AI painting is making everyone an 'artist'. You don't need to have studied sketching or color theory, as long as you master the basic techniques of prompt words, you can generate stunning works. This article provides a complete path for beginners from getting started to getting started.
The first step is to choose the appropriate tool. The three most mainstream AI painting tools currently have their own characteristics: Midjourney is known for its artistic sense and aesthetic quality, particularly suitable for conceptual art, illustration, and visual creativity; The advantage of Stable Diffusion lies in its open source and customizability, which allows it to run locally and is suitable for advanced users who require precise control; DALL · E 3 has the strongest natural language understanding and the lowest threshold for novice use. It is recommended that beginners start with Midjourney, which has an active Discord community, rich tutorials, and is easy to gain a sense of achievement.
The second step is to learn how to write good prompt words. Tip words are the "incantations" of AI painting, and a good tip word usually includes these elements: subject description (what object, what action), environmental atmosphere (scene, lighting, color tone), style guidance (realism, anime, oil painting, watercolor), and image quality requirements (high definition, rich details, 8K). For example, "A cat wearing a spacesuit walks on the moon, with a sunset background, cyberpunk style, and ultra-high definition picture quality" is a structurally complete prompt. Beginners can read more popular works in the community and learn to imitate their prompt word structures.
Step three, understand the parameters and settings. The AI drawing tool provides some key parameters to control the output results: aspect ratio determines the composition of the image, prompt word weight (such as Midjourney's -- iw parameter) controls the AI's adherence to prompt words, and stylization parameter (-- s) affects the AI's creative freedom. Beginners are advised to use the default settings first and gradually adjust the parameters as experience accumulates. Maintain a variable change during each generation to facilitate understanding of the actual effect of each parameter.
Step four, make good use of reverse prompts. Reverse prompt words tell AI what they don't want to appear in the screen. For example, 'ugly, deformed, extra fingers, terrible proportions'. This is particularly important in Stable Diffusion, as it can effectively reduce common AI problems such as "multiple fingers" and "abnormal appearance". The V6 version of Midjourney has greatly improved the handling of anatomical structures, but reverse prompts are still a practical technique.
Step five, post-processing and iteration. The first version generated by AI is rarely the final work. Learn to use inpainting to correct unsatisfactory details, and use img2img to continue iterating on existing foundations. Low resolution images can also be raised to print level using magnification tools such as upscaling. The real creative process often requires multiple rounds of generation, screening, and fine-tuning.
The core of AI painting is "human-machine collaboration" - AI is responsible for execution and generation, while humans are responsible for creative direction and quality control. After mastering these basic skills, you will find that the potential of AI painting far exceeds imagination.