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Midjourney Prompt Engineering

20
Jul
2023
Technology
Prompt Engineering for Midjourney

You’ve seen the breathtaking AI-generated art Midjourney offers you, but you're new to prompt engineering skills and don't know where to start. 

As with almost any tool, playing around with it is key to better understanding it, and this Generative AI tool that introduces a new way to create art pieces is no exception! 

We've already covered both Midjourney and Prompt Engineering in previous articles. Here, we focus on the tips, tricks, and hacks that you can use to tweak your Midjourney prompts.

What is Midjourney Prompt Engineering?

To sum it up, Prompt Engineering is the process of organizing the data in text instructions and commands to get specific results from a Generative AI tool. 

Since Midjourney is an AI art generator, Midjourney Prompt Engineering refers to how users create and refine prompts to get stellar AI-generated images. 

Let’s see how to write effective prompts to get outstanding text-to-image results! 

What is a Midjourney Command?

Commands are basic keywords you type to change the default settings and start working. For a list of all commands, all you have to do is type a forward slash "/."

The first command you'll probably use is /subscribe, which lets you join a plan if you haven't, while /settings will allow you to check and change the standard settings. 

The most popular command to get started is /imagine, which will deliver four newly made images based on your written prompt.

Yet, some other commands will let you interact with existing images, such as how /blend lets you combine two images to incorporate their art styles and colors. 

If you're super into a generated image and want to know about the prompt that created it, you can use the /describe prompt. 

What is a Midjourney Parameter?

Parameters are additional options or values you can add when writing prompts— the bot allows you to add as many as you wish at the end of your text prompt. 

Harnessing Midjourney parameters will be key to the diversity and speed of outcomes you’ll achieve. Let’s go deeper into our Midjourney parameters list! 

1. Midjourney Ratio Parameters

Are you wondering how to refine an image in Midjourney? With –-aspect or –-ar! 

You can change the ratio with –-aspect or –-ar, declaring both width and height with the following format: –-ar <value>:<value>. Remember that the default aspect ratio is 1:1.

If you want an image suitable for a smartphone, you’d write something like "joyous white and yellow cat wearing a hat –-ar 9:16." For a Smart TV, you’d switch the aspect ratio to –-7:4. 

2 Midjourney Chaos Parameters

In Midjourney, the Chaos parameter is great for those who want to step out of what's conventional. If you're into atypical designs, you'll love to play around with this parameter!

The default (and minimum value) is 0—you can scale it up to 100 with the format --c or --chaos <value>. For example, "a cheerful, young smiling pirate wearing a straw hat –c 65."

3. Midjourney Style Parameters

Thanks to the style parameter, you can easily control how professional your generated images look in terms of design, such as colors, shades, lights and composition. 

With a default value of 100 and a range from 0 to 1000, the prompt would look something like “a cartoon skeleton with a long hat singing and playing the guitar –s 600.”

You may be wondering why everyone doesn't set the value to the top 1000. The answer is that, as you scale up the style parameter, Midjourney will give less priority to the prompt.

As a result, you will surely get aesthetic, stylish, and beautiful images, but they will be less connected to your prompt than the ones it would give you with lower stylish values.

More artistic images don't necessarily mean you will like them better— yet feel free to mess around with the values and experimenting until you get the desired result!

4. Midjourney Seed Parameters

Seed parameters are the way to create your designs based on images of existing styles and help you get consistent results once you've found a style that works for you. 

Within the Discord server in which Midjourney works, you’ll first need to get the seed number from an existing image by reacting to it with the envelope button (✉️). 

The Midjourney seed that generated the image will appear in the chat, and all that is left is to copy and paste it next to your prompt with the –seed parameter. 

For example, "an open treasure chest half buried on the shoreline sand –seed <value>."

How To Assign Weights to Prompts for Midjourney Images?

You can assign weights to images with a double colon symbol "::" to modify adjustable parameters or attributes and to control Midjourney to provide more accurate images.

Think about a captivating image of a futuristic metallic horse and a person with a synth-wave style, just like this post we wrote about how designers can use AI

The image has two main items: a futuristic metallic horse and a person, but let’s say you want the horse to be more prominent and large in the image. 

You can assign it a higher value on the same prompt: “A synth-wave portrait of a futuristic metallic horse::2 and a person::1.”

How To Use ChatGPT for Midjourney Prompts?

ChatGPT can be extremely useful for quickly getting written representations of ideas and thoughts, and it’s particularly useful for getting AI-produced images for abstract concepts. 

Adjectives are vital to getting the aesthetics you're looking for when generating Midjourney images! You can use them to set the image’s environment, mood, style, etc. 

In this context, you could ask ChatGPT for a list of adjectives you can use to describe the general emotional aspects you’re trying to evoke in your Midjourney-made image. 

Some popular Midjourney adjectives are colorful, cheerful, glitched, enraged, ghastly, neon lights, joyful, warm, vibrant, and surreal.

Likewise, you can also ask ChatGPT to give examples of standard styles and artists and have Midjourney give you images created in their style.

You can work with styles like minimalist, gothic, morphism, hyper-realistic, vaporware, 3D image, oil painting, anime-style image, 32-bit isometric, watercolor, Pixar animation, etc. 

You can even choose your favorite artists' styles! Think of Tim Burton, Andy Warhol, Refik Anadol, Kohei Nawa, Wes Anderson, Rembrandt and more!

The Future of AI Midjourney Prompt Engineering

In the AI-driven landscape we live in, prompt engineering rose as a key skill for users, teams, and businesses looking to harness the potential of Large Language Models LLMs

As a company, whether you’re building advanced products or enhancing User Experiences, mastering the art of writing effective prompts is essential! 

One program that’s even called the best prompt engineering course is Andrew Ng’s “ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers,” as it takes a deep dive into practical techniques to create advanced prompts for different AI models.

Other key figures like Isa Fulford are also fostering AI systems with groundbreaking advances in developing intelligent systems that work across industries.

Industry leaders, like the San Francisco-based Anthropic, are recasting what we thought was possible in terms of AI research, yet with a strong focus on AI safety

Anthropic's CEO, Dario Amodei, is one of the leaders who’s taking a step forward in directing the efforts of AI companies to make Artificial Intelligence systems safer and more efficient. 

“One of my main reasons for focusing on risks is that they’re [AI] the only thing standing between us and what I see as a fundamentally positive future.” — Dario Amodei.

For recently started AI engineers, the right engineering courses can be vital to growth, with institutions like Vanderbilt University offering specialized programs to build expertise. 

Whether you’re aiming to work with AI companies or focusing on AI safety, the right education is crucial to succeeding in this rapidly growing sector.

Conclusion

The official Midjourney Discord bot is one of the most powerful Artificial Intelligence image generators for creating beautiful, other-worldly, and captivating content. 

We cannot wait to see what the future of LLMs at the service of creating art holds next!