How to Use Midjourney - Beginner's Guide Tutorial
What is Midjourney?
Midjourney is an AI image generation tool. In simple terms, a user first provides an input text prompt. Then, models, which have been trained on millions of images, output a new set of images. It is a fantastic tool for exploring imagination. The Verge posted a great interview with Midjourney founder, David Holz, that I highly recommend checking out. There are a number of things that I love about Midjourney, but a couple of the top ones are David Holz's vision for Midjourney to be an "engine for imagination" and his lack of financial motivation.
Right now, it’s pretty small — we’re like 10 people, we have no investors, and we’re not really financially motivated. We’re not under pressure to sell something or be a public company.
David Holz - Interview with The Verge
I joined Midjourney's beta testing in early July 2022. Three months later, I entered the "10,000" club, meaning I submitted more than 10,000 prompts in just over 3 months! Is it an obsession? Maybe a bit -- it goes in waves. MidJourney has been an incredible tool, allowing me to explore my creativity in ways that I have never been able to. My artistic background is primarily in photography. My brain is constantly buzzing with creative ideas and I have been able to bring many of them to life through MidJourney.
In this post, my objective is to provide a beginner Midjourney tutorial to walk you through:
How to access Midjourney
How to submit your first prompt
What to do after you get your first images
How to see and change your default Midjourney settings
Midjourney tips and resources
How to Join the Midjourney Discord Server
Midjourney offers four subscription tiers, ranging from $10 to $120/month. Discounted plans are also available if you pay yearly instead of monthly. Midjourney used to offer a FREE trial which granted you 25 prompt submissions, but after that was closed after some users took advantage of it.
If you are having trouble wrapping your head around Discord, I highly recommend this video where I do a step-by-step walkthrough of how to join Midjourney in Discord.
Midjourney is currently accessed through their Discord server. In the future, there are plans to enable prompt submissions through their website. Follow the steps below to join the Midjourney Discord server.
Create your free Discord account at https://discord.com/.
Discord is a social and communications platform where you can text, talk, and video. Once you join a specific Discord server, you will see different "channels" in that server which are often used to categorize different topics for conversation and interaction. Discord can be accessed via the Discord mobile app, a desktop app download, and through their website.
After signing up, you will receive an email from Discord asking you to verify your email address.
Join the Midjourney Discord Server by going to https://www.midjourney.com/home/ and clicking “Join the beta”
After you have created your Discord account, clicking the Midjourney link above should automatically take you to the Midjourney Discord server.
If the link above does not automatically open the Midjourney server in Discord, you can join it manually:
Log into Discord
On the left-hand side, click the plus button (+) to "Add a Server"
Click "Join a Server"
Type in https://discord.gg/midjourney and click “Join Server”
Purchase Midjourney subscription
You must have a Midjourney subscription in order to create images and access certain channels in the Midjourney Discord server.
To purchase a subscription, log into Midjourney's website with your Discord account.
Bonus -- How to add the Midjourney Bot to your own Discord server
You can add the Midjourney Bot to your own server. Only users that have an active Midjourney subscription or trial will be able to use the bot. Having the bot on my own Discord server helps me streamline my workflows. I can set up channels for specific projects and they only ever contain my own creations.
Go to the Midjourney server in Discord.
Click on the people icon next to the search bar to "Show Member List".
Scroll down the Member List until you see "Midjourney Bot".
Right click on "Midjourney Bot" and click "Profile".
Click the "Add App" button.
Select your server name from the drop-down and click "Continue".
Click "Authorize" at the bottom of the next window that pops up.
Submitting Your First Midjourney Prompt
Now we move on to the exciting stuff -- how to use Midjourney. Once you are in the Midjourney Discord server, you will see a lot of channels on the left-hand side. Click on one of the "newbies" channels under "Newcomer Rooms". Here, you will see a real-time stream of prompts that people are submitting in the channel and the resulting images. These are shared channels. This means that all prompts submitted and all resulting images are visible to everyone that is using that channel.
In the newbies channel you have selected, you can submit your first text prompt:
At the bottom of the window, where it says "Message #newbies", type /imagine followed by a single space.
