Ep. 37: Midjourney V7 Showed Up in Crocs and Cooked

0:00:00Breathing room with Midjourney V7 – finally

Play from 0:00:01 8:88:88 0:00:01 What's up everybody? Midjourney Fast Hours podcast. Midjourney V7 part two edition now that we've actually had time to like breathe and play with this thing. So, we're going to jump into that today. Uh, in the meantime, Rory, what's happening on your end? Dude, it's cold. It's wet. Sucks. It's perfect for Midjourney, but like, you know, just like sit here and just generate at will. But yeah, man. It's been just crazy.

Play from 0:00:27 8:88:88 0:00:27 I've been like been like reobsessed again, you know? It's like I I dig back through all of the old prompts and like, "Oo, let me see if this one works." I like this is what I like when these new models drop is that I want to go back and I start going back and finding like all the cool [ __ ] that I've done that's never been like share and I'm just, God, I forgot I did this, you know? Then you start to then you start to look at the, you know, not not sentimentally, but like I'm looking at all the like the cont. I'm like, "Oh, I remember what I did for that piece of content or that piece of content." like that's why I was doing this. You start to like think back a little bit into that mindset. It's cool to dig back. I've been I've been It's annoying though when you find stuff that you like that you're like, damn, I never did anything with this or oh or I remember that. Like it's annoying. It's like tough to share it now. It's like what am I do? Share like a version five

Play from 0:01:13 8:88:88 0:01:13 image. Like who cares? That's what I'm saying. Yeah. And that that part of it too is kind of the annoying part because it's like well the quality's gotten better so like would I actually share this now? I don't know. But yeah. Um, but it's it's interesting to like even go back and look at some of the stuff and how at that point I was like this is revolutionary. Like looks like nothing I've ever seen before. And now it's like that's it looks like crap to me. You know what I mean? Like like what else we can do? And I'm like that was that took me I remember like trying to get to that point of getting you know the image to look like that and then like sharing it and being like people being like what the and now that's like standard practice. Yeah. Yeah. I know that man.

0:01:48Revisiting old prompts: cringe or still fire?

Play from 0:01:52 8:88:88 0:01:52 That's That's exactly right. But you know what, like I've always appreciated about you too and like certain people is like we we dig deep, you know, like we're not just generating images, but like you know what I appreciate about you is like you'll go back and you'll you'll play with all the features again, you know, you'll play with the different parameters again, you know, and um I I just don't think that's like very common for most people, right? And like there are different reasons people use Midjourney, but I always appreciate that because you know there are all these little incremental changes too that we don't get updated on and you only really uncover if you if you do like kind of go back to the drawing board and experiment when when some of these like major uh releases or models or things happen.

Play from 0:02:37 8:88:88 0:02:37 Yes. It's like kind of like the same thing, right? You just want to use it to its best ability without having to like screw around a lot. So, it's like, "All right, let me go test the parameters right away. See how they affect everything?" Because that that to me is just like that'll tell me like, "Can I use stylize 800?" Like, remember when it was like stylized would get you to a certain point and it was like, "All right, it wasn't that crazy, but it was good." I think it was maybe V5 or V6 when it like went to stylize a,000 and it was just outrageous. Can't go up that high. And then like when personalization dropped, right? like that fir at least for the first couple weeks or that like initial launch too is like oh you want to run this all the way up you know like uh to get like further away from the default and more on the side of your personalization but like I'm not I I'll

0:03:04Stylize settings: what’s working now

Play from 0:03:22 8:88:88 0:03:22 run tests on uh like I'm running a lot of tests like on stylize a thousand but I'm finding I'm getting the best results around like 200 you know like 150 200 right now you know I'm back down again too I was creeping up to three as my default. Um, you know, there with 61. Really kind of found a sweet spot there. That's just sort of where I landed. But yeah, I'm like dialing it back down now. Like even 152. Um, pretty solid like pretty solid results. Yeah, I've been I mean I was getting up into 7 800 consistently on the last model. Just like trying to push it for certain things and now now it's like come back to reality. 300 seems like a good sweet spot. 200 300 again like it back where I

Play from 0:04:07 8:88:88 0:04:07 was and now it's like all right it seems like the sweet like that's where it doesn't it doesn't like overcompensate it just kind of like adds its stylization and then like doesn't go too far and and stylization now at least where we're at today doesn't feel like the stylization a thousand from models ago either right like you used to just it used to just go so far and you're just like oh okay well if I'm trying to achieve photo realism yeah there you go the flowers but if I'm trying to treat photo realism, it's like, oh, it starts to look way too much like AI. And I remember we used to talk about how it used to get closer and closer, the face used to get closer and closer the the more you dialed up the stylized, too.

Play from 0:04:45 8:88:88 0:04:45 Yeah. And it made sense. I mean, like that was that was its way of putting more detail in, like, you know, the less background it has to generate, the more it focuses on the face. But it was like I just remember that flower phase and it was like, I don't want flowers. Yeah. Everything just throw it in there, man. No flowers, no plants, no anything. And it would just be like, "Here's your flowers, bro." Absolutely. Absolutely. Actually, you know what? Now I'm thinking about it. You know that whole um human bouquet series that I got with the people walking? I think the very first one I ran had flowers in it, which like was like sort of like the spark of the idea.

Play from 0:05:24 8:88:88 0:05:24 Like I didn't prompt for flowers at all. Uh, but that was, if I remember correctly, like the first one I ever did was was around that using the tool to the like that's just the artist paintbrush right there. Using the tools disadvantages as an advantage, right? Like that's what people do well with Sora. Like you just take Sora's like morphy, weird, glitchy nature and if you could make it cool and that's like the intention going in, then it's going to look great, you know? Yeah. I I think he everyone needs to do that a little bit more, you know, like whatever the tools strengths and weaknesses are, if it has a weakness, like if there's a way to make it cool, you can do that. 100%.

Play from 0:06:03 8:88:88 0:06:03 It's got to lean into it. Yeah. There's been there's always been ways to do that with Midjourney, right? Like, you know, that's like probably one of the better Yeah. Like it's one of the better tools for like leaning into those little nuances, too. With with V7, though, um let's talk like I mean we're going to talk about a few things, right? Like I think we can get back into personalization and ranking. There are just a few things that I think um you know we can talk through there that are interesting ways that you could approach that with personalization being even more important now. I think you could make that argument. Totally. Um you know we got an update on uh some new features that have just been put back in for V7.

0:06:09Personalization isn’t optional anymore

Play from 0:06:40 8:88:88 0:06:40 We've talked, you know, we've got um a lot more insight into takeaways that we've learned since last week and um yeah, man, let's just get into it. Like, so, you know, we talked about what was released with V7. We talked about um I think we touched on this last time, but Midjourney is going to start to slowly drip new things each week, every other week. They've they've kind of laid that out. Um, the first thing we got was remix and tile back into the fold.

