Weekly MidJourney Office Hours Recap

MidJourney V6 Alpha has Switched to Default; V6.1 is Coming Soon with Lots of New Upgrades! 🤯

A Comprehensive Recap of MidJourney’s Weekly Office Hours (February 14)

Hello, lovely creatives! I wish each of you a Happy Valentine’s Day — May your day overflow with love and artistic inspiration. To those who celebrate the Chinese New Year, I send heartfelt wishes for a year brimming with prosperity and joy! ❤️🧧

Welcome to another weekly “Exciting Updates of MidJourney”: I’m here every single week to bring you a comprehensive recap of the latest MidJourney Office Hours. (David Holz, the MidJourney founder, giving updates and answering community questions on MidJourney Discord every Wednesday)

Let’s discover the latest exciting updates from MidJourney together! 🎉

In case it slipped by you, MidJourney has rolled out an impressive new feature known as “Style References” — a real game-changer. For a deeper understanding and to admire some amazing image examples, be sure to check out this Ultimate Guide:

MidJourney V6 Alpha has just switched to the default version!

As of February 14, MidJourney has promoted its V6 Alpha to the default version. This switch rigorously tests MidJourney’s servers in a real-world scenario.

Here’s what’s new with V6 Alpha:

• Enhanced Image Quality: Fine details, contrast, and image coherence have received a new update with a slight improvement.
• Expanded Features: Inpainting and outpainting features, including Pan, Zoom, and Vary (Region), are now integrated into Niji V6.

Now, for those who want to use any previous MidJourney versions, simply type /settings and choose your preferred version.

The team may do a rating party in the upcoming few days before the official Beta launch, which will happen in a week or so.

What’s new with the upcoming MidJourney V6 Beta?

MidJourney V6 Alpha is about to enter its official Beta phase with a suite of exciting enhancements:

• Improved Prompt Understanding: Expect more accurate visual translations of your text prompts.
• Enhanced Aesthetics: Fine-tuning the image output delivers even more stunning results and further reduces the model bias.
• Greater Image Coherence: Your creations will achieve new levels of unity and less unexpected results.
• Refined Textures: Expect more realistic textures, such as skin, grass, and paint on canvas.
• Increased Speed: Image generation will be twice as fast, streamlining your creative workflow.

🗓️ The switch from V6 Alpha to Beta is expected to happen in a week or so.

3 upcoming new MidJourney features to be released

1. New version of /Describe

The /describe feature is a long-existing MidJourney feature: You can upload an image to MidJourney, and the AI will “describe” the image to give you a reference of what should be included in the prompt if you want to duplicate a similar image.

• The new version /describe will be way more accurate than the current one.
• It’s better at giving you prompts that are closer to the image.
• David Holz, the founder, said he’s pretty happy with how it is currently looking.

🗓️ The team will do the last tests, and will release it this week or early next week.

2. A new “Character References” feature for character consistency

• This new feature aims to have consistent characters across many images.
• It’s the most requested feature among the MidJourney community.
• It will work similarly to the “Style References” feature that was just released.
• David said they had already developed something that looked promising.

🗓️ Will take a few more weeks to make it better before releasing.

3. A new version of the ”Style References” feature

• The MidJourney team is looking to create a different and more complicated version of the “Style References” system to merge with the upcoming “Character References” system.
• The goal is for users to be able to specify what they mean by “style” and “character” and to avoid creating confusion between the two.
• For example, sometimes you may want the character to have the same outfit on and sometimes not; while sometimes you may want the same aesthetic style but not the same color tone.

David explained: This new system has multidimensionality to it. On the website, you can upload the images, and it will give you a list of checkboxes to select what aspects of the image you want to keep in the images; We are figuring out how we could do it on Discord.

🗓️ This may eventually released on MidJourney V6.1. (Yes, V6.1!)

MidJourney V6.1 is on its way before V7

David Holz said the MidJourney team is now working on a V6.1, which will include the following updates:

• A different version of “Style References” system that was mentioned above;
• A new version of Style Tuner, which is not about tuning style but to allow users personalizing the bias of the model — it works more like a “MidJourney model tuner” which allows more personalization;
• A new Turbo Mode: it’s a 3X faster (and more expensive) version, which is great for users who need MidJourney for presentations or professional uses;
• Bigger image batch size (currently it’s 2X2);
• A ControlNet-like feature: currently in good progress;
• Real-time drawing: some team members are working on this, and the end product will differ from similar tools.

🗓️ The expected release date is in the next 1–2 months.

What to expect in MidJourney V7

Part of the MidJourney team has already started working on V7. David mentioned, “The jump from V6 to V7 will be like V5 to V6, but more of it.”

MidJourney V7 will greatly improve:

• Pixel image quality;
• Expanded model knowledge base;
• Improved coherence;
• Better prompt understanding;
• Improved tiny details in the images, like distorted faces, will look way better.

🗓️ The launch timeframe for V7 is set for several months from now.

MidJourney Alpha website upgrades before it opens for the public

• The Alpha website is currently open for users who have generated 1000+ images;
• The team is now getting the next set of features to the Alpha website, which includes social group features like “group creation stuff” and “real-time social interaction”;
• David said they’re keeping the exact social features as a mystery for now on how exactly that will be, he said “it may be kind of dramatic but in a good way”.
• The website will be aesthetically polished after adding all the social features;
• The last step is to add “onboarding educational stuff” on the website for new MidJourney users;
• The website will then switch to the official Beta, opening up for everyone.

🗓️ The release date is expected to be closer to March.

😊 Thank you for staying with me till the end. I hope I’ve brought you some exciting MidJourney news today.

Stay Tuned for more new MidJourney updates and Tips & Tricks to master MidJourney with me!

— Bee Lee 💃🏻

🥰 If you found any value in this article, why not throw me some Medium love? To support my work: Clap up to 50, leave a message to share your thoughts & Be sure to follow for more future content like this one! 💌

🤗 Hiya! I’m Bee Lee — An 8X Top Writer on Medium and a (really) Passionate Enthusiast of Generative AI.

My love for creating beautiful things and exploring the creative possibilities of Generative AI and MidJourney is unmatched, and sharing my wealth of experience and knowledge with you gives me great joy. 😊 I invite you to come join me as we dive deeper into the fascinating world of AI together! 🎨🤖⛵ Know more about me here.

Meanwhile, feel free to check out all my other articles here to learn more Tips and Tricks on using MidJourney:

Here is the folder for all the previous MidJourney weekly Office Hours comprehensive recap:

Stay in touch: