Getting Started with the Midjourney Web Editor

Midjourney, the popular AI platform for generating art via text prompts, just opened its highly-anticipated web editor to everyone and is offering free trials to test the new tool through the end of the week. 

Why it matters

Previously, Midjourney was only usable through commands issued to bots in the Midjourney Discord server. For some users, the Discord UX was unfamiliar and daunting. 

In contrast, the new web editor release offers a streamlined, one-stop hub for easily tapping into Midjourney features, like inpainting (using text prompts to “repaint” parts of an image) and outpainting (generating new imagery beyond an image’s original frame). 

How to navigate the Midjourney web editor

1) Explore

Once you’ve started a free trial or signed in with an existing account (base plans start at $10 per month), you’ll arrive on the Explore tab of the web editor.

This is where you can surf through recent Midjourney creations by other users via filters like “Hot” or “Random” and click into pictures to review their underlying prompts and style parameters. Use the heart button on the right side to like photos and quickly come back to them later. 

Here, you can also start remixing or building off of images you find by clicking on the “Image,” “Style,” or “Prompt” buttons on the lower right side of the web editor. 

2) Create

Below the Explore tab in the web editor, you’ll find the Create hub. Here you can easily create, review, and remix your art. 

You can use the text bar at the top of the editor to input your desired text prompts, while the center and right side of the Create page displays your previous outputs, prompts, style parameters, and remix options like “Rerun” (run the prompt again to generate 4 new results) and “Use” (this copies parameters to your clipboard for remixing into a new prompt). 

Of course, you can always just try firing off basic text commands and see what results you get. But if you’re looking to start mastering Midjourney, I recommend familiarizing yourself with the basics of Midjourney’s style parameters. For example, let’s consider this prompt:

• The initial text “magic wand” text is the visual instructions for the type of scene you want to illustrate
• “ar” defines the desired aspect ratio
• “sref” implements style reference codes, of which there are over 4 billion, and each has a unique aesthetic and can be mixed with others 
• “sw” is the style weight, which defines from 0-1000 the strength of stylization of your chosen style references
• “stylize” defines how closely your outputs will match your prompt artistically
• “v” defines which version of Midjourney you want to use, with 6.1 being the newest and most optimized model available

These are not all of the existing parameters, but they demonstrate the kind of flexibility you can enjoy when creating art on Midjourney. Again, you can always just try basic text prompts but the results won’t always be great or what you’re looking for. 

For instance, using the “magic wand casting a shiny spell on a gold coin” prompt, the image on the left side below was made without any parameters and the image on the right was made with the parameters shown above. The latter approach offers you much more control, e.g. if you’re seeking a hand-painted aesthetic rather than something more photographic like here:

3) Organize, Chat, and Tasks

The main attractions of the Midjourney web editor are the Explore and Create hubs, but there are a few other helpful resources. First is the Organize tab, where you can review, filter, and edit all your recent creations or organize them into custom folders. This area is useful if you want to readily archive and keep track of specific prompting approaches you’ve previously used or seen. 

Then there is the Chat tab, which is essentially a slick frontend for surfing some of the Midjourney Discord’s most popular prompting rooms. Lastly, the Tasks center hosts a series of simple quests you can undertake to help Midjourney, like taking surveys or ranking images. Some of these quests offer “fast hours” as rewards, granting you the ability to generate outputs faster. 

The bottom line

Thanks to AI, the ability to turn ideas into images quickly is a new sort of superpower. As such, Midjourney’s new web editor is notable because it makes this superpower that much easier to wield. 

If you haven’t tried Midjourney before, I recommend giving it a spin while the limited-time free trials are live or even just trying out the base plan for a month. Whether you’re an artist exploring AI or just keen on making some silly social media content, this web editor is now one of the best ways to do so!