Ep. 56: Go Flux Yourself: Midjourney Still Runs the Realism Game

0:00Intro, eyeballs, and a Friday brain check

Play from 0:01 8:88 0:01 What's up everybody? Midjourney Fast Hours podcast episode 56. Welcome back. Go ahead and like and subscribe. Let's get that out of the way right away. And it's a beautiful Friday. It's a beautiful Friday. Rory Flynn, we're back and um we're to talk through Midjourney We're to talk through all the updates like we usually do outside of that though, man. um What's on your mind, man? How's the week been going? It's been good. You know, we hit we hit like 17 degrees here this week.

Play from 0:26 8:88 0:26 So that was like a taste of like what the is going on here. I hate this time of year for that. Seventeen, I was like, what is this for anyone who's in Europe or doesn't use Fahrenheit? That's like below zero significantly already. And it's like, what the hell is going on? So there was that this morning. I had a little bit of a rough morning. don't know. You were contacts, right? Like this is used to. OK. All right.

Play from 0:52 8:88 0:52 So I'm blind, like straight blind. And I went to, I think like negative four, something like that, negative four and a half. Yeah. minus 3.5 and it's like after three, man, you don't, you don't want to go anywhere without those things. You can't see, I can't see, I can't drive with glasses because I don't have peripheral vision. So it's like, I need contacts in at all times. But like this morning I went to go put them in and I've got my right one in left one, shoved it in there.

Play from 1:23 8:88 1:23 Then I was like, you know, I'm looking around like, is my vision still blurry? And for the next 20 minutes, because I can't see trying to find this contact, if it fell out of my eye or not, I'm pretty sure it's just floating around in my head right now. So I probably have two contacts in, but one's just floating in my eye. it. It was just like, it was like, whatever man, F you. It's just like, that's what you get. mean, contacts are so brutal. mean, uh they just are, they're so irritating and unforgiving when you leave them in too long for that day or, you know, maybe you didn't have great sleep or maybe you fell asleep with them on accident.

Play from 1:59 8:88 1:59 I mean, there's just so many things. Like you said, putting them in, you drop it, then you got to look around for it. I mean, it's basically invisible. You're looking for this little ridge and it would always end up like on the sink for me. I'm like, okay, where is it on the sink? And you're definitely not putting it in your eye from the sink because that's just like, kind of bacteria am I just shoving right into my eyeball? But, you know, I'm not a germaphobe, that but my eyes, I treat a little bit differently. You know, they're already bad enough.

2:05Contact lens horror stories, Mission Impossible, Black Mirror eyes

Play from 2:25 8:88 2:25 I don't need anything else to happen. but you know, watching them, I forget which Mission Impossible it was on one of the plane rides I was on in the last couple of months. And they had they had like the little AI contact. I was thinking I was like, that would be sick one day if I just put that in instead of like the glasses and it's just like the I was, that's always been my thought. like, people aren't gonna wanna put something exterior necessarily, but I think they would do something that is more low profile and visible like a contact.

Play from 2:54 8:88 2:54 And of course there's a Black Mirror episode on that too. So, just. radiation from my contacts, you know, brain cancer from having my awesome AI contact that like reads the world for me. Yeah. we're, you know what I've been thinking about too? We're only, what is it? 12 days away from new Stranger Things Season 5?

3:07Stranger Things Season 5 hype and binge vs weekly TV

Play from 3:19 8:88 3:19 I started, I started, I started doing the recap stuff. I'm like, I can't even remember what we've been doing here. I gotta go back and refresh before we get going. I'll probably, I'm probably gonna go back and, I don't know that I'm gonna watch the whole thing, but I'm probably gonna go back and watch Season 4. Leave it on in the background. That's what I've left the first two seasons on in the background like a couple nights in the last two three weeks just like Refreshing like in my been like subconsciously like not actually watching but like you know is hearing it and I'm like, alright That's what's going on.

Play from 3:51 8:88 3:51 Gotta get gotta get through the rest. I heard it's I think it's eight or ten episodes and then like majority of them are Hour and a half to two hours like it's like something crazy like that. They filmed like ten movies. Yeah So are they gonna are they gonna split this like last time? They are. times. They got Thanksgiving for the first part of it, Christmas for the second part, and then New Year's Eve they're dropping the finale.

Play from 4:19 8:88 4:19 god. Okay. Okay. a little bit. Like Severance, I liked waiting a week for it. I liked not being able to binge it and then it's done and then I forget about it. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah. It was nice to go back to that sort of TV watching where I was like, Monday nights. Have you and your wife watched the new Frankenstein? Yeah. No, but I saw it on Netflix. It looked really good. Like it just looked well done.

Play from 4:44 8:88 4:44 I was like, OK, maybe maybe I'll give that a shot. All right. long. I think it was like two and a half hours, but it was good. It's a movie. Yeah, it's a movie, it's not a show. Okay, all right. Well, I actually like that. That's that's nice. Every once in a while, I don't have to walk dedicate 10 hours. Like, do you have a preference now? If you see a new thing come out, are you hoping it's a movie or a series? If it's something I really like, I hope it's a show.

4:51Movies, biopics, sports docs, and couch season setting in

Play from 5:09 8:88 5:09 if it's something I want to be invested in, you know, I like the show sort of storyline because you can go deeper into it. Like like Harry Potter to me is a great like a great sort of like transition into television because movies are awesome. Right. But it's like the book you can like hit all the fine details of the book when you do a series. Yeah. Yeah.

Play from 5:35 8:88 5:35 I like when books are done. In series to, you know, like books when you movies, it's so hard to jam that stuff into or like, you know, like I wish like, I don't know if you saw, what was that Queen Bohemian Rhapsody like like the Queen documentary biopic, whatever. Yeah. that was this was like several years ago, right? Yeah. It was the yeah, it was the it was the guy it was the great actor to that that one dude that I like ran.

Play from 6:04 8:88 6:04 Remy Malik. Yeah. So it's like I always I always wanted to like the the shows like the biopic stuff that everyone does, like with especially with the rock and roll stars. I want like a series on that. Like I don't want just two hours. I want like the come up. want the cut. want like the fall and then like the you know, the I want the classic storyline that everyone likes. You know, so yeah, yeah. Or did you watch the the Cowboys one?