Once you add the single space after /imagine , you should see the word "prompt" appear in a dark gray box.
Type in your text prompt and hit enter on your keyboard (or the send icon if on the mobile Discord app)
After your prompt is submitted, you will start to see your images develop. Because this is a shared channel, you may have to scroll up a bit if you want to watch it develop. As prompts are submitted by other users, it will bump yours up the channel. Once your job is complete, it will appear back at the bottom of the channel.
Your completed job will be a quad of images with several button below it. To demonstrate, I submitted /imagine extreme adventure cat --v 4. The --v 4 at the end is telling it to use the version 4 algorithm -- more on that later.
You Made Your First Midjourney Images! Now What?
There are a lot of directions you can go once you get your first images, but let's focus on the basics first. There are 9 buttons that will appear beneath your quad of images. The "U#" buttons are for upscaling or enlarging. The "V#" buttons are for making variations of an image. The numbers correspond to the position in the 2x2 grid: 1 = top-left, 2 = top-right, 3 = bottom-left, 4 = bottom-right.
Upscale an image by clicking the "U" button that has the corresponding image number.
Make variations of an image by clicking the "V" button that has the corresponding image number
You may get a pop-up window titled "Remix Prompt". If so, you can either click "Submit" to make variations of the image using your same original input prompt, or, you can add/change the text. It will still use the source image you are making variations on as input.
Click the "re-roll" circle of arrows button to submit the same prompt again and get a new set of images.
Understanding Your Midjourney Settings
Now that you've made your first images, let's take a look at the default settings. Getting to know the settings available for Midjourney can be a little overwhelming, so I will try to provide a some clarity.
To view your settings, type in /settings in any of the Midjourney Discord channels you have permission to send messages in. You should get something that looks similar to the image below. Here, I am using the version 5.2 algorithm as the default. Stylize is set to medium. I am in "Public mode" -- private mode requires a more expensive subscription. I have "Remix mode" turned on which allows me to make prompt changes when I re-roll or perform a variation ("V" button click). I have "High Variation Mode" turned on, so that when I click a "V" button below an image, the resulting variations are more diverse compared with "Low Variation Mode". I am also on "Relax mode", which means slower image generation that does not use my monthly GPU time allotment. I explain these settings in more detail below.
Midjourney versions
Multiple versions of the Midjourney (MJ) algorithm are available for use. At the time of writing this article, there are 11 versions to pick from. First we have MJ versions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.0, 5.1, and 5.2. You will see people refer to these as v1, v2, v3, v4, etc.
Then we have 2 other versions that were released between v3 and v4 -- these are labeled MJ Test (also known as 'test') and MJ Test Photo (also known as 'testp').
Lastly, we have niji v4 and niji v5. Niji versions are different from the other Midjourney versions because they are primarily trained on anime.
You can specify any one of these in your text prompt submission by adding --v 1 for version 1, --v 2 for version 2, --v 3 for version 3, --v 4 for version 4,--test for MJ Test, --testp for MJ Test Photo, and --niji 4 or --niji 5 for the niji anime versions. If you do not specify a version, it will use whatever you have set as your default.
For example, in my original extreme adventure cat submission, I included --v 4 (be sure to include a space after the v!) at the end so it would use the v4 algorithm instead of my default v3 algorithm. Below, is an example output from each of the Midjourney versions. Note: --test and --testp return 2 images by default rather than 4.
Pretty big difference between v4 and the earlier algorithms!
Quality settings
NOTE: Quality settings are not active for all Midjourney models
There are 3 quality settings listed here. For many cases, I have found "Base quality" to be sufficient. A higher quality setting will add more detail to the image and is also computationally more expensive, so the job will take a little longer to run. Although my default setting is "Base quality", I regularly add --q 2 or --qaulity 2 to change it to higher quality for a specific prompt. I believe you can go all the way up to --quality 5, but this may only work on certain algorithm versions.
