In this article, I am going to go through a step-by-step beginner’s guide on how to sign up for Midjourney. If you want to use Midjourney, there are quite a few steps involved in the process and you have to create a Discord account. But don’t worry – I’ll show you how to do that too!
The reason I’ve written this as an absolute beginner’s guide is that often guides on how to do something skip out a few steps on the assumption that ‘everyone knows’ certain things. The people writing the guides know it, and the people who are semi-familiar with the content might know it, but those who are looking for a beginner’s guide of instructions because it’s their first introduction to something, often need those missing steps.
I’m a graphic and web designer by trade. I sometimes come across stuff that I can’t edit in the website theme my client’s chosen, but there is always a workaround. I’m a web designer, not a web developer, but I know the answer is out there and I all too often find “the answer” with instructions that I can’t follow because it was written for developers. Even the “for beginners” answers are not always that clear. Use this css and put it into the script… okay where… where do I put it?
So this beginner’s guide to getting started with Midjourney makes no presumptions because I’ve been there – many, many times.
How to Sign Up For Midjourney
If you want to use the Midjourney AI image generator, you need to have a Discord account. Yes, it’s a bit confusing, but currently you can only access Midjourney through Discord’s servers, so you’ll need to start by setting that up.
Discord is free to register, but it requires a few steps.
1. Download Discord
You will have to download the Discord app at discord.com/download for PC. (You can also get the Discord app for mobile and tablets at the Google Play store or Apple App Store.)
Just click on the “Download for Windows Button” or “Download for Mac”, depending on your OS.
Once it’s downloaded you will find it in your computer’s download folder or wherever you’ve set it as a download destination. Double-click the discord setup icon.
Presumably, this isn’t the first time you’ve downloaded something, but I’m not going to skip any steps, because those are often the ones that get me lost when I’m trying to follow instructions when I’m trying to do something new.
2. Begin Installing Discord
Once you click on the Discord setup icon, you may have a box that pops up if you don’t have your computer’s setting on automatic download. Just click “run”.
Once it’s been installed a window will pop up.
If you already have a discord account you can sign in using your email and password. But if this is your first time on Discord you need to register and create an account. Click “register” at the bottom.
Another window will pop up and you need to enter an email address, choose a username that people will see, create a password, and enter your date of birth.
You need to use a real email address because they will send you a message that you must verify later.
3. Pick a Username
Just a note on the username… just using your first name will be rejected as there are too many people using the same username. More than one person can have the same name because each username is also assigned a random 4-digit number at the end, but there are only so many 4-digit numbers. And you will probably not want to have the same name as someone else on a public forum anyway.
Try to go for something that no one else is using. It can be a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. Whether you go for something like PeanutButterBananaBandit or Venusaurus_Rexx, get creative and have fun with it.
Click continue.
If your username is not accepted, it will tell you and you’ll have to try again with a different username.
4. Give Access Through the Firewall
Once your registration goes through, you might then get a warning message from your Windows Firewall. This popped up when I was trying to register.
I was a little apprehensive at first and did a bit of a Google search asking if Discord is safe and should I “allow access” to Discord through the Firewall. From everything I’d read, it seems that Discord is safe to use and if you want to use it, you have no choice but to click the two boxes to ‘allow Discord to communicate on these networks’ and then click the ‘allow access’ button. Otherwise you won’t be able finish the registration.
Once you do that, Voila! You’re in.
But you’re not done yet.
5. Verify Your Email Through Discord
You still need to verify your email. There’s a bar at the top of the page that says “please check your email and follow the instructions to verify your account.” Go and check your email.
If you don’t get an email, go back to the discord window and click “resend”, but first be sure to check your spam folder if you don’t see the email in your inbox.
Click on the link in your email from Discord and it will open up a new tab in your browser. You’ll get a message that your email has been verified. Click on the ‘Continue to Discord’ button.
Okay so now FINALLY, we’re going to get into signing up for Midjourney!
6. Sign Up For Midjourney
Go to www.midjourney.com/home/ and click the button at the bottom right that says “Join the Beta.”
You’ll get a window that says you’ve been invited to join Midjourney.
Click the “Accept Invite” button.