6:23Cowboys documentary, sports pipelines, and TV as passive story feed

Play from 6:30 8:88 6:30 That was Cowboys. It was good. That was a good one. That was a good one. That was uh because like that was that was when I was a I was growing up and I remember pieces of it, but like it was just it was really in depth, not boring at all either. And it was a really good mix of both from the player side, but also like the Jerry Jones side. it's the interesting side.

Play from 6:55 8:88 6:55 right? But it's, know, like just really getting into some of that was super interesting. yeah. It's been good man. I haven't been able to watch TV for months and seemingly the last like two or three weeks. I'm just like, it's cold, it's dark. I'm like, I'm watching some TV at night. Like I'm gonna... Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is the time. This is the time. Football and college basketball simultaneously. ah It's couch season.

7:00AI overload, nobody keeping up, and why this pod exists

Play from 7:22 8:88 7:22 Yep. But coming with that, it's also, you know, play on your AI tool season, seemingly every single minute of the day, other than that, because unless you can somehow magically disappear for a week, it feels like even gone for like two months with this stuff. And you know, complain about that every episode now. Sorry, guys. It's just like, yeah. was the truth is like, I was doing a recorded some some panel session the other day, and it was basically like AI adoption.

Play from 7:56 8:88 7:56 And the two other people that were on there with me, one was from Microsoft, one was from Google, and it was interesting to get their perspectives. But it was also just like we were talking about, like, what are the biggest challenges? And it's just like that was what I brought up. I was just like, honestly, it's just the velocity, right? Because I'm doing this every day and I can't keep up, right? Like this is the stuff, let alone when you're in house and it's not your full-time responsibility and sure there's overlap, but it's like, how the hell do you do it?

Play from 8:22 8:88 8:22 You don't, you know, like there's only so much that you can do and understand. So it's a real challenge. And that's why you all are listening. Good choice. Good choice. choice. That's a good segue, by the way, Rory Flynn. Maybe, as in tradition, let's start with Midjourney um We were talking last week, and I think we were thinking we were going to get these two new pieces of the puzzle, which we have not gotten yet, ah which are going to be user profile style creator.

8:30Midjourney profiles, Style Creator, and new personalization talk

Play from 8:54 8:88 8:54 On office hours Wednesday, um it sounded like they were close, but I also don't know when this is going to Midjourney Updates and Features Is this going to drop as soon as we stop recording this podcast today? Could be. Could it happen over the weekend? Maybe. um But I am really interested in those two things. These are the bigger updates that we've gotten in a little while now. I think these are both bigger than Style Explorer even. So I'm just really interested to kind of see what that looks like.

Play from 9:22 8:88 9:22 um Personalization isn't listed here, but that's also kind of part of this puzzle is like, how are they going to do this new personalization? I don't know if that's coupled with the user profiles or not, not sure. But just to remind you on the personalization side, they're talking about getting away from this scenario of A and B, where you just gotta choose one or the other or skip.

9:29Like/dislike buttons as hidden training data and 7:3 aspect ratio love

Play from 9:47 8:88 9:47 So I'm interested to see what is that gonna look like? What does that new personalization look like in process? There was one other interesting thing that came up. on that was like, I asked a question that did get answered on this, like, does this factor into personalization? I've always wondered about that. Like, I like this image, I don't like this image. I don't do it either. And I had a feeling it might, but David was like, yeah, it's supposed to in some way.

Play from 10:16 88:88 10:16 I'm like, okay. Well, no one talks about it and I have no idea how much that would influence it. If they told me it did significantly influence, I would go through all this right now and do that. I'd go through all those images and start. for a, can we have a shout out for 7:3 aspect ratio, by the way? I always feel like it produces better than 16 nine by like significant amount. Like it's like not that different, but different enough to where it's like, it gives you like better composition because it can't be so symmetrical.

10:35Stills Archive, cinematic framing, and cleaner compositions

Play from 10:47 88:88 10:47 Like 16 nine. Do know what I mean? right here, I mean, there's no composition in the prompt, but everything's perfectly centered. Yes. And then like here, she's like off, she's like off center a little bit. And like, that's why I mean, I like you get the get the way and I guess she's kind of perfectly centered, but I tend to find maybe more dynamic with the face positioning. You know, I did too.

Play from 11:12 88:88 11:12 I've always liked 7:3 as well. ah This is all Still's archive. All stills archive. Yeah, I just running some tests before I threw that in. I was just uh mentioning that on on X. Feel like this is one of those things that we've talked about a long time ago and people probably forgot about. And then I can't remember why I was even doing these. But then I was like, wait a second like this feels like an easy share that obviously like has value.

Play from 11:40 88:88 11:40 But if you start with stills archive with these prompts, I mean. Let's just be honest, this is tapping really into the training data set. I just feel like you're getting much better results here. I mean, you can still do cinematic still, but I feel like this stills archive has always given me more polished cinematic stuff for whatever reason. Here's a random question for you. When was the last time you used S-referendum now that you have Style Explorer?

12:00Style Explorer vs old-school SREF and what quietly vanished

Play from 12:10 88:88 12:10 Have it. I was thinking about that the other day. I'm like that's a that's something that just went totally down the drain with Like not in a bad way. Not like I'm not I don't feel bad about it I'm just like I haven't used it again like I wonder if that's gonna be like gone or like Grandfathered out now that you can just go find whatever you want instead of like even though it felt kind of cool though Like it felt fun to go Yeah like not everybody's doing this.

Play from 12:36 88:88 12:36 this is like maybe, you know, something that, um you know, feels a little bit more like. unique, like not everybody's using it in this way, whereas now it's so front and center. ah Maybe that's also a good segue to kind of like this other stuff which had come up. ah This one under the radar, ah but this uh one of the employees from Midjourney shared this and I'll just kind of show this in case anybody wants to follow.

Play from 13:06 88:88 13:06 And I don't think anybody else has really talked about it. Where is it? Here. TAS. What do we got? So three little things, these aren't huge by any means, but I think everybody should be aware of these. Number one, we talked about this when Style Explorer dropped, but now the Smart Search functionality is right here.

13:16Three under-the-radar Midjourney Smart Search + right-click + Option-upscale tweaks

Play from 13:31 88:88 13:31 So what I mean by that is see this search right here? So we can click here, Smart Search, boom, boom, right out of the way. So that's awesome. So that's change one. That was one of the little updates. There's two other ones, small ones. Number two is now you have the ability to right click on any of these things, right? So any of these parameters that you've got in here, profiles, chaos, whatever uh aspect ratio.

Play from 13:58 88:88 13:58 And now I can smart search this and it's going to filter by that aspect ratio. It's going to filter by my chaos 50 so I can see all the images I use chaos 50 on. So it's just like another way to quickly search through things and sort things. Love that nice quality of Midjourney life. state there. And then always appreciated. And then lastly, on any image that hasn't been upscaled, just hold option from this screen and pay close attention here, right?

Play from 14:32 88:88 14:32 So you've got very subtle, very strong anime. But if I hold option, these change to upscale, subtle, upscale creative and loop. Huh. Alright. That's cool. I haven't used the loot much. Yeah. nice, nice. Cool. Appreciate it. used Lube much on Midjourney. Have you used the Lube video? Like I rarely do it. I do what I'm thinking about video, I don't create a lot of videos.

Play from 14:59 88:88 14:59 You know what I mean? Alright, fair. I've always like, need that you need like the right use case for it. You know, I think I get uh to me it's like loop is very specific in something that you want to do feels like a creative decision. But that's a that's neither here nor there. That's just a random musing. Sorry, Friday. Yeah. long story short, right? Those smaller things we pointed out, those are live.

Play from 15:25 88:88 15:25 You can access those. These, the immediate releases we have not gotten yet. Pay close attention. Maybe we'll get something for Midjourney over the weekend. We'll see. Maybe. Maybe Sunday night. Something totally random. Outside of that, Roy Flynn, I mean, not a lot here. Same stuff with V8. I'll just maybe highlight this part. Like, I'm very curious on the less reliant on text prompts and more intuitive visual control.

15:35V8, fewer wall-of-text prompts, and a move toward visual controls

Play from 15:54 88:88 15:54 What do we think that means? What do think that means? I have no idea. don't know what it looks like, but I think it's the realization that when we're thinking, when they're thinking about, you know, evolving this UI UX functionality and they're seeing the way people are prompting and they've got all these features that don't, there are just so many ways, right, to prompt without typing in a paragraph worth of modifiers, right?

Play from 16:24 88:88 16:24 Like, yeah, you might have cases where you're doing something very specific. which usually is related to a use case in the business world where you or I maybe have a client or something, we have to develop something very specific in mind. But when you're talking about just a general Midjourney community that uses for fun or art or whatever you're trying to do or just like cathartic energy, like you don't need to have all that. There are just so many other ways to shortcut the process, right?

Play from 16:50 88:88 16:50 Like style refs, image refs. know, chaos, like just all of those things kind of come into play where you maybe don't have to use a bunch of words. And so I don't know, I don't know what it looks like, but I think it's just like them nodding their heads with things that like we've been talking about for a long time, which is just like, there are just so many other good ways to prompt outside of starting with an empty box. Yeah, it's I mean more intuitive visual Controls does that mean we're gonna get like something like a nano?

Play from 17:22 88:88 17:22 Is that what that means? Like, okay just like change this and that's it or is that does that mean like we're gonna be using a lot more just Reference images a lot more like is it gonna be like an infinite flow sort of yeah don't know if you remember like when Leonardo did that it's like it feels like a while back. I don't know if it's still around because grok does it now too Like grok you you put in a prompt and like on Grok Imagine and you just like put in a prompt it'll generate like four images like to your prompt and then if you keep scrolling it just keeps generating and it goes in like infinite variation like if you just keep going it just keeps generating so it's it's pretty interesting like I I was like why is it doing this when I first went on there because I saw a lot of people creating some decent stuff on Grok and I was like hmm this is what's all about you know just go check it out and uh you know the the

18:12First look at Grok Imagine’s interface and infinite scroll feel

Play from 18:13 88:88 18:13 The interface looks very familiar, but it's, you know, it's just this infinite sort of like scrolling. I don't even know if it like catalogs unless you favored it. Like, I don't know if it catalogs, just like goes. um But are you an actual GROK? I think you have to go to GROK Imagine, like as the actual website. Let's see. Is it grok.imagine?

Play from 18:39 88:88 18:39 Here, let me just type this in. We'll do this in real time, folks. Yeah, grok.com slash imagine, okay. I can sign in with my ex account, right? Yeah. F it, we'll do it live. We'll do it live. pretty sure I don't know we're gonna look this up but I'm pretty sure it's free like I don't know if it is or not but regardless it's uh you make sure you switch that to image though I did I made that mistake of doing video it's like why why is this happening yeah which is interesting but just I just type in anything just just like come up with something off the top of your head

Play from 19:27 88:88 19:27 Still's archive. Yeah, OK, let's do it. Let's do it. And let me change the aspect ratio too. It's got that Sora feel to it, where you only got three options. So right now, it should just generate. I think it should generate four, or maybe it's generating six, but if you scroll, it'll just keep generating. which I was like, this is different. remember.

19:35Sora-style endless bottom feed, variants, and “make video” in Grok

Play from 19:52 88:88 19:52 to how long this is gonna take? It shouldn't take that long. was, to me, it was really fast. Okay, here it goes, speeding up now. But see, it's going to give you like different styles. It's going to give you like different perspectives. And if you click into one, then it'll sort of give you like, see how it's generating on the bottom, like continuously. holy cow. Yeah, that's wild. Right? Which I was like, huh, this is interesting.

Play from 20:18 88:88 20:18 It's just a different thing I haven't really played with yet. I remember Leonardo had something like this um back in the day. on this on XS? I don't know. It feels like this might be automated. Or if it's not, it's like, this is already images that people have done, and they're just pulling them in based on tags and different data sets, maybe. That's what I'm saying. That's why I was like, interesting, because you're like, and if you go back, it'll be different.

Play from 20:46 88:88 20:46 If you click out of this image. I kind of like this style or image roughly. And now this is like that very subtle, very strong kind of feeling where now you've gotten maybe closer to what you wanted. And then. is going to be a lot better. A lot more variance. yeah, now you got all the variants.

Play from 21:14 88:88 21:14 Let's do a more interesting one that we're really going be able to tell the difference. this was I was actually surprised with some of the some of the quality on this stuff and then like the art like the direction like moving like this is, does this default to video? No. Oh, interesting.

Play from 21:39 88:88 21:39 So you could just, yeah, okay. And then. So that's going to be like that individual image, like the variance, right? I'm pretty sure that's how it works. And then you have like the then like, if you go back to the full, the full like scale of all of them, that it's like the bigger variance, you know, so it's, it's very, it's just like, I wasn't expecting that when I first jumped on there, but I was like, it's kind of cool.

Play from 22:07 88:88 22:07 Like it's, taking me in a, down a different rabbit hole. You know, maybe try, maybe try like movie scene or something like that. that different. No, I would try like movie scene or something like that. He has stills archived, maybe movie scene will give us like lot of different variants. Yeah, here we go. Let's see. horse.

Play from 22:32 88:88 22:32 it said, oh, it said movie scene with a horse running. So it's like, it's like iterating off of what you're doing. Alright, so we got like the... much more much more literal than the journey let's see you go down, let's see how far it goes, because I feel like this looks very cinematic, right?

22:51Cinematic looks, color grading, and Grok as “idea and curate” engine

Play from 23:00 88:88 23:00 Like there's a bunch of different looks, color grading, contrast, but there's some decent stuff in here. When I was playing around, was like, all right, I mean, that's cool. doesn't even feel like image generation to me. Like this, it feels like idea and curate. It's kind of how it is. It's a different, different workflow. yes. Super interesting. be good if you go through like, you know, do you have like a more detailed prompt of something like one of those like one of those people in New York that you were doing or like on the streets of New York?

Play from 23:33 88:88 23:33 Like maybe if you put like one of those in. weren't even significant prompts either though. I'm curious to see... I put some more detailed ones in there, and the first run was awesome, and then it started to trail off after that. It wasn't great. That might be a good one. Let's try something like this.

Play from 23:59 88:88 23:59 So if we go here. Let's drop this and see what happens. good, also like a... feels like this is also very inter-interpretational. Alright, Grok, there we go! No, my god. Oh my god. Oh my.

24:19Live NSFW surprise inside Grok Imagine and instant rating change

Play from 24:24 88:88 24:24 Our our rating just just changed ah in the moment in real time here. All right. It's I could have picked a better one than that. Oh my God. live for anyone who's listening on Spotify and not watching. just got some, we just got some maybe let's call it inappropriate content that would have filters everywhere else, maybe except for GROK.

Play from 24:50 88:88 24:50 So I mean, yeah, let's say let's let's let's get rid of the, you know, Buffalo Bill over there. Hey, man, that looks that looks kind of like my homesteader stuff. I mean, the danger of doing this live. This is Ed. Interesting.

Play from 25:15 88:88 25:15 All right. I'm curious to see if it'll go because that felt like a very that seems to me like a good prompt because it's looking pretty specific on just about everything. ah wonder, where did those videos go to? where can I find everything now? If I go back here, voice, imagine, projects, history, here we go.

25:23Finding Grok history, stills, and video exports with sound

Play from 25:41 88:88 25:41 No, this is. Yeah, I definitely have some. see you on the OK. If you're back on, go back to the where you just were. On the bottom, right next to the Imagine bar, there's like your little is like a bunch of little images. Yeah. So I guess that's like whatever you clicked on. me with the Grok video. Took us still and it just, yeah, Grok did that, man.

Play from 26:07 88:88 26:07 Kind of dope. ah Okay, so here are the videos. Pretty nice. Not bad. I wonder what that export's at. Did it add sound? it's got sound. You guys can't hear it, but. Alright. What is the deal with? What is the deal with grok? Is it grok premium that gets it like hold on? We're have to. We're gonna have to check something here real quick.

26:31Who actually gets Grok video and Drew’s first real reaction to using it

Play from 26:34 88:88 26:34 Yeah. played with this, which I obviously haven't, um this could be interesting and fun to explore here. I mean, it's a great way to go and like, if you want to just sort of like harvest an image set, like, just use it in Midjourney, like, type in movie still, and then like, find an aesthetic you like, and then bring it in. Something along those lines is like a style reference. Yeah. OK, that's the still OK.

Play from 27:01 88:88 27:01 Download wonder what download quality is. that's for the video. called Grok Imagine powered by models like Flux and Aurora is free to use. can generate images on grok.com or x.com and like the quarter of a bell on the free plan. Comes with limited usage quotas though, so hey. All right. Well that's... interesting, man.

Play from 27:27 88:88 27:27 It is interesting because I saw people posting stuff and they were like, rock imagine. like, you know, the last time I remember using it, it just looked like flux. Like that was, yeah, guess maybe they're using some fine tune models or... played with Mystic? I know we were gonna talk about that. I haven't yet. Have you? And do you wanna pull that up or do you want me to pull it up? I think that could be interesting too.

27:38Mystic 3 enters the chat and upscaling less for analog vibes

Play from 27:53 88:88 27:53 let's see... this one... where am I? Yeah, I'll pull it out. I gotta find the images I was doing. I didn't run a million. Like, is this what you did? Or are those upscales? These are, this is, I've been using these precision upscales and I'm really loving the grain. Like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Play from 28:21 88:88 28:21 You know, especially like, okay, so actually one other thing on Midjourney, I would say. I've been upscaling less. I've been upscaling less. think for a long time I just, I wasn't doing it to necessarily upscale to upscale. was just almost using it as a sorting and organizational feature of the ones that I liked, the images that I liked. um But like, I just feel like when you're going for looks like this, you don't need to upscale because it's just gonna sharpen it too much.

Play from 28:56 88:88 28:56 And it's just, it's not gonna look like analog or a phone photography anymore. um And I just, and again, like if you're going for photo realism, I think there's almost like that element of it's too sharp. It just looks too, you know, polished. Yeah, and in sort, like that's just another AI indicator. So I've just like been thinking about that. And it's like, okay, now just take this. If I'm really interested, I kind of like maybe adding a little bit of grain.

