I was playing with Midjourney’s chaos parameter last week. I don’t understand exactly how it works, but I know that higher values yield unpredictable results. If I were Michaelangelo, I might know exactly what I wanted and be frustrated by its unpredictability, but I’m neither. Much of what chaos cooks up is ugly and/or strange, yet it also comes up with image styles I really like, such as the southwestern landscape (with a blue coyote) below.
When I combine an image I created using the chaos parameter with Midjourney’s new(ish) style reference feature, I actually begin to feel as if I have more than just a rudimentary control of Midjourney. Sometimes, that is. I really like the image below, and successfully used a style reference for it … but I requested a cat. Not a coyote, fox, or any other kind of canine — a cat.
In any case, most of these images resulted from my idle thoughts about domestic cats who seem to believe they’re actually wild beasts, prowling through the savannah as they fearlessly stalk their prey.
With the exception of the canine cat, Midjourney did not disappoint.
Of course, even wild beasts need to nap from time to time, and their dreams may take the occasional fantastical turn.
And in my own fantasy world, cats gaze upon butterflies in wonder instead of chasing them.
Something Different
I took some photos a few weeks ago of the old Taiban church out in eastern New Mexico.1 Taiban’s pretty close to west Texas and there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky that day. Yes, the sky was a beautiful blue but it was also rather boring.
Enter Photoshop, which introduced “sky replacement” about 3 1/2 years ago. It was one of the first AI image editing features I’d ever used and I thought it might help my Taiban photos. First I combined the church with a morning sky photo I took about a month ago.
It also seemed as if black-and-white photography might suit the church well and — while I was at it — perhaps a glowering sky might emphasize the desolation of the eastern New Mexican plains.
Honestly, I’ve been trying to replace skies ever since I began using Photoshop over a quarter of a century ago. Until this AI feature came along, every single replacement sky I introduced into a photo looked Photoshopped. No longer. AI is somehow able to a) automatically select the sky; b) detect the direction of light; and c) blend the two images seamlessly.
I also publish a substack featuring my photos.