0:07:08Remix & tile are BACK

Play from 0:07:13 8:88:88 0:07:13 You're a remix OG. It's like probably one of your favorite features, if not your favorite. So, I know you're excited about that. Um, any insights there so far? Remix is like I I think I had like a six-month hiatus where I like forgot about it and that was that was last year at some point. And then I was like, you know what? Once style reference came back into the mix, I was like, ooh, okay. Cuz I I really like it. if anyone's not playing around with it because sometimes when you use style reference or style codes or um you know mood boards or whatever anything that's going to influence the construction of the image like it can do too much like I sometimes I just want to like control the prompt itself and control the output and then with remix then I'll add the style reference or a style code or a

Play from 0:07:58 8:88:88 0:07:58 mood board because it takes sort of like that basic image construction and then like adds on top of it instead of like morphing the entire image around like for style for style codes. I think it works great. Yeah, I I don't use remix enough personally. Yeah, but it's great. Well, remix remix subtle doesn't really do anything for me, I'm always remixing strong. And you know, often times if I like if I like something or I'm going for something a little bit more extreme, like remix strong and like you don't have to I've said this before on the podcast, you don't have to change anything, just hit it again. It's like it's like a better very it's like a it's like a mixture between very subtle and very strong. You know what I mean? which kind of feels nice to have another option there because you know now now subtle has gotten so subtle. Yeah, overly subtle maybe. Maybe maybe. But

0:08:34Remix strong vs subtle: what’s better?

Play from 0:08:44 8:88:88 0:08:44 also I was just thinking about that in terms of like the Crev function like man what if you get to this point where it's just like you press the button you know like a very subtle and it takes that character within it and just boom, right? Like you could just create subtle variations with that character or strong variations with that character. Um, you know, just like as a button versus like plugging that in and typing it out and dragging it in, you know, there feels like there should be a maybe a smarter, more efficient way to accomplish that.

0:09:04Why style refs work better after remix

Play from 0:09:14 8:88:88 0:09:14 But that would be fun, man. Like because half the half the pain with doing like stuff like sfs and image refs and cfs is just that you got to take the extra time and effort to like plug all that stuff in, think about the weights, you know. But I think like if we get to a point where that's a just a quick little option, that would be a lot of fun. I like that. I like that. Actually, let me let me actually pull this up so people can see what I'm talking about in the uh let me just have it I just realized I have it on Figma. I was like, "All right." So, what I mean by like like doing the remix is like I start with like an image like this where I'm like, "All right, cool." Like that's what I was looking for, but like how can I like take that sort of image construction? See, like the image construction is like very similar. Yeah.

Play from 0:10:00 8:88:88 0:10:00 On everything here. And it's just basically I'm hitting remix strong and then I'll put an SRF in. I'm hitting, you know, putting an SRF code or I'm putting in a different image that looks nothing like I put like a like a Japanese movie poster, but it was like a very fuzzy texture like it was very it was like a cartoon or like an animatic, something like that. Yeah. You know, comes out a little bit different. I put in something that's got a little bit more art to it. So, you just like bleed a little bit of it in there and sometimes you can come out with some really cool stuff which I was like totally down with. Right. So to me, I want to control this, right? Like I like to control the composition, like the way that everything looks, and then I'll go and remix and sort of play with it to see where I want to go with it. Now, that's just for fun. That's not like if I'm going for a project or anything.

Play from 0:10:44 8:88:88 0:10:44 Yeah. This is if I want to just go like visually pop cuz I think you're you're pretty damn good at like you don't just stop at the im like the output as it is and say like that's good. I feel like you're curious with just about everything that you like. like very subtle, very strong, edit, expand, keep going, like you know, use that as a style reference in another image. Um, that's the uh, you know, that's why there's been just remix just like B.

Play from 0:11:12 8:88:88 0:11:12 Yeah. I mean, I get it. I get it like that. And again, I love the idea that like you mentioned, remix can be like this alternative uh, you know, less known option to run variations of your image. like just kind of like what we did with that describe thing, right? When we were talking about the suggested prompt as a way to describe, you know, and it was sort of like a different model and it's like, oh, this is kind of interesting. Um, but yeah, man. Like, so we've got, you know, got remix and tile back. I don't know what's what's next, but I do know that they did provide a uh, you know, an update on the character reference. Uh so character consistency which uh a little bit of a loose time frame not surprised but uh somewhere between one to four

0:11:38Character consistency timeline + visual proof

Play from 0:11:57 8:88:88 0:11:57 weeks. So uh you know maybe safe to assume like two to three maybe three. I do feel like like gut feel they're holding on to that because they want it to be as good as possible. I think they realize that that's a really good opportunity for them to nail. Is that kind of what you're thinking too? I think they should wait. Like again, I'm like satisfied, you know? Like remember when we were getting like pissed at V7 and they drop mood boards and I'm like, "Okay, I'm satisfied again. I have something to play with." That's right.

Play from 0:12:26 8:88:88 0:12:26 Right. It's like I'm good right now. You know, I don't I don't necessarily need it. Um I want it. It's going to come. I know it's coming. I I'd rather have them work on it and make it good and not like turn everybody off like from it right away. Yeah. So, I'd really just I really want that one to be nailed. I'm with you on that one. That feels like a critical one. You got to nail first impression on because if you can get some virality on that, too of just people just going nuts with how good that is.

Play from 0:12:57 8:88:88 0:12:57 You know, you can see it though. You can see the architecture happening. Like I was running I think you can. Yeah. Yeah. I was running character sheets and the character is translating from image to image so much more intricately than it would have in the past. um put you on the spot here details put you on the spot here but do you have a do you have any visual examples you can show on that I'm just curious um and while you're doing that you know so so going back to that that point which you just mentioned which is let's nail it they fed us right like they fed us with a new model there's a lot to explore here guys right like so the initial reaction was oh like this wasn't as big of a leap as we wanted oh blah blah blah okay but Remember, this is the alpha version. This is not the full model

0:13:40Why Midjourney’s slow drip strategy is good

Play from 0:13:43 8:88:88 0:13:43 rolled out yet. Number one. Number two, there are incremental improvements that will change along the way. There always has been. It's gotten better and better and better. There's refinements that take place. It's a little bit different. Number three, Midjourney is not VC funded. Again, it cannot move as quick as some of these other companies. That's just the reality. You have to accept it. Um, and then you know I think like the other the other interesting point that we talk about a lot too is like the building of knowledge within the model.

Play from 0:14:13 8:88:88 0:14:13 And so if we would have gotten consistent characters when we got the regular model or V7 in general I I just I don't know people would have be taking even longer to understand fully how this model works and to experiment with it and all those things. It's easier to digest when we get, hey, we've got this. Okay, now in two weeks, we're going to get this, right? Because by then, we'll already kind of know, you know, maybe the different coherence. We'll have a better feel for it. We'll have a better feel for the kind of images that we like generating in here. Uh stylize, you know, all those different variables that take place. So, say all that to say, like, let's cool it on that. you know, we we both talked about it last time, but you know, I think we both even put out tweets about it, but it's just like,

Play from 0:14:59 8:88:88 0:14:59 hey, look, like, you're you're rushing to judgment if you're making a strong statement on this 48 hours in. Like, it's just there's no way that you've run enough variables here and have a long-term understanding of what the model's going to deliver at this point. Yeah. And you know, Mid Journeys a is a basically a victim of their own success there, I think, where they've made it so easy to create that when something comes out and it wasn't that easy right away.

