Testing the AI waters

Okay, curiosity is getting to me. Recently, I started dabbling in AI to make some podcast covers for my audio production house and came up with some great results. Mind you, most of the covers I created were titles with background graphics.

Now, I’m just doing this to see how accurately I can make an image to my liking. What free AI image generator would you recommend I use as a testing ground?

:: wide-eyed from shock, cautiously kneels all the way down, puts ear to ground, and listens intently for the sound of the Four Horsemen ::

Since you're on a Mac, you'll likely want an online service. Otherwise, I don't know squat about MacOS's AI rendering power. That said, I recommend Krea.AI for the simplest and quickest way to get your feet wet. If you're up for a bit more of a challenge, @MCDesigns has gotten pretty good milage from MimiPC.

Now, I'm not familiar with MimiPC, but Krea offers free daily credits, the main caveat being they don't last long.

Just ran a quick search for Flux on Mac and found a vid on how to install an open-source app called DiffusionBee. Hope it helps. Imma try it on my M1 Air:

Ok. Yeah. DiffusionBee is the way to go if you want something free you can use offline. It even automatically detects your specs and recommends the most compatible version of whatever AI model you want to use.

Flux is the current market leader and comes in three versions: Pro, Dev, and Schnell. Pro is the commercial version, whereas Dev and Schnell are both free. Dev offers the highest visual quality but slower render time while Schnell offers faster renders with a negligible hit to quality. Diffusion Bee recommended the Schnell version for my M1, so I went with it. These are my first two renders. Neither of them took more than a couple minutes to generate, which was a helluva lot faster than I thought they might:

Awesome, thanks! I think MiniPC is a paid service. I did try it briefly and logged in using my Goggle account but to do anything, you have to pay.

Update, because I'm using Catalina OS, it's too old to use. The app requires at least 13.0. My OS version is 10.15.

Much respect for just trying AI, that is half the battle. I see Nyghtfall is on the case and has pretty well covered the bases. Since I don't use a Mac, I can't offer suggestions. Best of luck and if you need any help ask away.

I did find an AI generator in the Canva app on my iPad. The results are pretty decent but I think I might end up sticking to Daz. Using G9 characters may give me more of the realism I need for my renders.