29:02Why “too sharp” screams AI and how grain + smart detail saves realism

Play from 29:22 88:88 29:22 I'm doing this ultra detail, which I think is a little bit of a sharpener. So you'll kind of see that here. It's pretty good. But, you know, so it's adding that detail, but it's not, yeah. So I got that smart grain in here. smart grinds off of 16. All right, cool. That's why. Yeah, so I mean like, you know, just adding that, I don't know. Like to me, it's just like, okay, boom, that feels more like if I'm doing anything photo realistic loosely, I just feel like maybe think again, if you want to upscale it or not, if you do just be maybe be a little bit more cautious about it.

Play from 30:01 88:88 30:01 um And maybe I'm just talking out loud to myself. I don't know, but it's just like a realization as I've had because I've been also having to create a lot of things that were more lo-fi. or analog or phone or everyday or candid. And it's just like, you don't even need to upscale those, right? Because they're gonna look too sharp for that look, right? So. The one thing that I've been, and I hate that I do this, is just like, even when I don't create images in Midjourney, it's the only tool that can out paint accurately.

30:18Outpainting, editing, and why Midjourney still wins surgical compositing

Play from 30:34 88:88 30:34 Like, that, am I missing something? Is there any other tool that you use to out, like, if I have a square and I need to turn it into three by two? Photoshop doesn't do the trick. Firefly doesn't do the trick. know, Flux doesn't do the trick. do it, I just take it into Midjourney. It's like an unintended use case. Yeah, it's and then like even for little small edits where I'm like, I want to just like spec a couple things out of here or like, you know, the one that's one that's really hard for some reason with with flux and other ones like eyes.

Play from 31:10 88:88 31:10 Like it's like, oh, like, you know, if you have like a you generate something like the pupils like a little bit wonky and like facing inwards or something like that, like it's not perfect. Like it just like looks like that. you look at the image and be like, that's the F'ed up part. But going into photo, into Photoshop with Firefly, whenever I, you know, try to do generative fill with the eye, never can match the style of the eye. It's always wrong. The same thing with Flux. It's always wrong.

Play from 31:35 88:88 31:35 Mid-Journey actually gets it least close. Um, or at least I'll have to, or I'll highlight both eyes and just have it go and do that. But some of these in-painters like they're like, I feel like we haven't gotten like a great update. in that in a long time. Like there's... yeah. I found myself doing that same thing. You're right though. Like I'll give you a perfect example. I think like I was trying to, this was too zoomed in and I needed more negative space.

Play from 32:05 88:88 32:05 And it's just like, okay, I'm just gonna go in here, drop in the photo and back out. You know what I mean? Like just back out and then be done. Because it can match, because Midjourney's style range is so far, it can do it all. Right? It doesn't have a problem with it. Like, if you're trying to do something like, you know, very Midjourney-esque in another one, like if you're trying to do something with like, you know, Flux or utilizing something that has a very Midjourney aesthetic, like I think those like super, super sharp contrasted, like retro, like retro, like pulp fiction type novel cover look.

Play from 32:43 88:88 32:43 You know what I'm talking about? looks like Midjourney five. You put that into something else that just like doesn't get it or something that has a lot of texture doesn't get it. It's just like, you can see like where the line of demarcation is until it's like up Midjourney, something else. uh you know, that's interesting because you've got now, you know, Nano Banana, where you can maybe make some of these edits, but there's no brush.

Play from 33:11 88:88 33:11 No, there's no brush. I mean, you can do that. and there's no slider scale where it feels like you're really in control of it. You gotta use text. That's a little hack for anyone that's using Nano or C to C Dream or content flux context, anything like that. If you want to use a brush, you have to do it externally, or I think FreePick or Higgs Field has it, whatever. I don't use either of them for that purpose. like, I'll do it in the compo.

Play from 33:37 88:88 33:37 Like in Weavy I'll do it in the compositor or the painter node where it's like, I need this thing to go in this specific place where it's like, I'll just say, like if we were looking at my paintings back there, I want to get rid of them. I just like. brush over it with white paint stroke and just say like remove the white paint stroke or like add something exactly here in this bounding box. Right. So that's a good way to do it. um But like I said, I think that there's something left to be desired in like the outpainting and painting space as of recent.

Play from 34:07 88:88 34:07 I don't know. Midjourney, you guys, if you're listening, still still tops that one for me, at least. having Nano Banana capabilities with the edit and then having the brush inside of. Yeah. Sick. So I like that call. That's good, man. Cause that's one of those things that like we've experienced, but like we forget about. But I do that from time to time. Like I need this, you know, let me just bring this in here.

Play from 34:35 88:88 34:35 Yeah. Let me change the aspect ratio really quick. Because their subtle upscale is also like, when you upscale the gallery, it's like a nice little refresh on some of that stuff. to me, harmonizes everything really well with that. yeah, I found I'm just finding all this weird stuff when I do it with other tools, and I just keep going back.

Play from 35:00 88:88 35:00 So I like it. Don't get rid of it. Yeah. you wanna share the screen on the Mystic V3 stuff? Cause I haven't generated anything. I mean, unless we wanna do something on the fly like we did with Grok. Yeah, let's see. I don't think I have anything like mind blowing here, but let me see. I just ran it through a couple times. The, let's see. Well, this one I did in Grok.

35:01Mystic 3 V3 screen-share and first impressions

Play from 35:27 88:88 35:27 Imagine, I was like, that's cool. I was like, really like this image, but that was fun. Let me see if I can find, let's go actually. Let's do the grid view here. So this is Mystic. This one was done with. Editorial portraits on the new the new setting on the new the new model on mystic 3 Which I was like, you know if you go in I mean the skin there's a lot of skin detail you you see the noise when you go in really close, but I Was like this.

35:45Editorial portraits, skin detail, eyelashes, and hands that finally look human

Play from 36:00 88:88 36:00 The only problem here is that the lips are way too. There's way too much symmetry going on with the cracks um One thing AI has a ton of problem with to is eyelashes always like it never It never nails the eye. mean, this is pretty damn good, though, like even from the inside of the eye detail and things like that. top of the eyelashes are popping. There's no eyelashes on the bottom, basically. There's no volume. Yeah. then the eyebrows, most of the time, unless you ask, this is like so perfect.

Play from 36:30 88:88 36:30 But I guess I did ask for a model, so I should take that back. But this is what I really like, is the skin on the hands here. Right? Like this stuff, this is starting to get like impressive now. Like that's really, really realistic. I mean, you know, those are the little things that you look for. Like I can tell a flux image right away because it doesn't have any of this stuff. Like this is, to me, really good. Like again, same thing on the subtle details of the finger here.

Play from 36:55 88:88 36:55 Like this, this almost looks like a fingerprint. These are, these are impressive. Like the nail is actually contoured well, like from a shape standpoint, like it's not jacked up. um You know, I look at the, let's see, I wish they had a better interface for zooming on here. hey, you want to do something with so like on that that model in the left hand side where you can change that.

Play from 37:21 88:88 37:21 Do you want to run like a prompt with all of the different models just to kind of compare them? So that's what I was doing here. This one was the new state. So this is the same prompt, right? I ran it with editorial portraits, which got me to this one. So if you've seen the models here, where are we? Let's see. Let's get rid of this first, though. All right. So here, Zen for smoother, cleaner.

37:26Mystic 3 model comparisons: Zen, State-of-the-Art, and weird description blur

Play from 37:47 88:88 37:47 State of the art is the new one, the standard 4K generation, most advanced. I actually got the worst image out of this one, but I think it might just be the prompt, so I don't know. They have like all these models which it's like I love the descriptions because they feel so like open-ended and not concrete. It's like could be good for this, you know, the what is this a prompts containing words like war may be flagged and not generating sorry about that but there's nothing we can do.

Play from 38:14 88:88 38:14 It's like in the model description I like that uh but you know realism may not follow your prompt well like it's very specific in terms of what they say but this one was Editorial portraits, which is very, you know, harsh texture, right? This one was also editorial portraits. This one was the new state-of-the-art model. I thought this one is the worst model that the worst one that I produced. This looks like...

Play from 38:39 88:88 38:39 Yeah, this one was great. This was the state-of-the-art one. I thought this one actually did really well with like the the lighting and shading. We're missing some skin texture here. but I don't know if that's because of the way the blur pattern is and the focal point, but it looks like it. We just have like that little radial blur like right here. ah But again, like the depth on the eyelashes, the depth on the skin cracks, like it's really impressive.

Play from 39:06 88:88 39:06 You know, that's stuff that we're not getting with other tools unless we're using, you know, even like the eye, like the, yeah. like that really is pretty impressive. Right? Like this is, you know, we have all these little micro fine skin cracks. Like that's pretty, pretty crazy. um Yeah. Even here that this eyelash and this skin here, this is guys. Yeah. If you're, if you're listening on, on Spotify or something like that, we're like really zooming in to these images to see like what this actually looks like.

39:16Zooming all the way into pores, fingerprints, and micro skin texture

Play from 39:39 88:88 39:39 But this one was more of the, this one was also state of the arts. This was the new model. Same thing, you know, looking at, you know, these micro pours, like almost, it's kind of, kind of wild. I'm not saying these are going to win any awards. Which one is this? This is also the state of the art. But then I was, you know, I was playing with like some, some prompts in Midjourney. They got really good stuffed with like some of these, like this prompt in specific was a great cocktail shot that I got.

Play from 40:10 88:88 40:10 It kind of like nothing burger on this, you know? This was interesting. um This was the state of the art one. Even the fine little bubble detail in here. Are you prompting, how different are you prompting for this versus May Journey? Or are you, or, yeah. Like this one, what did I use here?

Play from 40:36 88:88 40:36 Let's reuse parameters. This one was beverage iced coffee swirl. Like if I went to Midjourney and showed you what it came up with for this exact prompt. No x. Get out of here. Why, why won't? just put in coffee swirl. I have a feeling you don't do too many of those.

Play from 41:05 88:88 41:05 All right. Good, good call. I was like, well, I want to just do that. So like I thought Midjourney did a pretty decent, pretty decent job with some of the stuff, especially the texture and like stuff like this. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was pretty. to the one before that too. I really like. Yeah, this one, I like to see this for the textures, it's sort of a prompt I use a lot of times for that, like, it's difficult physics wise to sort of get that that milk swirl to look real while it's splashing also.

Play from 41:35 88:88 41:35 um So that was, don't you think there's something interesting to Rory that maybe like people like you're close enough to this stuff now with the photography side, I think uh to feel this. But like when you're out photographing stuff, there are a lot of things that when you look back at the photos you took, they look different or you might notice something that doesn't look proportionally correct or feels off.

Play from 42:03 88:88 42:03 And that doesn't carry over to AI imagery for people that aren't photographers. They see that and they're like, oh, that's why it's not real. But it's like, I guarantee I could show you stuff in my camera viewfinder that you would see it and you're like, no, that's not real. But like there are these abnormal abnormalities, disproportionate things that just kind of happen that you don't expect depending on maybe, yeah, camera artifacts or even the shutter like.

Play from 42:33 88:88 42:33 what's your shutter speed, whatever it is. And because that isn't just general knowledge, that becomes one of these things where, oh, well, yeah, I tell that's that's AI because of this. And it's just like, well, I could actually take a photo like that and you would see similar things there, believe it or not. And I feel like that's just not a known thing, generally speaking.

Play from 42:58 88:88 42:58 Do you feel that? Definitely feel it. Like I definitely know what you're talking about too, where it's like, unless it's such a curated set, right? Like it's, and it's so curated, but like you're going to get stuff that's like that, like randomly out of place. Something's like, you know, like a rapper in the background that might be like standing up against the, like, know, like a candy wrapper that's on the ground. Like if you're taking a picture or something. Yeah.

Play from 43:23 88:88 43:23 could be doing this, right? And if this was a photo, you would think, that's AI, because this dude's finger's not straight or whatever. You know, like if I could bend this, you know, whatever it is, but it's just like, no, it's just because the camera caught that exact moment in time. And so there are those discrepancies that take place. I don't know, it's just something I've been thinking about too from time to time. glare, you know, like a weird light glare off something that like totally bleaches like something that it shouldn't.

43:44Cocktail and food prompts where Mystic falls behind Midjourney

Play from 43:51 88:88 43:51 And it's like, well, that's weird. That looks like AI. uh get a, you like someone bumps into you and you take a picture and you just shoot right into the sun. It's like something like that, you know. I mean like anything like that. It's just but that's the good a lot of times that's good. That's the good stuff. this is, hold let actually, this one, pull this one back here. Again, guys, I didn't do anything like, you know, mind blowing here.

Play from 44:19 88:88 44:19 I was just testing like what was in my, I thought in my library, like at the moment. Like this was the, this was the new state of the art model on the realism side. I thought this actually did pretty good outside of messing up like the fork and spoon here. What we got? But you know what, I've generated a lot of forks and spoons. When you get multiple utensils in there, ah you know, usually messes something up because the forks got four individual pillars and you know, the spoon shape could be, you know, like the bend in the curvature angle of the spoon from the handle could be different, you know, like those things.

Play from 44:57 88:88 44:57 Like I thought this was, I actually thought from a, from a realism standpoint, like outside of like the food itself, like just the overall look, like I was like, yeah, this, this has got texture, like even on this wood in here, you know, going all the way in, like the chips on the wood and the grains on the texture, right? Like, unfortunately, you know, some of the stuff in here, like the zucchini is pointy. And, uh, then we have like random purple potatoes.

Play from 45:23 88:88 45:23 I don't know if that's a tomato or not. Maybe looks like it. It's like, You know, so there's some things. Yeah, like this one actually looks fairly real. Again, the forks are always a pain in the ass for some reason. like I was, at the, even like the flower dusting on the food here. And you get some white stuff on the inside of the fingernails.

Play from 45:48 88:88 45:48 even like the finger... so we were talking about this though, Rory, but if you like that image and there's just one or two things off that you'd like to clean up, where are you gonna take that? You gotta take it out of tool. Yep, Midjourney. Yeah, so that's the thing. Like these were. like whatever you're doing is just. Yeah, because this, like some of this stuff, I was like, okay, like this is, you know, again, state of the art.

Play from 46:15 88:88 46:15 This one is, you got really good, really good texture on the, on the bread itself. And then on the syrup, like it actually distorts sort of the reality through the, through the, the visibility of the syrup, you know, which is, which is cool. That actually might be like a prompt token to try, like through syrup. It looks like something's happening here, you know?

Play from 46:41 88:88 46:41 But I just overall, like, let's just see. Let's just go to the let's go back to the Midjourney one because I ran them again. one of those perfect images where you do the infinite scroll. Whereas like you go into the syrup, there was like some sort of like little, like look like a window in there. You go through that, then what's through the window. could do that. Let's hold on. Let's see. What did I, let's reuse this prompt. Let's see.

Play from 47:08 88:88 47:08 hands breaking. Let's see. This one's gotta be in here somewhere. Cause I thought this, I thought mid-juring did a really good job with this one, which it normally doesn't. Like normally doesn't get these pictures down. Like these overheads with, uh, let's see. Cause a good reminder that aspect ratio can help or hurt what you're going for. I think the fact that you did this, this isn't one of those things where you'd probably wanna do it landscape.

Play from 47:39 88:88 47:39 It would probably be better to do this square or portrait, because this is, it's just easier to get the items in there. Yeah. And it's also like, I like when you do the vertical cropping of shots like this, these overhead flatways, because you get like the cropped composition of like the circular bowls, like instead of it all being in there perfectly, like that's just me. Like I like it. I like the stuff cropped a little bit.

Play from 48:05 88:88 48:05 Yeah. But yeah, so mean, same prompt. You can see the styling in Midjourney looks radically different than what it does in Mystic. But I was overall just like pretty, pretty impressed with like the depth. texture in here. So that was, you know, even on the toast, right? Like it's just kind of nuts how good this is getting, like from a really granular level.

Play from 48:30 88:88 48:30 Like even like the shading on the syrup here, like coming into, you know, over the over the crispy piece of the toast. We have some little micro hairs here, though. I don't know what that is. We don't want we don't want to be eating that in our toast. So ah yeah, don't don't know what that is. But yeah, so You know, these are very random, like very quick test guys and like the five minutes that we have to sometimes do this stuff. And it's just like, take the first thing that's in my Midjourney library.

Play from 48:57 88:88 48:57 Like let's drop it into there. Yeah. Yeah. No. We don't have time for that. But I like that. I think I need to play with both. I mean, I played with Grok, obviously, here live, but I need to play with both of those more em or just in general. which I was not expecting. uh C dream from the, not the edit one, just like image generation. It's got because it's like these native, like, I think that's where I'm guessing Midjourney is probably going to go there.

Play from 49:27 88:88 49:27 Right. Uh, these are, these are both like default 4k like mystic now default 4k C dream default 4k I'm guessing nano two, uh, no, which we'll probably get in the next 10 days, something like that. I think it's next week. I don't know that for sure, but I think I saw some tweet too, somebody found where they had had the name for it.

Play from 49:54 88:88 49:54 They had found maybe like a potential release date also associated with it, which was I think the 18th. We'll see if that happens. What is the 18th? What is that, like Monday or Tuesday? Well, if it's a big company, they're going to release on early in the week to get the press for the full week. Yeah, Tuesday. All right. That's Midjourney releases when they want to. Right. Like they just do whatever. All these other companies plan the releases. You want to get it in early in the week so that you get the full week of PR.

50:05Nano Banana 2 rumors, native 4K wishes, and how Midjourney might respond

Play from 50:21 88:88 50:21 Right. Like that's the that's the point. Don't drop this on a Friday afternoon and get nothing from the weekend. Right. It's I would say they're probably going to do I'm guessing it would be at least two K hoping for four K because That's the one problem with Nano for me right now. That's like my only sort of like real issue. Sometimes like lack of like lack of style, but also it's definitely on the lower end of the resolution scale.

Play from 50:47 88:88 50:47 But then you have the problems with Cdream where it's like so overly HDR and saturated most of the time when it retouches your photos. It's like too much. Like don't do that. I don't think a lot of these, just based on client projects and stuff too, a lot of these other models are just not great at lo-fi stuff. I mean, I think like Midjourney is just so much better with the realistic everyday lo-fi, amateur, harsh flash, whatever you wanna call it, photography.