0:15:12Model overreactions and spoiled user syndrome

Play from 0:15:25 8:88:88 0:15:25 Like it wasn't like immediately like bang like perfect visuals that everyone has like that sort of short-term memory where it's like, well, you know, we might need to be a little bit patient or figure this thing out again because it's a whole new infrastructure. And as we know, they think they know how it works, but like, you know, there's a lot there's a million other people that are creating that figure this stuff out before they do to write it to like operationalize it. Not a knock against Midjourney there. Just like do what you have to do. You know, their their job isn't to teach us how to do it, you know, and how to how to be artists. Like you'll find people that just do creative things with it all the time. So yeah, I think there's they there was definitely like an overreaction like you know we all we all want you know to dunk on something I

Play from 0:16:11 8:88:88 0:16:11 guess I think. So, we've gotten spoiled, right? Like there's just now the technology again, like if we were to rewind a year ago, year and a half ago and just thinking about these things and like still in this newness of like adapting to the pace at which they come, these things come and then what's possible and then thinking ahead of what's going to be possible in the next six 12 months. Like I feel like we've started to desensitize ourselves here, right? Because we are getting spoiled with all these different tools, all these different releases. We're just kind of becoming like little spoiled brats, you know? Um, so we're feeding the addiction. It's like it's coming, guys. Like everything's everything is coming. Uh, just we got to be patient sometimes. I'm talking to myself here, too.

Play from 0:16:54 8:88:88 0:16:54 But, you know, if they nail character, if they nail omni reference, whatever they're calling it, character reference, omnireence, I don't think anyone minds whatever else the limitations are because I personally don't haven't seen many. Like I've been I've been pretty I I understood what happened on the you know it feels like this is just an observation. It feels like the base model V7 is like like an older like reminds me of how stable diffusion was where it's just like a base model that's meant to be built off of and customized off of. Interesting. So it's like all the personalization that comes out of that. So really like everything has been you know they they've focused on you know making personalization standard for version 7 which means you know go in there rank some photos. We'll get into that stuff in a little bit. Um, but like

Play from 0:17:40 8:88:88 0:17:40 realistically that's that makes the difference. G first 200 images I rated my images immediately got better. Hands got better. Appendages got better. Like colors, like composition, all of it got better immediately. And the more I keep ranking, the better my stuff keeps looking. So I think you know if anyone hasn't done it or you don't like it or you know you haven't done it for V7 yet just like give it 200 images and see what the difference is. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll I think we'll like we'll get into that too. Um one one last point while you're pulling that up is we are kind of overlooking the omni reference part of this equation. Character consistency is big, but how about the Can we talk about

0:18:06Object reference (Omni Ref) is being slept on

Play from 0:18:26 8:88:88 0:18:26 the object reference? I mean, dude, if it works, like that's going to be Yeah, but I mean like the ability to do that. Um what like that's going to that's getting tossed into this idea of omni reference, right? But like let's not sleep on that too. Like that's going to be that's going to unlock a whole different sort of mode of thinking as well. So anyway, just compete with chatbt in that sense. You know, I think that's where they are winning right now with that stuff. It's just like, oh, I can put my product in there. I think a lot of people want to, you know, this is it's so weird because it's like Midjourney doesn't want people to use it for business and we're all like we want to use it for business. That's what That's what I'm saying. Like that always confused me. And I get it. Like you're not VC funded. Like you're kind of like

Play from 0:19:13 8:88:88 0:19:13 anti- uh corporate world. You know, we're doing this ourselves is my idea and vision. But, you know, the reality is you've got a lot of creative people here that aren't working for themselves too or have clients that need it for that. So, yeah, you you kind of have to, you know, like a lot of freelancers, a lot of, you know, scrappy marketers like, you know, I consider that myself. like a lot of it's not it's not just like you know we're not working at some major 15,000 person agency and we want to use Midjourney for like you know the Tide commercial that I'm doing you know it's I think there's like a there's probably like an assumption just like that's where your head goes but it's like in reality it's me in my sweatpants just like trying to create cool stuff for my

0:19:31Midjourney for freelancers = sweatpants marketing

Play from 0:19:59 8:88:88 0:19:59 clients right you know that it's not it's not like boring we well okay so that just reminds me like the 3D custom icons right like if you don't have somebody on your team that's a designer. Uh, guess what? That's not a possibility for you right now. It is. That's cool, right? Like those things um are so cool, you know? So, like from that scrappy marketer mindset to be to be frank, because that's like I I want to execute on ideas and if there's as little process or roadblocks or red tape as possible, like it's fun to be able to just go in and do those things, you know? It's just Yeah, I'm totally with you on that cuz that was like that's such a simple one. you don't even think about it and then like you know you've been in the trenches with that stuff so you're just like oh yeah icons for like branding and custom things like that

0:20:27Scrappy creativity and custom 3D icons

Play from 0:20:44 8:88:88 0:20:44 like just just works and it's so and it's so simple it's not it's not hard like that would be hard five years ago y three years ago that'd be really hard um you know spend that much time on it too now it's five minutes so yep let me pull this thing up there's a few there's a few things I'll go to actual character sheets though first which I was super impressed with. There's no upscaling on this outside of uh outside of Midjourney's upscaler. Okay. So, just to be just to be clear, you generated these images as a character sheet in one. These aren't four separate images put together.

Play from 0:21:24 8:88:88 0:21:24 Correct. Nope. These are all these are all one shot. So, you know, it's giving the the teeth are consistent, which is interesting, right? Like the teeth are they're not perfect. And then here you can see there's still, you know, that's sort of consistent. The hair is fairly consistent. Her sweatshirt, her necklace here, I believe. Yep. Her necklace is consistent. Um, so like things like that where I'm like, "Okay, that's that's that's new." Like even these little sort of uh twists in her hair up at the top here. You can start to see that's consistent across every image, right?

Play from 0:21:56 8:88:88 0:21:56 So, what was your prompt for that? Like I'm curious with when it comes to the hair, right? Cuz there's braided hair. I decided okay I did braided hair because it doesn't it doesn't give you anything cool like that unless you ask. Right. Well, right. But also like I'm just asking because of the the leap that it takes to to kind of like assume that these are all like to act like this is character consistency in the first place, right? Like I didn't know if you were more generic or not and what that gap looked like for them to close it.

Play from 0:22:27 8:88:88 0:22:27 But let's see. Let's see what the actual prompt was. It should be acid wash. And we're going to have to come back to those Kim Jong-un ones, too. We will. Oh, we will. So, this one we have character sheet split into four photos from multiple angles. 30-year-old black girl smiling with So, only long braided only long braided hair, beautiful skin, trendy acid wash hoodie, and that's it. Nailed all that. And same with acid acid wash hoodie. Yeah, because that's fairly consistent too from shot to shot. Yep.

0:22:31Visual consistency across details (teeth, hair, necklaces)

Play from 0:22:58 8:88:88 0:22:58 So, I was I was pretty impressed with that. This one was just a simple one like a guy. This was the first one I ran where I was like, "All right, let's just see if we can get this guy with the, you know, with the bucket hat and the white sunglasses." This guy looks like a poor man's Rory Flynn. That's right. Like a real like this guy looks like he's been partying a lot. Yeah. Like he he's rebounding from an addiction. Like this guy probably some uh But this one was the one I was the most impressed with when you know I run this all in one shot. But like you see the thing the thing here that's the most impressive to me is this. Like you can't see it cuz it's super close, but this necklace how it's kind of mangled and jumbled up, right?

