In This Post
Artificial Intelligence and Art
What is AI Art
AI art refers to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques and technologies to create artistic works, such as paintings, sculptures, music, poetry, and more. It combines traditional forms of art with computer algorithms and machine learning models to generate unique and creative pieces.
The process of creating AI art typically involves training a machine learning model on a large dataset of existing artwork, which enables the model to learn the patterns and styles of various artists. Once trained, the model can then generate new pieces of art based on the learned patterns.
AI can assist artists in a variety of ways. It can generate initial ideas or sketches, provide inspiration, or even create entire artworks independently. AI can also be used as a tool for enhancing and manipulating existing artworks by applying various effects and modifications.
You and AI Art
Creating AI art offers several exciting opportunities:
Exploration of new artistic possibilities: By using AI techniques, you can experiment and explore new artistic styles and techniques that would be difficult to achieve manually. It allows for the creation of unique and innovative pieces of art. The emergence of AI art also raises important ethical and philosophical questions. You can delve into discussions about the nature of creativity, authorship, and the role of technology in art.
Social interaction, groups, and contests: If you love the interaction of social media, then AI art platforms are right up your alley. All the major AI art generators have well-rooted, established social platforms, and if you're anti-social like me, most of the sites or apps have contests that may entice you. NightCafe runs a daily contest that I know of, and I'm sure the others do as well—probably on Discord, which I'm on but know little about.
Career opportunities: AI art is a growing field with increasing demand. You can explore career paths in the intersection of technology and art, including working as an artist, designer, researcher, or even become a prompt engineer. Well, maybe not an engineer, per se, but at least a prompt designer. I'm sure there's plenty of money, whether it's green or crypto, to be made in the field of prompt writing.
Overall, AI art offers a world of possibilities for you to explore and experiment with their artistic expression, challenge traditional boundaries, and contribute to the evolving landscape of art in the digital age.
AI Art Generators (Apps)
In this post I will discuss the three AI art generators that I use, and you'll be happy to know that all three have a FREE version, or some variation whereby you can create outstanding art for no charge. In fact, that is what I like about the companies in this industry—some of the major players publish open-source software (OSS) to the internet for anyone to use, and even modify, which, could be good or bad, unfortunately. Perhaps the best example, and probably the "O.G." of open-source, is none other than your friend and mine, Wikipedia, whom you will see in the bibliography for this very paragraph. Midjourney, considered by many to be the best AI art platform out there, formerly had a trial version, but quit offering it right when I was learning how to use it. Lucky for me, and lucky for you, there are plenty of other apps that are just as good as Midjourney, and all the AI art apps keep improving and raising the bar, which creates healthy competition, and that's great for you and me, the consumer! Today I will introduce the three AI art generators (apps) I know the most about, and —Leonardo.Ai, NightCafe, and OpenArt.
Leonardo.Ai is an amazing tool for creating new images or for upscaling and transforming existing art. The AI Art company offers a mobile app and 150 tokens that replenish every 24 hours, at the time of this writing. Leonardo has been my Go-To for a while, because their always improving their models (almost weekly it seems), and they offer all the extras like in-painting, out-painting, training models, and much more. Click here to see a video on creating an image with Leonardo.Ai.
NightCafe is another AI art generator that gives free credits daily, except they only give 5 credits instead of 150, like Leonardo, however, they don't charge as much per creation as Leo does. So, besides the FREE part, another thing I like about NightCafe (and Leo and OpenArt), is that you don't have to go to Discord to create images like you do with Midjourney and some of the others. Check out my How-To Video on creating images with NightCafe.
When I dove into OpenArt's site to create a How-To Guide for creating an image on their site, I realized that it was their site that inspired me to write this post! Why? It's the reason why I will have no need to create such a thing, because they already have one, and it's very good! Check it out here.
Prompt Guide
Well, since OpenArt did such a good job at what I'm doing here, there's really no need for me to repeat greatness, which I most certainly would, so if you're interested in creating, or even just viewing AI art, might I suggest you watch the Stable Diffusion Prompt Book above. But, just so you don't think I'm being lazy, I'll highlight the basics of creating a good prompt, by comparing a prompt with a good ol' homecooked meal, and I actually did put some time in making the other two videos.
Seed and Words- The Meat
The seed is the "noise" that the computer "hears" to start the process, don't ask me, and unless you're trying to recreate an exact replica, always use a random seed. It is why, like snowflakes, no AI generated image is ever the same. The words, and how you place them, are the most important part of a prompt, as you are actually creating instructions for a robot to draw exactly what you want. One tip is to put the most important words at the beginning, rather than the end of the prompt, as that is how the computer prioritizes information. Also use quality, descriptive words like hyper-anything, professional, and high-quality. The more accurately you describe what you want, the better the chance you will be pleased with the outcome.
Photography- The Potatoes
Style (portrait, monochrome)- Butter
Camera (Go-Pro, Ring Doorbell, CCTV)- Sour Cream
Lens (35mm, wide-angle, telephoto)- Cheese
Lighting (volumetric, studio)- Bacon
Here's a handy chart from OpenArt Prompt Book. I refer to it often.
Resolution & Aspect Ratio- The Corn-on-the-Cob
Negative Prompt- The Salad
A negative prompt is something that you can add to tell the computer what you don't want to see, like poorly-drawn hands or black hair. It is particularly helpful when you are editing or upscaling an image that you need to be precise.
Style- The Bread or Roll
This "Style" is different from the Style above. This is usually a pre-set style offered by the app, like "Hyperrealistic" or "Steampunk"
Here are just some of the styles you can use on NightCafe
Prompt Modifiers- The Salt-n-Pepper
Artists, quality words, phrases like “trending on Artstation”
Upscale- The Dessert
All of the AI art generators allow you to upscale images after they are created and they usually charge a couple of credits.
Image-to-Image- The Screw it, We're Ordering Pizza
All three of the AI art generators we've discussed today offer image-to-image creation, they just call it something different. Again, check out OpenArt's Prompt Book for in-depth, but easy to understand, instructions for image-to-image. Basically, you upload an image, say, a selfie, and let AI run wild with it.
Much thanks to Leonardo.Ai, NightCafe, and OpenArt for being such generous companies in such a dog-eat-dog world! Please Subscribe to this blog and I appreciate you for reading!
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