50:58Why Midjourney still rules lo-fi, disposable camera, and Polaroid-style shots

Play from 51:23 88:88 51:23 It's like, you could put all that into the prompt. in Adobe and these other ones. And it's just it's so, hard. I mean, you can just stuff the keywords with these things. And it's just I mean, it's just so hard to do. um And I bring that up because like, you know, Roy, like there's there's obviously like this polished editorial magazine void that I can fill and I can fill it fairly well.

Play from 51:53 88:88 51:53 There's also these opportunities that exist for brands that wanna bring these more everyday shots in, phone shots, UGC, know, like this maybe low-fi analog 90s Y2K aesthetic, whatever it is, and it feels more real and more... um I don't know the right word.

52:16Grok Imagine vs Flux vs Midjourney for lived-in Y2K flash photos

Play from 52:19 88:88 52:19 Familiar, lived in, less staged kind of thing. just none of the other ones do this really well. We like, we all like seeing Polaroids, you know, like we love that look. love sort of like what it looked like when we go back and look at our school photo. Not like our, when you get the disposable camera photos, you know, like you go back and see like you're, from the year 2001, 2002. And you're like, that looks like the photo looks awesome.

Play from 52:47 88:88 52:47 It's not a great photo, but the photo just looks awesome. You know what I mean? It's like every, like no one's, it's not even like a good candid shot. It's like everyone's like cropped in a weird way. And it's like your grandparents taking pictures or something like that. But check this out. Hold on. So I just ran that on Grok Imagine. And there's some interesting stuff like this actually looks to me looks pretty good.

Play from 53:15 88:88 53:15 Like that's has a very Midjourney vibe to it. I don't know if you're getting that. Like some of this stuff looks very like you wouldn't get that on. You won't get that on Flux. um it does feel like, I feel like I can feel the flux in here. Like, cause flux always kind of felt like there was some overlap with Midjourney, but it's not the same. No, it's still too sterile.

53:39Flux face, direct flash tests, and “go flux yourself” is born

Play from 53:41 88:88 53:41 Like, there wasn't enough background detail. There wasn't enough, like, texture details. was always just like, to me, like, the base, like, the most base of what you can get. I'm such a flux hater, though. I'm sorry. It's just my personal opinion. But, like, this one, let's just see, like, let's add a... Direct flash, night, photo, fisheye, lens, effect, bold, expression.

Play from 54:06 88:88 54:06 Probably spelled that wrong, but I can't see. Let's just see. Like this is like that style I think you're sort of alluding to, right? That's the... It really goes real fish eye. But yeah, definitely can see the flux in here. You can see by the faces, right? Like there's a flux face that I like to, uh, I like to call out a lot of times. Yeah.

Play from 54:31 88:88 54:31 Yeah, it's, it's flux face. Very simple. I actually liked this one. I might save this one. Like that, like that light bloom in the background. That's good. But the go fuck yourself. Whoa. That might be on the thumbnail, ladies and gentlemen. Go fuck yourself.

Play from 54:57 88:88 54:57 Yo, flux face man, flux face. that might be on a Midjourney fast hour t-shirts. It's good man. think there's like this grok thing was totally different to me. I don't know. I just when I did it the other day I was like it's just different different experience I guess which I'm you know everything's yeah yeah yeah and from nodes to like nodes to something like the one thing that would be good I think is like There's the node space.

55:30Nodes, Grok workflows, and why scrolling is faster than wiring graphs

Play from 55:33 88:88 55:33 When you need to work quick in not having a system, it's not the quickest place. Some of it is. FreePic makes it really quick. Weeby can be, if you want to run 10 variations of it. But it's not like that. That's quick for finding a solution. Like, oh, scroll. OK, edit, go, scroll, scroll, scroll. Yes, that. Instead of generate and wait. um which is interesting.

Play from 55:59 88:88 55:59 I don't know, just just like sort of like spark something up there. Yeah. Yeah. And just sort of infinite, which is I guess where we're all going with this, right? Yeah. Well, man, what do you think? Anything else you want to touch on before we jump? mean, there wasn't really anything else in office hours other than we were just talking about nodes and they said they are specifically avoiding node-based interfaces, which I'm not surprised by because Midjourney doesn't really seem to ever care about what anybody else is doing.

56:01Why Midjourney is avoiding node-based interfaces on purpose

Play from 56:34 88:88 56:34 Also, I think the node-based stuff, I was going to say the node-based stuff is... That is more team workflow oriented than Midjourney seems like it ever cares about. So I would totally expect that. um when structure and process needs to be replicated. That's where nodes come in. You know, when it's just purely creation, that's that's can be Midjourney. But I think that's where that's the difference.

Play from 57:00 88:88 57:00 Right. But I guess I can just go flux myself. And yes, well, that one's going to get reused, I think. But if you're still here. Legitimately. listening still. You know what to do. Like and subscribe. Tell your mom, tell your friends, tell your dog, tell your mailman, tell dog walker, your local barista.

57:05Final sendoff: go flux yourself and get out of here

Play from 57:30 88:88 57:30 If you have one of those things, your coffee shop person, your garbage man, um, anything, you know that we're here and we'll be back. We're now we're in a bet. We're in a good groove now. We've been going for four weeks now because we're not both traveling for six months at a time. So we'll keep, you know, were both looking at our calendars next, we were like, oh man. So hang with us, we're gonna try to fit it in if we can. I mean, obviously like the next two weeks are between I think what we have on our plates, just on work and then the holiday, but we'll make something happen.

Play from 58:04 88:88 58:04 And uh I think obviously we should have profiles, style explorer stuff we could dive into at that same time. So yeah, man, should be good. ah It'll all drop next week. Yeah. damn, the therapy session's over. back to normal life, back to me, back to my no jail self that I'm going into for some of these projects. Get in there and flux myself.

Play from 58:31 88:88 58:31 But uh it was looking good until, you know, up until the last couple of days. Now it feels like we're absolutely humming into this holiday. And I was really looking forward to just relaxing for a couple of days and like easing into the holiday. Not like... full speed ahead skid stop but when does it ever not go that way um whatever you guys aren't here to hear me complain well I guess we can end it with that unless you want to say something positive instead of me complaining all right we'll end it on that.

Play from 59:05 88:88 59:05 Thanks for joining us guys. We'll see you guys in the next one. And uh yeah, excited for what we have coming up with some of these new drops. So we'll catch you guys later. See in the next one.