0:23:08Poor man’s Rory Flynn appears

Play from 0:23:37 8:88:88 0:23:37 It's kind of the exact same here. You know what I mean? Like that's that's something that it wouldn't have got. Even these earrings, they're like the same sort of tech. They're probably not exact one for one, but they're close. The sunglasses are close one to one. Her hairstyle is pretty close one to one. and like you know even just the the textures of the shirt of her leggings the leggings right so like I was like okay this is this is advancing in that sense because I I'm like impressed and that's if anyone hasn't uh if anyone hasn't seen it I did a little thing with this on Bolt Cam with Luma and it's sick like it not not tooting my own horn like just bolt cam in general on Luma is sick like the way that it works is so much fun I

0:24:09Why BoltCam + Luma is ridiculously fun

Play from 0:24:22 8:88:88 0:24:22 can't stop playing with it I'm just like I'm wasting all of my Luma credits on playing with bulk cam. But that's uh that's a fun one. So then again, I took that prompt. This was for uh you know, because I wanted to do chat GBT stuff. So we put a little Kim Jong-un in there. Same prompt works in chat GBT. And just uh you know, gave him a little bit of a gave him a little bit of a swagger. Love it. That's so funny, man. I I love when I love when they have like a little bit of a personality, the image generators, cuz that one's just so goofy. I love it, man. I love it. Yeah.

Play from 0:24:55 8:88:88 0:24:55 So, you know, wrap put a bow on that, right? Like character consistency coming. Maybe some incremental improvements that we're seeing along the way. Don't sleep on don't sleep on the bigger picture of this also includes objects. Let's not forget about that. So, and draft mode's been able to get relatively close with like when you know when you're in draft mode and you're working off of one image instead of you know it's like use this exact person like it's relatively close for what it what it is you know remix to me has never really done that um or been that close in that regard dude it's just better like it's no other way to say it like that's better than what I was getting before the the other thing too like speaking of draft mode has gotten better since it launched. Yeah.

Play from 0:25:42 8:88:88 0:25:42 Um I was getting very washed out, bland images before and I did rank images too at that point. So I don't think that was just lack of personalization from that sense. So it looks like there's like been some incremental stuff that's changed there. The quality that you get out of the gate is better has improved. Also, you know, they did mention they're they're making a change. I don't know if it's already happened or it's supposed to be coming here shortly around enhance and just making that uh slightly better or improved in some some way as well, but I think that's still like an area I want to keep playing with some more. Uh it's just like a entire an entirely different way to prompt, right? So, you know, it's kind of like being purposeful and intentional about like using it and

Play from 0:26:28 8:88:88 0:26:28 trying it. So, I would recommend everybody use that. Again, just to reiterate, you can use voice to guide that, which is super super interesting. Um, but I think it's fun, man. I think it's it's it's really a cool opportunity to be able to develop something with voice. It It feels It feels like a natural progression, you know? It does. And it's just, you know, it's nice. It's nice to have it on the phone, too, because I've been using it on the phone, which is great. It's just like instead of just That's what I need to do. I need to use it on the phone. I haven't used it on the phone yet, but I need I've seen the button. I should. Um, that was my biggest gripe. I'm like, people always like, "Can it be on mobile?" I'm like, "Why do you like what are you typing on mobile that that would take less than

0:26:34Draft mode is quietly improving

Play from 0:27:13 8:88:88 0:27:13 like two minutes to write a whole prompt out?" Like, you know what I mean? Do if you want like a decent like a little bit of detail in your prompt and you're just like typing with two fingers, that feels like it takes forever in my It does. and then you forget it if you misspell something or if you don't put a space uh in your parameters or some [ __ ] like that, you're screwed, you know? It's like, dude, this is brutal. But uh yeah, man. I mean, maybe a couple things too that I that I've heard I I haven't played a ton with that are still kind of like lagging or broken at this point. Uh retexture and mood boards, uh I've heard, right, aren't getting great results at the moment. uh play with that for yourselves. But you know, again, I think that's going to be part of this

Play from 0:27:59 8:88:88 0:27:59 drip. Like things take time to uh to release and build on top of this model. Mood board's been working better with my pcode. So like has it the more I have personalization on plus the mood board? Sensor work better. Are you doing anything differently than you would have with 61 with mood boards? Like in terms of the prompting, stylization, anything like that? No, just like I I noticed off the gate right out the gate when I didn't have personalization on in V7 and was using the m the mood boards, it was like all kind of jacked up and like it feels like you know your profile code is like the the bridge like the bridge in the gap there. Yeah. So that that just a random observation. I have no proof of it. Just feels like that's what's been working. If by the way if you are using mobile double check your default settings. Yeah. I I was running I ran a

0:28:38Mood boards only work with personalization

Play from 0:28:44 8:88:88 0:28:44 bunch of things didn't look at my phone and I went back the pictures. I'm like, dude, these are what are these? And sure enough, like I came to the conclusion that my personalization wasn't on. But I went into the settings and there's no easy way to turn it on in the settings in mobile. And I was like, yo, what? So, I had to like, you know, d-p, you know, but then like I couldn't figure out how to like use a different one. Um, maybe it's maybe it's possible. I didn't look super super hard, but like got to get that got to get that going. Got to get that going. Especially with personalization being the thing, but Um I want to you know what there's like one other thing we were So you and I did like a 30 minute X spaces yesterday. Um which was fun man we did like in the middle of the day. There were a handful of people that joined us. We were just

Play from 0:29:30 8:88:88 0:29:30 talking BSing about some stuff but um you know we you and I have been talking too about just random stuff like observations we had. There was something really cool with the uh the work is mysterious. Oh yeah, you know, Rory threw out this the work is mysterious. Give it a shot. It's fun. And I was like, okay, I'm in. And I started running some prompts and um like started getting like some really cool stuff.

Play from 0:29:57 8:88:88 0:29:57 It's amazing. Like this. I was obsessed with this one. So I like went down this whole rabbit hole with like this like somebody just carrying like this box or there's like a random goat and there's like this these bags of something and like it's just like yo, what is this? But it's dope. Like I just can't I couldn't get away from it for like an hour yesterday. I was like, "Yo, this is so fun." Um there's a lamb in one of yours or a sheep in one of them, too. There was There was Where was that at?

0:30:03“The work is mysterious” = prompt gold

Play from 0:30:23 8:88:88 0:30:23 Oh, here. I think it was kind of It's like a horse kind of. No, not this one. Back up. The one with the Hold on. Wait. Are you talking about like the original one I showed like here? That one there? Right there. Yeah, they severance, man. That's great for Well, then once I started running the different episode titles with the work is mysterious and important. I was like, this is, you know, there's some really funky stuff. That's That's right. I don't know if we said that, but it is from Severance. The work is mysterious.

Play from 0:30:50 8:88:88 0:30:50 And so, you were running that and I thought that was that was hilarious because I was just getting some really like cool fun results. Um, while we're here, by the way, this has changed in the last couple days. Help us improve V7. I like this image. Don't like it? I'm neutral. So, you can actually start to do this on any of your images. Um, I don't know that this does anything for your personalization, but it does help Midjourney. I would maybe we need to get some more clarity on that. It would be nice to understand does this affect my preferences in any way or is this purely from a Midjourney training model perspective one-sided? Um, but I thought that was interesting too. Yeah, I think it Have you noticed your your personalization code changes very

0:31:13New “rate this image” feature – does it help?

Play from 0:31:37 8:88:88 0:31:37 quickly now? Versus Well, is it because you're ranking more images though? It is, but also like it changed. It changed when I ran like my one personalization code, then I had did another one and I ranked maybe 10 images and then my global changed and I was like, "Oh, okay." Okay. So, it's all kind of taken into account here, which I was I was pretty I don't know if I hit like a threshold as to like, oh, it needs to change now. But, yeah, I I just thought I think it might be a little bit more sensitive to change now at this point.

