AI Generated Art & Midjourney: A Bit of History
Artificial intelligence (AI) has long been a topic of fascination and fear, and its capabilities have only continued to advance in recent years. One area where AI has made a particularly significant impact is in the realm of art and creativity.
AI-generated art, also known as algorithmic art or machine-generated art, is a type of art that is created using algorithms and computer programs rather than traditional artistic techniques.
One popular example of AI-generated art is the project Midjourney, created by artist and computer scientist Anna Ridler.
The art produced by Midjourney often blurs the lines between what is considered “human” and “artificial,” challenging our traditional notions of creativity and artistic expression and raising important philosophical questions about the role of the artist and the extent to which technology should be used to augment or replace the human creative process.
AI-generated art has a wide range of practical applications. For example, in the graphic design realm, AI can be used to automate the creation of logos, banners, and other marketing materials, saving time and resources for businesses.
In the music industry, AI algorithms can be used to compose original tracks or generate personalized playlists based on a user’s listening habits.
As technology advances around machine-generated art, we can expect to see even more stunning and innovative creations that push the boundaries of what we thought was possible.
Upscaling & Issues with Midjourney Resolutions
If you want to use the power of Midjourney for creating prints and selling merchandise, you’ll need to meet the minimum pixel dimensions required for production and printing of specific products.
The default Midjourney resolutions are 512×512 (image variations), 1024×1024 (upscale), 1664×1664 (upscale to max), and 2048×2048 (beta upscale redo).
These default resolutions aren’t sufficient in most cases for production of apparel and merchandise beyond about 5×5 inches.
Luckily, we can get around these resolution limits with a little help from Photoshop, Lightroom, and incredibly powerful AI image upscalers available online that can help produce high-quality resizes in 4k or more.
What Is AI Upscaling?
While basic upscaling in Midjourney or other generative art tools focuses on taking an image from one size to a larger size and improving the resolution, AI upscaling provides more detail to the image, increasing its quality and printability.
Benefits of upscaling images using AI-driven tools include:
- Increased image resolution
- Larger images without reduced quality
- Print images at a larger size than the original
- The image appears smoother and sharper
To help you along in your mercantile journey, I’ve compiled a handful of short, up to date, and easy to follow videos and helpful links to help you get your Midjourney artwork hanging on customers’ walls!
Learn Basic to Advanced Image Upscaling Techniques
Midjourney Tutorial: Maximise & Upscale your Midjourney AI Art by Wade McMaster
Key points:
- Detailed explanation of MJ aspect ratios and image resolutions, great for learning to upscale to the highest possible aspect ratios within Midjourney (example: ar 21:9 etc)
- “Remaster” often changes aspect ratio but boosts quality and size of the newly generated image
- Upscaling in Photoshop/Lightroom (“Enhance”)
- Upscaling in IMGLARGER (AI image upscaler)
Easy Guide to Print and Upscale Midjourney/AI Art by District 7/Drew Geraci
Key Points:
- Current data about the largest printable sizes available via AI image upscalers
- Upscaling in Photoshop/Lightroom (“Enhance”)
- Topaz Labs Gigapixel AI
The Best Way to Upscale AI Art for Printing and Apparel by Analog Dreams
Key Points:
- Great details about upscaling images for the recommended print sizes for print on demand merchandise
- Clarifies DPI (72 v 300 dpi and does it matter?)
- Excellent details about how to properly use images in merch templates in Photoshop
- AI-to-Print Workflow
- In-depth details on using Topaz Labs Gigapixel AI
- FREE AI image enlargers: Waifu2x, BigJPG (iOS and Android)
- Cool last-step Photoshop tweak
Upscale Your MidJourney & Stable Diffusion Image Dimensions Overnight by Scott Detweiler
Key Points:
- FREE and open source ChaiNNer application (ChaiNNer on GitHub)
- Complex and advanced intensive image upscaling via ChaiNNer
- Mention of Affinity Photo 2 (Photoshop alternative)
Midjourney Resources
Understanding Image Size — Midjourney
Legal Resources
In a Nutshell: Midjourney Copyright & Commercial Use
Key Points:
- Non-paying users are granted a Creative Commons Noncommercial 4.0 asset license, meaning that they can use the images for personal projects as long as they give visible attribution.
- Paying users are classified as “owners” of the assets they create and can use them for whatever commercial purposes they choose, WHETHER THE IMAGES ARE UPSCALED/EDITED OR NOT.
- Despite “owning” the images, Midjourney’s terms also indirectly “force” you to allow anyone else to use your public images as well.
