Stable Diffusion

Developed by Stability AI, one of the leading open source generative AI companies, Stable Diffusion is a deep learning-based text-to-image model launched in 2022.

This impressive image generator uses latent diffusion models (LDM) to convert textual descriptions into detailed images. Developed with academic researchers and nonprofit organizations, the model can also handle tasks other than image generation such as inpainting, outpainting, and image-to-image translations guided by a text prompt.

Unlike other leading AI image generators like Midjourney and DALL-E, the code and model weights of Stable Diffusion have been fully open sourced, and the tool is also available in the web-based app: Dream Studio.

Stable Diffusion

Stable Diffusion is an open source text-to-image generator.

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How to Access Stable Diffusion

Stable Diffusion can be accessed by downloading the public code and model weights from the official repository provided by Stability AI. Unlike many other proprietary text-to-image models, Stable Diffusion can run on most consumer hardware equipped with a modest GPU with at least 8GB VRAM.

Alternatively, accessing Stable Diffusion involves signing up for DreamStudio, the official web application for this AI-powered art generator. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to access and use Stable Diffusion.

Signing Up for Stable Diffusion

1. Visit the DreamStudio website at https://dreamstudio.ai/generate.
2. Click "Login" at the top right of the page and create a new account.

Stable Diffusion Pricing

Upon signing up sign up, you will receive 25 free credits. This is enough for roughly seven different prompts, or around 30 images with the default settings. Additional credits can be purchased at a rate of $10 for 1,000 credits. Once your free credits are used up, you can consider running Stable Diffusion on your own computer for free.

How to Generate an Image with Stable Diffusion

Generating an image with Stable Diffusion via DreamStudio is straightforward. Here's how you can get started:

1. On the left sidebar of DreamStudio, you will find various controls.
2. The 'Style' dropdown menu allows you to select a specific style of image for Stable Diffusion to generate. Options range from 'Enhance' (which creates realistic images) to various artistic styles like Anime, Photographic, Digital Art, Comic Book, Fantasy Art, and more.
3. The 'Prompt' box is crucial - this is where you describe the image you want Stable Diffusion to create. It could be anything from a whimsical scene, a natural landscape, or a character description.

Once you've entered your prompt, you can bypass the remaining options and click 'Dream'. The cost of generating the artwork, in credits, will be displayed on the 'Dream' button.

After the image is generated, DreamStudio presents four variations based on your prompt. You can then choose your favorite, and use the options at the top of the right sidebar to download it, reuse the prompt, generate additional variations, edit it, or set it as the initial image, which includes it as part of the prompt.

Stable Diffusion vs. Midjourney vs. DALL-E

Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and DALL-E are all powerful text-to-image models, but they differ in several ways.

• Stable Diffusion is an open-source model that runs on consumer hardware and is well-suited for text-to-image generation, inpainting, outpainting, and image-to-image translations.
• Midjourney is currently hailed by many as the best image generator, although it's only available in Discord and doesn't have a public API
• DALL-E, another model by OpenAI, is also a closed source model, although most say that Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are quite a bit better in terms of quality than DALL-E.

In short, Stable Diffusion stands out from competitors in terms of how it's fully open source and one of the top 3 image generators on the market.

Summary: Stable Diffusion

Stable Diffusion is a major step forward in the field of open source generative AI. Its primary use is to generate high-quality images from text descriptions, but it can also be applied to other image transformation tasks.

With the public availability of its code and model weights, Stable Diffusion provides a powerful AI tool to a broad user base, democratizing access to advanced text-to-image technology.