Play from 0:32:09 8:88:88 0:32:09 Is this is this still the work or is this uh now we're into the No, this is a there's some other stuff here, too. Um, these ones are kind of cool. That is cool. Um, there was another one in here like obviously running running some of the nun stuff. Um, na the Mongolian archers was was kind of neat. Um, I don't know like this isn't typically my style, but there was something about this like tower of Babylon kind of vibe to this apocalytic. And then you started seeing these like angel wings up here and I'm like, yo, this is kind of dope. Um, all right. got the fallen angels coming in little but you know I've been dude I've been going hard on the ports uh but pretty much kind of using the

0:32:20Creepy portraits and single-eye stunners

Play from 0:32:56 8:88:88 0:32:56 same kind of like base template prompt here. Uhhuh. Um but getting like some really good faces and uh yeah like I got one with um man I got like a crazy one with this one eye. Um that's just wicked. It is. Did you prompt for that? I didn't prompt for that, you know, and it wasn't and I was thinking, okay, like I've seen it before because I've run enough like sort of like weird portraits to see like with this kind of style of like core template of prompt. But it happened again here like not too far after and I was like, yeah, so creepy. It's creepy as hell. But it's like you just need like that one or two elements

Play from 0:33:42 8:88:88 0:33:42 within an image to make it special sometimes. And it's like, okay, that's totally different. Um, mustache man. I like that, too. Big hand. The uh Where's he at? This guy. There we go. This guy. I could I trust that guy. You do? 100%. I'm not sure if I trust that guy. That guy definitely drinks whiskey, though. That's why I trust him. Fair. Fair enough. Um I'm trying to think if there's like anything else in here there. You know, there's a um there's a band that asked me to do some like art for their album. Sick. And so I was starting to like kind of play around with a few like raw ideas. Uhhuh.

Play from 0:34:20 8:88:88 0:34:20 And I just I don't know, there was something about the vibe of these that I was like really kind of digging um as places to start, you know, like based on the information I got from them. So yeah. I mean, like, dude, I'm I'm having fun. Like having a good time still figuring out the model, you know? These are just all kind of like fun things I've been doing. And again, I probably would be running even more had I have some one fast hour left, but I have none and I have a whole week to wait. So, that is a long time. There we go. That's certainly a long time. I I was lucky my my yearly subscription uh renewed yesterday. So, was the price the same uh from what you paid last year? Pretty much. I think I think it was there's still the same like 90 $96 or something

0:34:25Album art experiments and inspiration

Play from 0:35:08 8:88:88 0:35:08 like that or whatever it was for the month. But you know we are we are in Oh, that was the one thing I wanted to I want to show you how we definitely have to talk about this. How how much better has the explore page gotten? Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. Um yeah, it's awesome, right? Like the baseline quality across the board is so obvious, right? And then also the the good interpretations of like the variance of images. Like you're seeing images that you haven't seen before in Midjourney, which is always cool, right?

0:35:16The Explore Page finally doesn’t suck

Play from 0:35:44 8:88:88 0:35:44 And you and I were joking about this yesterday. That's it's good to see no stock images in here. And it's good to see no coloring book images in here. If you know, you know. You know, there's a lot. And it was like and I' I've actually been pulling prompts from there which I never have really before. Like typically I'd have to I just found it through the smart search like you've done um most of the time but I never really get like that interested by the stuff that's on the explore the hot page but the last five days it's every time I open it I'm like banger banger banger like this one I'll show you try to pull this one up took this one and I was like this is I think it was the top day yesterday. Where is it? It's like some

Play from 0:36:29 8:88:88 0:36:29 crazy Yeah, I saw that one and I was like, "Oh, that's fun. I want to play with that one." The other one was this uh this alien sort of concept that this someone had put up there. I don't know if I have the SREF in here, but it was Let's see if I can find it. And now we're now we're into the the work is mysterious. Work is mysterious, baby. I get I get of course some dark this and I didn't And you know what? Like I didn't even go far enough into the work is mysterious to run it with SRF codes, you know, like or even SRFs in general like it it gets fun. It gets fun quick cuz you know you get weird funky things like this. This isn't even an SREF code, but I was just digging the vibe, right?

0:36:49Remixing prompts from top creators

Play from 0:37:15 8:88:88 0:37:15 Like sort of feels like severance in that sense. The uh where is this alien one that I was looking at though? Oh, here it is. Because this these were just hilarious and like someone put this up and I was like this is cool. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Something I never prompt for. Yeah. And I was like oh it's fun. It's an alien smoking a joint. And then I was like all right what happens if I change the alien to Snoop Dog. Y then I'm playing with like getting Snoop Dogg in that that type of uh that type of aesthetic. So like ethereal ghostly vibe. This is interesting. What I saw here though which I haven't I haven't seen much of.

Play from 0:37:53 8:88:88 0:37:53 There's look at this negative prompt here. Hold on. It didn't It didn't show up in the parameter. Let me just add this again. Prompt. Where is it? Sorry. So, we have no chaos, humans, gems, flowers, diodes, typography, text, logos, watermarks, close-up, galleries. That's a ton of nos in there, which I think works. I think if you want to go that route, too, that's something to consider with like if you're finding things that keep showing up.

0:38:19Prompt inversion: the power of “--no”

Play from 0:38:21 8:88:88 0:38:21 Well, let me take that let me take that one step further, too, because what if and I don't know if Noah has gotten better, right? But like you it used to be like hit or miss. I do think it's gotten incrementally better, but I don't know how I actually haven't tested it too much on V7 yet, but hypothetically, what if you spent just as much time on the nose as the positive part of the prompt? because you could start to rule out things that you absolutely did not want and kind of put you in a different creative corner of what your results are going to get back. I I It's worth testing. That is interesting. I was like organism. This was like one of the prompts I used to run for to get crazy

Play from 0:39:07 8:88:88 0:39:07 results. I don't know if it happens anymore, but we'll see. Like this was like bio biological anomaly. Let's see. Let's see if that comes up as as anything as anything crazy here cuz yeah, I do have the SRF on, but I'm curious with all the nos as to how it comes out.

Play from 0:39:33 8:88:88 0:39:33 All right. So, we're getting some funky stuff, which is what I because it has all the like no humans, no this, no that, which I like as like I might steal that because this is actually comes out pretty damn cool, right? Like, and and this is maybe like a reframe worth testing because if you have trouble thinking of things that you want, maybe it's also just thinking of things that you don't want. Exactly. I think that's a I think that's a like inversion, you know, think like invert the problem here. If you're feeling lack of creative inspiration or you just want to like really put some tension and you know constraint on the tool, why not? I I don't know why. I mean like I've used no before, but I haven't used it to that. I haven't either. Like it

0:40:13Composition unlocks from excluding objects

Play from 0:40:19 8:88:88 0:40:19 see like this is just it's it's just like one of these thoughts that like if we talk long enough it's just it comes up and it's just like oh that's an interesting way to look at it. Damn. I love I love the um I love that composition in that first one and the falloff and everything. Yeah. Like this is where this is where you know look at this. This is great. I love this. Look at the texture though. Yeah. You know like this is awesome. Like I'm going to use this now as a you know probably I'm probably going to play a lot more with this because you can just simple add this now which is great. It's not no like each one individually. It's just like no click and then it all comes up which is great. So we can always go back and like pull that up because that's that to me is like a somewhat of an unlock there. I just I I think so found

