Getting Started with MidJourney - Beginner’s Guide
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Introduction
What is MidJourney? MidJourney is an AI image creation tool. A user provides an input text prompt, the AI does a bunch of magic, and returns a set of images. There is a fantastic interview with the founder, David Holz, over on TheVerge that I highly recommend reading for learning more about what MidJourney is.
So, why am I making a blog post about MidJourney? This post is meant to share with you step-by-step (day-by-day♫), how you can try out MidJourney using their free trial credits and begin exploring different facets of your own creativity. I have been an avid user of MidJourney since early July 2022 and recently joined the “10,000 club”, meaning I have submitted more than 10,000 prompts in just over 3 months! Honestly, that number shocks me only slightly. I’ve been rather obsessed with it.
My personal experience with MidJourney has been incredible. It is a tool that has allowed me to explore my creativity in-depth and in ways that I’ve never been able to before. As you can tell from many of my blog posts, I love to travel and photograph nature. No, I am not interested in replacing my photography with AI. Not even in the slightest. There are a lot of ideas that I have, though, that I can’t just take a picture of, because they don’t exist in the real world. But! I can work together with AI to express these ideas.
Yes, I have tried some of the other popular AI image generators out there (e.g. Dall-E). MidJourney is more my jam, for reasons I could write a whole other post on. This won’t be my last post about AI-generated images :-).
This just barely touches the surface. Enjoy!
How to get access to MidJourney
MidJourney offers a trial where you get 25 prompt submissions for free. After that, you’ll need to become a paying member.
Sign up for a free Discord account at https://discord.com/, if you do not already have one.
Discord is a communications and social platform that can be access via web login, mobile app download, and desktop app download. I prefer using the desktop application, but also make use of the mobile app.
Go to https://www.midjourney.com/home/ and click “Join the beta”
This should automatically open the MidJourney server in your Discord browser window, mobile app, or desktop app. You do not need to enter any credit card info to join the free trial.
If it does not automatically open:
Log into Discord via their website, mobile app, or desktop app
Click the + plus symbol on the left-hand side to “Add a Server”
Click the “Join a Server” button in the window that pops up and type in https://discord.gg/midjourney and click “Join Server”
How to manually add the MidJourney server in Discord (click to enlarge; screenshots from desktop app)
How to Use MidJourney - Submitting your first prompt
MidJourney has some great help documentation that is semi-regularly updated. Check it out here: https://midjourney.gitbook.io/docs/
In Discord, click on one of the “Newbie” channels under “Newcomer Rooms” on the left
You will see images that others are actively creating. This is a shared channel, so anyone that is using that channel at the time can see everyone else’s creations as they happen.
Submit your first prompt to the newbie channel by typing “/imagine” (without the quotes) and then add a space. After you add a space, you should see the word “prompt” show up. Enter your prompt text after the word prompt and hit Enter. See below for demo screenshots.
In this example, I used “/imagine fantasy forest with fireflies”
After you submit your prompt, you will start to see your images develop. You may have to scroll up a little, as other users’ submissions will bump yours up the channel.
Once your submission is complete, you’ll get a quad of images and several buttons
Submitting your first prompt in one of the newbie channels on Midjourney’s Discord server (screenshots from desktop app)
Results from the prompt submission as shown in Discord; buttons below are for upscaling or varying any of the four images
What to do after getting your first MidJourney images
Now that you have your first creations, what do you want to do?
Do you like one of the images and want to see it bigger?
Click on one of the “U#” buttons. The “U” stands for “upscale”. The numbers correspond to the location in the quad of images. 1 and 2 are the top row. 3 and 4 are the bottom row.
Do you like one of the images, but want to make variations of it?
Click on one of the “V#” buttons. The “V” stands for “variation”. The numbers again correspond to the location in the quad of images.
Do you want to re-submit (re-roll) your prompt to get a completely different set of 4 images using the same text?
Click on the circle of arrows / “refresh” button
Do you want to try again, but using slightly different text?
Submit a new prompt! Next, I tried “/imagine fantasy forest with fireflies underwater”
Do you want to try some fancy options?
Check out the parameters page: https://midjourney.gitbook.io/docs/imagine-parameters
--ar : changes the aspect ratio of the output images
“/imagine fantasy forest with fireflies --ar 4:3” gives me output images where the aspect ratio is 4 (width) to 3 (height)
--stylize : the higher the value, the further it drifts from your text
“/imagine fantasy forest with fireflies --ar 4:3 --stylize 3500”
--chaos : kind of does what it says and adds a bit more randomness in the output you get
“/imagine fantasy forest with fireflies --ar 4:3 --stylize 3500 --chaos 20”
--quality : higher number adds more detail
“/imagine fantasy forest with fireflies --ar 4:3 --stylize 3500 --chaos 20 --quality 2”
MidJourney image results with action buttons for upscaling, making variations, and re-rolling
/imagine fantasy forest with fireflies underwater
/imagine fantasy forest with fireflies --ar 4:3 --stylize 3500
/imagine fantasy forest with fireflies --ar 4:3 --stylize 3500 --chaos 20
/imagine fantasy forest with fireflies --ar 4:3 --stylize 3500 --chaos 20 --quality 2
Upscale of the #4 image from the prompt “fantasy forest with fireflies --ar 4:3 --stylize 3500 --chaos 20”
A Few MidJourney Tips & Resources
Every week, MidJourney holds a live Office Hours session. The founder, David Holz, gives updates to the community, takes questions, and sometimes gets into really interesting, philosophical tangents. The office hours typically start around 2pm CST on Wednesdays, but can vary. They usually post it as an event on their Discord server ahead of time, so that you can set up to be notified. I really enjoy tuning in to these when I can.
Use the help documentation: https://midjourney.gitbook.io/docs/
Explore the parameters available to customize your prompts even more: https://midjourney.gitbook.io/docs/imagine-parameters
Check out the prompt-craft channel and prompt-craft Community Forum thread in Discord for ideas on writing prompts
Sign in to MidJourney.com to view and download all of the images you create
In any channel, you can type in /info and then press enter to see some stats about your account, including Lifetime Usage which is how many images you’ve generated
I highly recommend checking out Topaz Labs Gigapixel AI or the complete Photo AI suite for enlarging and enhancing the quality of your MidJourney images. They have free trial versions for all of their tools so you can try before you buy.
I hope you enjoyed this beginner’s guide on how to get started with MidJourney. There is a lot here that I didn’t cover, but it should be just enough information to help get you started.
Thanks for reading!
