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Dabbling with DALL·E
Designing new compositions with a creative copilot
After the news broke on AI-generated art winning a prize earlier in September, AI creative tools have been on my mind. On Sept. 28th 2022, the DALL·E image generator became open for everyone — so I decided to give it a try.
What is DALL·E?
DALL·E is a new AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language. According to the website, it combines text, images and art into new compositions, with over 1.5M users creating more than 2M images per day.
See Discord or Instagram for image examples.
As a new user, you’re greeted with a popup that describes different ways to use DALL·E:
- Generate images from a description in natural language
- Easily make realistic, targeted edits to images
- Create different variations of an image, inspired by the original
Expectation
I had hoped that Dall•E could serve as a powerful alternative to a stock photo library, creating unique imagery for use in a future project.
The homepage examples showcased various styles which you could add by appending the term to your prompt (ex. 3D, hand-drawn sketches, abstract/digital art, oil painting, impressionist, cyberpunk, vaporware, etc.). The more details you added to the prompt (ex. closeup, with dark background, in [location]), the better the result.
The options were reminiscent of Adobe Photoshop’s Filters, which modify images with different styles or Getty images, which allow you to search for imagery filtering by color/mood/style/number of people/type of photography (editorial/creative).
Reality
I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of some prompts (pixel art, oil painting) and disappointed with others (ex. 3D…