Play from 0:41:05 8:88:88 0:41:05 that interesting and I was like this is cool. Now here we go. Here's a mood board. Great. Done. You know, like Yeah. Yeah. And and and maybe it's a let's let's think about that for a second, right? Um well, yeah. I mean it's it's definitely could be a mood board. I was just trying to think of like the intricacies within that. I don't think there's anything like really inspiring by that other than the sense of like yeah, you could already use that as a style reference to generate more. I don't know that you need uh the no unless there were just certain things you absolutely didn't want. But then again, you could achieve that through the style code or the style reference too with the addition of the the positive part of the prompt. So maybe maybe not. But it's

Play from 0:41:50 8:88:88 0:41:50 just the inversion the inversion of using the no parameter as a whole though is a is a huge I think just unlock I've never heard anybody talk about that. I think we just kind of like backed into here but because that's why and if anyone doesn't know what I'm talking about here like the if you look at that that image at the top there that's fun like even that that rabbit Yeah. Yeah. It's been it's been awesome. Like I've just been enjoying this is hot or the top day right? Like all this stuff has been to me pretty good. Um, now of course doesn't want to load while we're while we're on here, but yeah, you see you're seeing things that you didn't see before. Like this one. This is cool.

Play from 0:42:28 8:88:88 0:42:28 This catches my eye because I'm not used to that kind of composition plus like photo realism plus, you know, live action type look. Yeah. Yeah. You know, these I've been looking and I'm just like great. Like this one catches my eye. Like I want to play with a lot of this stuff. Like this is cool. I want to play with this stuff. Like I there's still a lot of there's still so much value in not only just scrolling the explore page for highlevel inspiration and creative ideas, but like you mentioned it, this is a perfect example. Just leave it here for a second. They've got three style references, right, of images, not codes, images, you know? So, like even that I'll see some things from time to time and I'm like, man, they got like I I've seen people with like eight to 10 that are like

Play from 0:43:16 8:88:88 0:43:16 image style references mixed together with some sort of like crazy prompt, random prompt, and it's like bangers, you know? And and like same thing with image blending. We forget about that too, but like there's still so many cool things that can be accomplished from the image blending standpoint. taking two raw ideas, mashing them together, either with a minimal prompt, no prompt, or a very specific prompt. There was, let me see if I have likes have one or two here. This one was the one I was talking about where it was like I just so dope.

0:43:42Image blending, style refs, and banger prompts

Play from 0:43:50 8:88:88 0:43:50 Love that texture. Love the different textures on this, especially for that sort of 3D. Yeah. Yeah, I was like this is you know what this that looks like if if you look just right in the center where it draws your eye and in the periphery it looks like a it looks like a Netflix show. It does like the red the red being there like you could instantly see that being like a kids Netflix show. I'm like damn totally I was I was loving that one. This one caught my eye for whatever reason. I just like the color the color scheme behind like that that purple blue orange. Yeah, it's just like this one I don't know why this one caught my eye too. I saved it because I was just like, it's so simple and clean, but it's like very clean. I saw I saw one with a I didn't save it, but there was I saw it might have been on the explore page.

Play from 0:44:32 8:88:88 0:44:32 It was a tattoo. It was like that paper airplane tattoo, but it looked so good. It looked like it was like literally from the p like a Pinterest page. Um, you know, and it up until this point like you didn't get tattoos that looked like really um tattooed into the skin, I guess, for lack of a better explanation. It just kind of looked like a little bit of an overlay. This one is like, yo. Um, so that was wild. This one, I don't know why I like it, but I like it. And it's just it's very to me it feels very clean and satisfying for some reason. Like these are this is stuff that I would never find on here. I I would like a better way to sort through the things that you've liked though because there have been so many really good images that I've liked historically. Um because

0:44:51Tattoo realism and forgotten saves

Play from 0:45:18 8:88:88 0:45:18 I I treat it like a like a like a Pinterest pin board or um Instagram save or whatever it is Xbookmark and you know it's just that linear scroll and you just you only can go back so far before you get ex exhausted and just all those other ones just die die on the vine. You're just like because they've got really great inspiration for ideas and I always save things too where I'm like I may run into this in the future. I don't create images like but if I have something like this I want to have this and then you just forget about it.

Play from 0:45:49 8:88:88 0:45:49 Totally. And I think it's like it's really fun to look at how people are prompting because everything is different. It's not there's not one structure. There's not one way that anyone's doing it. It's all varied. Like I'm sure this one is Yeah. Like this one's super long. Let me just That was super short. Like I'm just like curious to see how people are. You can also start to get a feel for like this version too as to what's working by what's on here. Um because you'll start to see what people are doing from like a architecture standpoint of their prompts. Like this one got really good output from not that much, you know, like it's that that's probably different than this. Maybe not. I was wrong. I figured that would be more uh more extensive one. But, you know, some of the stuff you see in I'm just like this is this is the And the other thing that we might that I would I would definitely

Play from 0:46:35 8:88:88 0:46:35 have noticed I don't know if you've noticed this is that like personalization is so much easier because the images are better. It's not like I sit there and like I don't like this. I don't like skip skip. This one I'm like every other image I'm like oh that's I like that. I like that. I like that. Cuz V6 it was it was rough. I'm like, do I like this stock photo of a strawberry or this stock photo of a strawberry? You know, like I don't know.

0:46:57Personalization tips and speculative theory

Play from 0:47:02 8:88:88 0:47:02 You know what? Okay, so that I think this is like one of the other points that we were talking about briefly yesterday on spaces, but you know that that whole personalization thing. We did touch on this a little bit last week, but it's fascinating because we still there's no black and white road map. This is exactly how you should personalize, right? Like I'll kind of go down this path of like doing this and doing that and doing that and then I'll come back full circle to the beginning where it's just like rate the one that you think looks more beautiful and I'm like well here I am. I just ran a [ __ ] marathon around this thing and I'm right back at at the start. Like, let me try this again.

Play from 0:47:35 8:88:88 0:47:35 Like, and I've I just, you know, like I haven't done it yet, but one of the things we were talking about yesterday is I want to do a personalization where I don't skip a single image and I just want to go through each time and select one without skipping and just kind of see, you know, what happens there. But, you know, like there's always been a speculative thing for me that it's taking into account camera angles. It's taking into account lighting, colors, uh it's taken into account, depth, uh composition, you know, like obviously like the style itself, sure, that's the most obvious, but like those other elements seem to matter too. And even with personalization, it's like if I've ranked a bunch of images that have the face up close, like it's going to

Play from 0:48:22 8:88:88 0:48:22 default to that more often, right? So, you also want to have like a good balance. Last thought on that before I I turn this over to you too is like I also struggle and kind of like go back and forth on the fact of like I kind of want to rate the broad array of images that I create I could or want to create too because that way it's got information from me about that type of image. Um, again, one of those like speculative hypothetical, I'm not sure, but it kind of just feels like, okay, if this is like the type of image I would create at any point, I'll probably rank it, you know? Yeah. Like I think I think personally it does take into account like what you're what you prompt the most because like I have like when I run

Play from 0:49:08 8:88:88 0:49:08 my personalization code just on something random. Like the other day I was just running while waiting for Midjourney 7, I felt like, you know, like what's his name? um in the shining writing like you know all work and no play makes Jack a bad boy or whatever it is. I was I was just prompting Midjourney as the prompt like waiting for version seven just like hitting it like over and it was first off it was producing some bangers. I will say that just like just the word Midjourney and then dot dot dot. I've done that before.

