Midjourney is a powerful platform, but it hides too many of its impressive features behind random numbers or obscure parameters. The learning curve is intense, but as it emerges out of Discord and to its own platform there is one killer feature it needs to create — a style catalog.
Currently, there are many different ways to apply style to an image in Midjourney and one of the best is referencing another image or using the –sref parameter, appending a random number.
Each number corresponds to its own style — as I demonstrated in a recent test — and with tens of thousands of potential styles, finding what works is a constant round of trial and error.
Help might be at hand though. During recent office hours on Discord, Midjourney founder David Holz said they are considering adding a style catalog to the website.
What is Style Reference?
I just made my own style reference explorer for MidjourneyUsed AI to automatically tag and label the images so I can search them by style, color, lighting, etc and find style codes that fit that vibeIt actually works incredibly well pic.twitter.com/3MumibyPdmMay 9, 2024
Essentially, Style Reference defines the way the AI image generator interprets the look and feel of the image and is particularly helpful if you can’t think of a detailed or descriptive prompt idea.
Nick St Pierre, a Midjourney expert has created a style guide of his own using AI to automatically tag and label images by color, style or lighting and find related codes. The codes can then be a shortcut to replicate that style of image in the future.
One way to use Style Reference is by sharing the URL of a previously generated image. But having access to a library of what every code looks like will be a game changer for Midjourney.
Moving out of Discord
New features like a reference catalog are all part of Midjourney moving out of Discord. It has been doggedly stuck in the platform since its launch, and it was a good way for the bootstrapped company to get ahead and keep user management costs down.
It recently launched its own web interface, making it accessible to anyone who has created at least 100 images in the Discord bot. This includes the ability to customize image prompts using buttons, toggles and text input rather than parameters with more random numbers.
It isn’t clear yet how a style catalog might work but it could be in the form of a button in the prompt options, opening a new window showing different styles and allowing you to select the best one for your image idea. Right now aesthetics on the web are controlled by three sliders — stylization, weirdness and variety.
You can of course still use parameters in the web version, so if you've found a number you like just add --sref <number> to the end of your prompt like you would in Discord. But going forward it feels like applying styles may be about to get a bit more straightforward.
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