You will then get a message that the Midjourney Bot wants to access your Discord account. Just click “Authorize.” And it will take you back into Discord.
Only this time there should be a Midjourney icon in the toolbar on the left side that’s white with a sailboat on it. Click the icon! We’re almost there!!
7. Join a Newbies Room
Welcome to Midjourney! This is it. Now to get started creating images, choose a newbie’s room from the menu on the left side.
8. Start to /Imagine
At the bottom of the screen, there’s a message window. Type: “/imagine” without the quotation marks, then hit the space bar and let your imagination run wild.
It will give you a prompt window where you can describe the image you want to create.
And there you go.
This is more of a guide about how to sign up for Midjourney, rather than a how to use Midjourney guide. We’re going to save that for another article, but before you go nuts letting your creativity run wild, there are a few things about Midjourney that you need to know before you get started.
Midjourney Rules and Regs
Be sure to read through Midjourney’s Terms and Conditions of use. You clicked the box that you agreed to them when you signed up, so go actually read them. If you thought that you’re going to use it to create your own porn images, think again. There are also restrictions on certain things, like images with explicit violence.
If you are trying to create images that are against the rules, Midjourney will ban you.
25 Free Images
When you sign up, you get to make 25 free images. Every time you adjust an image and get it to re-render that image, it counts toward your image count.
The initial thumbnails are only 256px – you get four images for every prompt – at which point you can upscale your favourite to full quality, which counts as another image. So your 25 free images will go really quickly.
Once you’ve reached the limit of free images, you will need to pay for everything after that. You can opt for different plans from $10 for 200 images to $30/month for unlimited images.
It’s a Lot to Take In
Once you get into the room where you create your images as a free/trial user, it’s crazy chaotic because it’s a busy public chat room where everyone else is also creating images. You not only see what images people have created but they are also being uploaded in real-time so it’s forever scrolling a mile a minute.
Once you’ve written in the prompt for the image you want to create and hit ‘enter’, it takes a while to render the image.
In that time 100 other people have made images and your image has been bumped up and you have to go scrolling to find it.
This can make it difficult to find your image! But on the plus side, you can see the prompts other people are using, and get inspired by them.
Your Images Are Public Domain
Any images you create in Midjourney are in the public domain while you are in the free trial period. Anyone can take any image you create and use it or edit it. You are, after all, posting in a public chat room.
One of the upsides to this is that you can also see everyone else’s images along with their prompts so it’s interesting to just sit and watch what other people are creating and look at their prompts and what image was created from those prompts. This is especially fantastic if you are all new to this and are just trying to get a handle of the capabilities of the program and beginning to understand the importance that ‘prompt engineering’ plays in being able to create that perfect image you’re looking for. It’s great for inspiration!
Even when you switch up to the paid subscription, every prompt and image you generate is shared in a gallery that all paid members can browse through and download.
But let’s say you’re working on a commercial project and you don’t want people to be able to just take the images you’ve created and use them anywhere (your clients might not be too happy about that!). If you want to have your images and prompts remain private, it’ll cost you an additional $20/month over and above the $30/month subscription.
Try Craiyon First
If you have never tried an AI image generator, the best advice I can give you is to try Craiyon first. Before you start spending money on a more advanced system, take advantage of the fact that Craiyon is totally free, there is no sign up or registration and you can make as many images as you want. Simply go to www.craiyon.com and all you have to do is type into the box at the top what image you want to create.
The reason trying out Craiyon first is important is because if you are just wanting to experiment with the latest AI image-generating tech, you will very soon realize it’s not quite as simple as it looks. I mean it’s simple in that you just type in a prompt and you get an image, but getting the image you wanted is more complicated than you might think.
Because it’s free and there are no limitations on how many images you can create, Craiyon is a fantastic way to fine-tune your prompting skills before you start with any of the other more advanced programs and start having to spend money. Trust me when I say those initial free credits from the other AI image generators go really quickly if you just dive into them before you’ve had a chance to experiment with different prompts to see how they will give you different results.
Craiyon is a great starting point to get a feel of how image generators work and how different prompts can make a radical difference in the quality of the images they will output. Be sure to check out the article – Craiyon is here – Wanna Play? – which gives some great basic tips on fine tuning your prompting skills.