0:49:20Just prompting “Midjourney…” for kicks

Play from 0:49:35 8:88:88 0:49:35 Well, I didn't do the dot dot but I have done the Midjourney thing before too. Yeah. And it's good and like I can see it with when it runs with my profile code versus when it doesn't. my profile code. It's it's vibrant neon colors and I'm like it has to know that's me because that's what I do, you know, like I like neon and I like dark colors around it. It's like a I was like a neon pop. I'm a you know child of the 80s and 90s. What can I say? Um and through and through. It definitely comes through that way because my first global profile on V6 was so dark and contrasted and like textured and I was like this is everything I run. Like it can't just be from my rankings, you know, like it has there has to be some other thing taken into account. But mine's gotten softer

Play from 0:50:21 8:88:88 0:50:21 over the last uh over the last two weeks now. My I've noticed it. I gotta change that up a little bit. Yeah, man. Well, hey, you know the other thing though, I wonder why from the explore page though, they don't weight those more heavily. It's true. That's why, you know, like if personalization is the goal in getting ultimately to the types of image that you like. I I just like I know there's a reason, but we don't know why. We haven't been told why. I would like to know why. Um because it's just like it seems very easy to just like we could go through explore page and we know for the most part they're like better images.

Play from 0:50:59 8:88:88 0:50:59 Yeah. And like there's just a good versatility of things there and you could accomplish it in shorter time. It feels like a a better indicator into as to the things that you like I would think. So I just wonder what the what the rationale is there. I don't know. I I should spend more time on the explore page than I do. I like it now because it ever since they started curating the like your homepage, I I've noticed a big increase because I just wasn't interested in what was going on there unless it was something that I was interested for myself. You know what I mean? Like it was something I was looking for myself and I wanted to search and see what other people were doing. Yeah. But if I I wouldn't just scroll it on a whim cuz it would always be like this. None of this pertains to me, it feels like. Um, but yeah, I've

Play from 0:51:47 8:88:88 0:51:47 just been I've been loving seeing what people have been doing on X. I've been watching Yeah. a lot of people finally starting to come around. And the interesting thing was that I saw and I want to see if I can actually pull this up. Give me give me two seconds here if I can find I think it was Alex on here did a did a little um comparison where he made a video between made a video between Midjourney and runway on the top box and on the bottom on the bottom view he did Imagin and V2 and just to like compare the aesthetics and you could see that Midjourney has brightened up so much.

0:52:13Midjourney is finally brighter (literally)

Play from 0:52:30 8:88:88 0:52:30 And it looks it looks like the exposure is all the way up, but let me I remember that. I remember that cuz I think I saw your comment on it. Um and yeah, cuz I saw that post and I remember uh I was more interested in your comment and what like comparing that result than I was act I didn't I didn't dig into his post exactly um analyzing it, but from a glance perspective 100%. Right. Like we've we've been talking about that too, like the images have just been like slightly underexposed forever. And now this feels like the first model that feels um just in line or maybe even slightly overexposed, you know, like it's bright.

Play from 0:53:15 8:88:88 0:53:15 Let's see. So like to me it was it was pretty glaring when I was watching it, right? Let's see. Here it is. Like when if we go back to the beginning, even look at the Yep. You look at the first shot, right? like the what the it's brighter immediately, right? The second shot. This one I would say it's brighter cuz there's more contrast than this one. Like it's more exposed in the top one, right? This one definitely more, you know, there's there's more contrast in the in the image end and the V2. Like I was just going through every single one like this one more brightness on the character himself. That's the that's such a good example because what's really impressive about this is Midjourney is doing a great job of still giving you this cinematic color graded L

Play from 0:54:03 8:88:88 0:54:03 preset post edit whatever the hell you want to call it feel while m while making it brighter which is kind of hard to do sometimes you know and so when you compare these well that one was maybe like the exception um but like it because that Midjourney version it looks more real and believable um slightly more right because it's just it feels like it's nailed both the highlights like the lights and the darks and it's got this color graded that feels very believable and real you know and um yeah I thought that was just fascinating to see and then the the call out that you had did he mention that or did was that just an observation that you had from it I can't nope that was just me right away see I mean like that to me was the more interesting point is just like oh yeah

0:54:19Brightness vs realism: what's changed in V7

Play from 0:54:50 8:88:88 0:54:50 like that just like look at the difference here like this is you know this is pretty this looks like how Midjourney used to be like that's what it used to be and I I have a feeling because it's like a it's almost like a default setting for some of these for some of these image generators it has to be because the more dark and black you have in here that means the less detail has to be applied there right so great point when you look at the black here you don't have to put a lot of detail into that because that's a great point background but the more light you have you have to put all this detail in everywhere. Here there's a lot more black and like contrast because it just sort of fades. Same thing with white, right? So that's why you it feels like these are more contrasted because there's more detail in the in the depth level in here. Like look at the the the foreground here or at least the

Play from 0:55:36 8:88:88 0:55:36 midground with these two. The depth is so is very shallow. You have a shallow depth of field, right? This is very blurred. And then you look back here how far this goes back plus how far the grass goes back into the depth without it being I'm assuming this was the very similar prompt or the same prompt. So you know you get like a moderate depth of field here like that's still in that's still in focus. No, I think I think that's a really really really good point. The dynamic range is how you would like sort of describe that. The brightest brights, the darkest darks, the details within them. And you know, when you think about that from a photographer standpoint, you know, that's the difference between a camera that costs $2,000 and a camera that costs5 to $10,000. You know, the the ability to

Play from 0:56:23 8:88:88 0:56:23 capture the extra detail within that. And I think that's just a terrific observation in general. But and you can see you can see we've tal maybe I mentioned this on the last one, the depth is so much better in this version than the last one. Like you see this one feels like if you were to try to understand how much footage is behind this woman, there's probably like 10 15 feet. This one goes back 20 30 feet, right? Like this, there's a lot of depth here. As you can see, it gets back. You still have detail in the flowers all the way back. Same thing here. I'm not I'm not knocking on Google. I'm just saying Oh, yeah. We're like split we're splitting hairs here, but this is cuz you see it. This is this difference right here. Yeah. the lighting here.

0:56:55Dynamic range: the secret sauce

Play from 0:57:04 8:88:88 0:57:04 Like you have you have the shadow on the face. You have this side painted. Like she has multiple dynamic pieces of lighting going on right now on her, especially in the hair. Same thing here, but less less so. Like it's just on top here and just like a little bit angle from the top down. But to me, I'm just I'm noticing how much brighter it is in general. Like every single one of these images or every single one of these videos, you notice that Midjourney is the brighter option. Yeah. Even even this one, it's probably supposed to be more silhouetted, but it's still brighter, I would say. Like that car in the background, you can see more detail than you can see here. Great, right?

Play from 0:57:38 8:88:88 0:57:38 Like these are and I I just think there was an overall that might not have been the point of the post, but it was like an overall good expose. I know. I just thought that that was like the the that might have been the more interesting story actually. Um and I just Yeah, I mean that's that's it. It's cool to see, right? Cuz like also when you think about that, I I have had to alter some images with the brightness before I post them in the past like a few times too. You know what I mean? Like there have been occasions like that where I've like posted it and then I've you know I'm looking at how bright my screen is compared to like what what gets posted and making sure that like it does like sort of deliver what I hope it delivers, right? Because sometimes even just adjusting brightness

Play from 0:58:26 8:88:88 0:58:26 on an image does a ton, you know? Um, totally. Or the highlights or the shadows or whatever, you know, when you get into when you get back in there. But the other the other thing with that is the uh, you know, there's if you go back to version five, right? I'm sure you remember this. If you did any sort of portrait work, like everything was silhouetted, right? Or everything was um, what's the vignette like everything had that like black outline like it was dark because they were trying to put so much and it was perfectly centered and it was But you see that I mean I love I love Wes Anderson but like you just had that overload Wes Anderson look and I you know first when I started doing portraits with the journey like that whole West I feel like everybody went through that phase too like that was like a initiation practice of because it

Play from 0:59:13 8:88:88 0:59:13 worked with what the tool was good at you know uh it was good at that right away. Yeah. But you know like Yeah. rounded edges pastel colors. It was like, "Oh, this is like this is Wes Anderson style, so let's like do it." Which is like, "Okay, then you know, it's it was just something that I went back and I ran I ran some stuff. I ran the same prompt from version five and then version seven and I was like, "Oh, it's so dark and then it's so light."

Play from 0:59:40 8:88:88 0:59:40 And I'm like, "That's that's quality improvement. That's just not a that's just not like a settings change. That's just it's applying more detail into areas that can that now can be eliminated." So, we're nerds. Well, this is where I'm like, yo, we're looking at you, Midjourney. I mean, like, we we love you guys. Love us back, dude. We're giving you guys some great insight here. Free like just nerd insight, too. like this is this is probably stuff that you guys may talk about internally at at the team, but like and props to you guys. Like this is an awesome tool of course like we we love using it, but I mean when you run these many, you know, this many images that you and I have, I mean you start to just kind of pick up on some of these like invisible things, right? Like yeah,

0:59:47Midjourney’s stylize slider

Play from 1:00:26 8:88:88 1:00:26 you're not going to see this unless you just have gone so far. But it's picking it's it's the micro. I think that's why we probably all love it. Number one, it's creative, and two, the micro details. Like, you just can't get those that level of detail really anywhere else. Like, there's no styliz that I know of in any other image generator, right? Like, that's right. How simple is that one? I mean, there's there's creative tolerance or whatever, you know, the waiting or the temperature. That is true, right? Isn't that true?

Play from 1:00:53 8:88:88 1:00:53 Yeah. It's like, I want to do this concept, but I just want to make it more ridiculous. Like, it's like, yeah, wouldn't that be nice in every single I don't know. No one I'm sure Leonardo has it. I haven't been on there in a long time. But you know, it does I don't think many of them have it because they're all focused on coherence, right? And Midjourney is focused on creativity. So that creativity though can produce some bangers when you give it the parameters, right? So it's like I just want that sometimes. And it's like to me it's like the balance of coherence versus creative interpretation because I still like using those just categorical tokens that just can produce some like really fun stuff, you Wobbishabi. Wobbies. That's a great one.

1:01:30Nuzzle, tonal balance, and V7 token talk

Play from 1:01:35 8:88:88 1:01:35 Wobbies. We've talked about a bunch on here. Nuzzle. I've been using it with animals. It makes them look even cooler. Oh yeah. Yeah. Try it with Try it with, you know, like a horse or like a goat or something. It makes them look like extra gnarly. And I'm like, this is great. I love this thing so much. That's a wonderful token that you threw out there. And we got to go back to the token. We got to go back to do a token episode soon, I think. So, yeah. Like maybe maybe we play around with this some more. figure out kind of like and maybe we'll we'll do some purposeful testing because yeah it's been a while what works with V7 now um little you know because it it has changed right so extreme tonal balance is back that's all I know I was that one like disappeared in V61 for some reason like it wouldn't work and now I ran it again and it was like spoton I'm like yes there we go I'm

Play from 1:02:22 8:88:88 1:02:22 gonna I want I want to try tonal contrast um because you know when I was doing a lot of photography, I would purposely go in and and do the dodge burn, but like really make sure there's some micro detail and tonal contrast when it came to like wrinkles on the face and skin textures. And you know, now with V7 too, it got me thinking. I was like, "Oh, let me take something that I've already upscaled and even and then let me go into like sometimes if I'm doing something quick, I might use like Snapseed." Um, I have Lightroom. Like I'll use Lightroom.

Play from 1:02:55 8:88:88 1:02:55 Again, just depends like how I'm going to use this. If it's just like something I'm posting, probably not. But tonal contrast, man. Tonal contrast was is awesome because it like just it it really provides contrast in the darks, the lights, and the mid tones, right? The highlights, the darks, and the mid tones. And it can really like just give that pop factor. Um, and it's specifically really great with faces, too. So, just I want to try that token out. I bring that up because I haven't tried that token on V7. Wonder if that has any sort of manipulation or factor in. But uh yeah, it's a good one. It's probably, you know, it's something I'm always looking for. I know you got like I know you've done like the tonal balance and micro detail. Yeah. I mean like I love that stuff because I just

Play from 1:03:41 8:88:88 1:03:41 like dark and light. I just like out I do. I do too, man. I wish I was more of a bleached out minimalist type person, but I'm not. I'm a you know, I'm probably two personalities. A little bit crazy, a little bit calm. Who knows? But there, dude, there's so many there's so many good things happening. I think everyone needs to chill. It's all good, baby. Out. Chill out. It's not It's not the end of the world. This was this update is just because it wasn't like the best thing you've ever done on the first day. Like, if you quit if you quit at that point, like whatever, you know, like, and you're probably not even listening to this if you did. Yeah. But the point is is, you know, let's judge it in a month, two months. Let's get all the stuff that's supposed to be in here in here and then let's let's talk about

1:03:43Chill TF out—it’s an alpha for a reason

Play from 1:04:28 8:88:88 1:04:28 it. And remember the whole character consistency omni reference that was supposed to be the cornerstone of this whole thing. It wasn't even about you know the improvement in quality and the texture that was like down the list. So let's get this other stuff then we'll make you know some more observations there. But yeah man let's wrap this baby up. Let's um let's come back next week. I think we'll have some more observations there. And uh yeah man. What do you want to What do you want to say to these folks? Uh like, subscribe, maybe just like or comment or subscribe.

Play from 1:04:59 8:88:88 1:04:59 Either or any combination of the three. Any of them work because it all helps. So, anytime you guys do a simple.3 second push of the button for the like pumps us in the algorithm, we get a little bit more, you know, add a couple more people to the family that want to come talk about this stuff. So, one one other note, why don't you do this? Tell a friend if you've already done that. Tell a friend. Tell a friend. Tell a friend. Just Just a quick one.

Play from 1:05:25 8:88:88 1:05:25 We're here. We show up every week. Dude, I you like we're kind of getting close to the one year mark on this. Got a couple more months. We're almost there. We are. We're I think this is episode 37. 37 38. All right. Something like that. It's a lot. That's a lot of episodes. It is a lot of episodes. Stacking them. Stack them. Yeah, brother. Well, hey, man. Pleasure as always. Not you out and uh we'll see you guys in the next one. Later.