Stylize
There are 4 stylize settings shown. Style refers to the --s or --stylize option. A higher stylize value will push your resulting images further away from your original text prompt. Custom --stylize settings cannot be used with every algorithm. I recommend leaving "Style med" select as the default, to avoid any errors, and add --stylize via the prompt input if you want to change it. If you are using the v3 algorithm (--v 3), you can add something like --stylize 1500 or --s 14000 to your prompt. Stylize values for the v3 algorithm range from 625 to 60000. Stylize values for v4 and v5 range 0 to 1000.
Upscaler options
Depending on the version of Midjourney you are working with, you may run into different upscaler options. You'll have to play around with these to decide which one works best for the types of images you are creating. While the upscalers make images bigger, they can also add or take away details in the process -- which can be good or bad depending on what look you are going for.
I typically use the default "Regular upscale" in older Midjourney models. Occasionally I will use "Light upscale" if I am working with vector style illustrations and want less detail. "Beta upscale" has also worked really well for me with both vector style illustrations and images with people or animals.
Midjourney's v5 model has Upscale (2x) and Upscale (4x) options. They do a pretty good job, but I have found in some of my images they take away details that I want to keep. For now, I am using Topaz Gigapixel to upscale my images.
Public mode vs private mode
Public mode should be selected unless you paid for a private account (Pro or Mega subscription plans). A private account means that your images are hidden from the website galleries. If you create images in a shared channel using your private account, people can still see them as you create them. If you need a private account and want to remain truly hidden from the eyes of others, you will need to add the Midjourney Bot to your own server, or you can direct message your imagine prompts to the Midjourney Bot.
Remix mode
If you enable "Remix mode", clicking one of the "V#" buttons under your quad of images will give you a pop-up window that allows you to modify your prompt before submitting the job to create variations on that specific image.
Fast mode vs relax mode
There are two modes: fast mode and relax mode. Fast mode gets your jobs done more quickly, but is computationally more expensive. Relax mode is a little slower, but honestly, most of the time it is fast enough for me. You get a limited number of "fast hours" each month, depending on which plan you purchase. If you opt to purchase the "Basic" plan, you'll find those fast hours go quick. Once you run out, you'll have to purchase more fast hours, or upgrade to the "Standard" plan where you can use "relax mode" unlimited.
Aspect Ratio
One setting that isn't shown in /settings is aspect ratio. You can specify the aspect ratio you want your images to be by using --ar width:height. For example, to create an image with a 16:9 aspect ratio, I would add --ar 16:9 to the end of prompt. Not all aspect ratios work with every algorithm version.
Additional Midjourney Tips and Resources
Midjourney has some help documentation that is regularly updated: https://docs.midjourney.com/
The Midjourney community on Discord is great!
Office hours are typically held on the Discord server once a week where the founder, David Holz, gives updates, answers questions, and sometimes gets into interesting philosophical discussions. I look forward to these every week. Usually office hours are Wednesdays starting at 3pm EST/12pm PST and they go until David gets tired lol. Keep an eye on the Announcements tab in Discord.
If you start getting errors, check the Status tab to see if there are any known ongoing issues. You can also check the Support channels to see if anyone is reporting similar issues.
I highly recommend utilizing the search bar in Discord to see if your question has already been answered, before posting in one of the support or discussion channels.
Visit the Prompt-craft channel for discussions and help on writing prompts
You can queue up jobs by submitting up to 10 prompts in a row. Once your queue is full, you will need to wait until a job completes before you submit another.
Use the /info command to see how many jobs you have queued up, number of fast hours remaining, and how many prompts you have ever submitted.
Do not add a comma before your custom prompt settings. Make sure you add a space between the setting name and the value.
Yes /imagine extreme adventure cat, photorealistic --v 4
Yes /imagine extreme adventure cat, photorealistic --v 4 --ar 3:2
No /imagine extreme adventure cat, photorealistic, --v 4
No /imagine extreme adventure cat, photorealistic, --v 4, --ar 3:2
Batch download your images by logging into the Midjourney website, viewing your "Home" and click the Archive button. Images can be downloaded by date. You will get one zip file per date. Click the plus button to select a date to include for download.
I hope you found this tutorial useful! Feel free to follow me on Twitter and/or Instagram. I will be posting more Midjourney tutorials here in the near future.
I'll leave you with a few of my favorite, upscaled extreme adventure cat creations. Enjoy!
