I set out to do just a quick d.Buzz with some microfiction based on the image in the header. Well, I’d not actually finished creating the image when I wrote the fiction. I knew what I wanted and wrote it based on that.
I started out in Midjourney creating an image based on the quote in Prompt A Day for Saturday:
"In the fields of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind." - Louis Pasteur
I liked this one of the images which were created:
As I looked at the image I thought, “What if something absurd was happening there like, birds and fish playing together?” It sparked the microfiction idea which I wrote immediately. Now I needed the image to support the fiction.
Well that turned out to be an interesting challenge. I several approaches and almost all of them ended up with either fish and barely recognizable birds and vice versa. Then it dawned on me to try the chained prompt idea I’d previously written about.
There were a few thoughts I needed to take into account for the image I was after. First was since I wanted to overlay the birds and fish onto the image from the prompt, I could either spend time removing a background or make sure I created it with white background and no shadows.
I then decided I would do the birds as a base layer. The first attempt put the birds on tree branches, thus the ‘birds flying in play’ as the subject.
vibrant, birds flying in play, vector, contour, isolated on a white background --ar 16:9 --no shadow --s 750
The prompt gave me this:
I thought that would be relatively straightforward to add the fish element to the base of birds using the chaining I talked about. I added a link to the base image to the prompt and then ‘fish’. The fish overpowered the birds even when I tried to give the image a greater weight.
So then I decided let’s try adding both birds and fish to see what happened.
I also added ‘sticker’ in an effort to make the image more defined.
vibrant, https://s.mj.run/7O-ZAmyrJsg, birds, fish, sticker, vector, contour, isolated on a white background --ar 16:9 --no shadow
I ended up with:
The result gave me both birds and fish together which I was after. But, the image wasn’t defined, parts of the edges were trimmed off. I decided that I could position the image between the man and the left end of the quote image to create a more natural look.
Problem was, the image was opposite from what I would need to accomplish the effect. I needed the higher part of the overlay on the left. Thankfully, a quick horizontal flip in my photo editing software and I had an overlay ready for positioning into the final image.
Generative AI images can be great. Just don’t expect them to always be able to give you what you’re after. Be willing to work through building images to get what you want and using photo editing to finish off the process.
Shadowspub writes on a variety of subjects as she pursues her passion for learning. She also writes on other platforms and enjoys creating books you use like journals, notebooks, coloring books etc. Her Nicheless Narrative podcast airs on Thursdays each week.
NOTE: unless otherwise stated, all images are the author’s.
Some of the image work may have been done in Midjourney for which I hold a licence to use the imges commercially.
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