Imagine Weekly – Issue 10 [August 9th]

Welcome to Issue 10 of Imagine Weekly 👋

Hello everyone,

This week, we have a new step-by-step tutorial on how to create multiple images with the same person in MidJourney.

In this issue you’ll find:

• 📖 TL;DR; Weekly Recap of the Office Hours (or the extended recap)

• 🎓 How can I create multiple images with the same person in MidJourney?

• 🎨 Some new srefs to tinker with

Office Hours TL;DR; Recap 2024-08-07

🛠️ Feature Improvements: Enhanced inpainting interface, new describe and style tools, Discord-web sync, better onboarding.

📅 6.2 Release: Updated inpainting, zoom-out, coherency, text, aesthetics, personalization, Depth ControlNet.

🔧 7.0 Development: Video/3D enhancements, prompt/language understanding, speed improvements, sketching interface.

📊 Surveys: Potential psychometric survey on aesthetics.

🎥 Niji: Focus on video, possible merge with MJ model in Version 7.

🔍 Additional Developments: Ongoing secret projects.

🎓 How can I create multiple images with the same person in MidJourney?

MidJourney has recently launched a great update featuring the highly anticipated character reference feature. Up until this point we had to use many “hacks“ to achieve results which don’t even come close to what the character reference feature produces. This new addition is akin to the style reference but focuses on matching the character's appearance rather than just the visual aesthetic. In this blog post, I'll cover everything from the basics to creating images with multiple reference characters. So, make sure to like this post and subscribe to my newsletter if you haven't already. Let's dive in!

Basics: How to Use Character Reference (--cref)

Let's start with the basics of using the character reference feature. First, type in your prompt, then add the --cref parameter, followed by a space and the URL of the image containing the character you want to use. If you're prompting on MidJourney's Web UI instead of Discord, you can drag and drop your image into the prompt input and select the person icon.

Whenever you include a character reference in your prompt, MidJourney will try to generate results that visually match the appearance of that character. Character reference works best with images created by MidJourney. MidJourney maintains a core look but doesn't perfectly recreate outfit details. If you need more accuracy with details such as a specific clothing style, include those specifics in your text prompt.

Character Weight (--cw)

In addition to --cref, you can use the character weight parameter --cw to control how closely MidJourney adheres to the clothing and sometimes hairstyle of the reference character. Character weight ranges from 0 to 100, with 100 being the default that tries to fully match the character's likeness and clothing. When character weight is zero, MidJourney only locks onto the face, allowing you to change clothing while retaining the character's facial features.

Using Character Reference on MidJourney's Web UI

If you're creating images through MidJourney's Web UI, you can use the --cref and --cw parameters just as shown here. When you type your prompt into the Imagine bar, you can also choose to upload a character reference by clicking the plus sign on the Imagine bar or dragging and dropping your image. Be sure to select the little person icon so that MidJourney knows to use that image as a character reference,

Using Character Reference with Style Reference (--sref)

In addition to maintaining character similarity with --cref, you can combine it with MidJourney's style reference feature. Style reference lets you use a reference image to define the overall artistic style and color palette that MidJourney should apply to your results. Combining a character reference with a style reference allows you to keep a similar character across image generations while maintaining a consistent visual style.

As a quick tip, you can also use shades of colors as a style reference image. It’ does not have to be related to the subject you’re trying to generate. E.g. use this Claude Artifact to generate a random color palette to use as a style reference.

You can checkout my other tutorial on Style Reference.

How can I generate multiple multiple characters in a single image with MidJourney?

Using character reference for a single character is straightforward, but what about scenes with multiple characters? The method I found to be delivering the best results is inpainting. A tutorial about in-painting in MidJourney will be released soon.

What Makes a Good Character Reference?

For best results, use a character reference image made by MidJourney. Non-MidJourney images can lead to more distortion and inconsistencies. Ideally, your character reference should have a clearly defined subject with distinct facial features visible. Portraits and full-body images tend to work well.

Wrap-Up

There are many nuanced techniques to explore with character reference, and experimentation is key to finding the right workflow for your needs. MidJourney's character reference is yet another feature that opens up more creative possibilities. While it's not perfect, it works better than all the time consuming “hacky“ ways before it has was released. I hope you found this blog post helpful. Let me know in the comments if you try out any of these techniques, have questions, or want to share any other character reference tips. Please make sure to like this post, subscribe, and stay tuned for more updates.

🌈 Related

Always interesting to see how different tools are used in combination to create such results!

🎨 Inspiration, Prompts and Srefs

For today's issue, I've gathered some bold srefs for you to save and tinker with.

See you next week 👋🤖

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