sign up for free. It might be intimidating at first, but you’ll get the hang!
MidJourney → Make sure you are logged into Discord then accept the MidJourney Invite to join. There are no longer free trials, so type in /subscribe and hit enter, then follow the link to sign up for a plan. I highly suggest you sign up for the $30 per month Standard Plan (or enter /subscribe in Discord and follow the link).
Subscription → Don’t do the $10 plan because you can’t use /relax mode (making images “unlimited”) and you’ll use up all your GPU hours in a day or two. Seriously though, you will. The $30 plan might seem like a high cost at first, but think about it – you can literally get thousands of renders in relaxed mode (fast mode is still limited). I made about 3,500 in my first month (mostly testing and playing) which is like $0.008 or so per image. That’s a steal, hence I think it’s silly when people complain about monthly payments.
Monthly
(click to view)
Yearly, Discounted
(click to view)
Pro Tips
Bot → If you don’t want all the clutter of a public channel while you work, once you subscribe you can chat with the MidJourney Bot and things won’t be so cluttered. It’ll just be you and all your work. Your images and prompts will still be public on the MidJourney website, however, but you can pay more for Private mode, where you can publish or unpublish images (more about this later).
Servers → You can also create your own Discord Server, invite the MidJourney Bot, and do all your work in separate channels. I have channels for #projects, #testing, #help, and #images to keep things organized (yep, I upload all my photos for image prompts in one channel so I can find old photos quickly!). You can also invite your friends and make work together, but of course, they need to also be subscribed as well (otherwise one member could give free access to thousands, lol).
Add A Server
(click then create my own)
Name Your Server
(add a picture too)
Invite the Bot
(add MJ to the server)
Imagine
(now you can create)
Relax → Immediately switch to relaxed mode by entering /relax in Discord. I suggest doing all your work in relax mode, then switch to /fast only for max upscales (which you can’t do in relaxed mode) or if you are really in a rush. Relax images are free, so you get infinite renders!
Shhhh → Don’t make stupid posts on Facebook and stuff about how you don’t think AI is art or some crap. It’s an unoriginal boring platitude and just makes you look bitter and dull. The second you realize literally everything is art you’ll be a much happier person… Move on, and make new things. ✌
(click the prompt to copy it!)
/imagine prompt: adobe illustrator vector of a person angry and complaining about digital art --chaos 100 --stylize 666 --ar 2:1 --v 4