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Midjourney’s new zoom-out feature is becoming the next big AI sensation

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Midjourney is creating a sensation with its recently released 5.2 update. The popular generative AI service announced several upgrades, most notably, the ability to zoom out from images.

Rowan Cheung shared a video on Twitter demonstrating what’s possible. Even though Midjourney quickly generates the stills, you need 30 to 60 images for each second of video. With fewer stills, the zoom-out effect would be stuttery instead of smooth.

Midjourney v5.2 just dropped, and it's incredible.

This new AI feature allows anyone to "Zoom Out" of any photo.

Here are 10 mind-blowing examples, with a tutorial at the end 🧵: pic.twitter.com/8zszZMUjsS

— Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) June 26, 2023

Nick St. Pierre was among the first to post examples of the zoom feature employed for video. He suggests using the interpolative zoom available in some video editors to reduce the number of images needed for a smooth zoom.

Zoom out + interpolation = magic

Only an hour into v 5.2 and I could cry

This is an incredible Midjourney update pic.twitter.com/hTzeSpt2uv

— Nick St. Pierre (@nickfloats) June 23, 2023

Pierre later tweeted a step-by-step guide to get the most out of this feature by adjusting the prompt and aspect ratio between generations. You can start with an AI-generated macro of a bee, add flowers to the zoom-out, then continue.

Base prompt to get you started. Super simple, just one word and an emoji.

Prompt: macro {🐝}

I used the bee emoji, but you can use any emoji you want. The insect emojis are great for this, but have fun with it. The eye emoji is really cool too 👁️ pic.twitter.com/6PYiCoDYcT

— Nick St. Pierre (@nickfloats) June 25, 2023

Matt Wolfe shared an interesting twist via Twitter, using Midjourney 5.2’s zoom feature to create varying backgrounds while the subject remains fixed.

When done right, I feel like this new zoom out feature could be the key to getting a consistent character in MidJourney.

1. Generate a super closeup of a face.
2. Do a custom zoom with whatever scenario you want.
3. Zoom out 2x again on the resulting image. pic.twitter.com/wWMovgi3rx

— Matt Wolfe (@mreflow) June 24, 2023

It’s easy to see why social media is buzzing about Midjourney. To be fair, this is a variation on outpainting which arrived in Dall-E in August of 2022. With outpainting, you can generate additional imagery anywhere on a canvas surrounding your original picture.

While Midjourney’s zoom feature keeps roughly the same number of pixels in the finished AI artwork, Dall-E’s outpainting increases the resolution as it generates new content.

Each AI platform has its strengths and weaknesses. The number of options continues to grow, and Adobe recently joined in on the fun. The beta version of Photoshop can do outpainting as well. The future of image and video creation is exciting.

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Alan Truly
Alan Truly
Computing Writer
Alan is a Computing Writer living in Nova Scotia, Canada. A tech-enthusiast since his youth, Alan stays current on what is…
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