Achieving High-Quality Prints with Midjourney: A Comprehensive Guide
A guide to maximizing image quality for your digital art
Achieving High-Quality Prints with Midjourney: A Comprehensive Guide
A guide to maximizing image quality for your digital art
The Unscaled Truth
In the vast realm of digital art, platforms like Midjourney offer a playground for creativity. However, turning these digital masterpieces into high-quality prints has challenges, mainly due to resolution constraints. Midjourney’s images, in their native resolution, aren’t ideally optimized for printing. This guide intends to light your way, helping you to refine the resolution of your Midjourney creations using external resources and readying them for top-notch printing.
Unraveling the Intricacies of Image Resolution
Before diving into digital art printing, understanding the concept of image resolution is vital. Simply put, resolution signifies the pixel quantity in an image. The higher this pixel count, the better the image quality, yielding enhanced detailing and sharpness.
For excellent print quality, a resolution of 300 pixels per inch (ppi) is typically advised. You can calculate the best resolution for your prints by multiplying your desired print dimensions (in inches) by 300. For example, to achieve an 8 x 10-inch print, you’d need a resolution of 2400 x 3000 pixels.
Charting the Resolution Journey of Midjourney
Midjourney’s default version (v5) comes with an initial resolution of 1024x1024 pixels, significantly improving from its predecessors. The older versions (v1, v2, v3) offered a resolution of 256x256 pixels, and version 4 had a resolution of 512x512 pixels.
It’s essential to note that with the release of version 5, the highest resolution achievable is also 1024x1024 pixels. Unlike its predecessors, this version doesn’t support the “Upscale to Max” function, which previously allowed images to be upscaled beyond the 512x512 pixel preview.
Ascending to 4K Resolution with Midjourney Images
Leveraging third-party tools and applications is key to printing larger, high-resolution images. Several software solutions include Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, Topaz AI, Gigapixel AI, ON1’s Resize AI, AI Image Enlarger, and Imgage Upscaler, can help upscale your Midjourney art to 4K resolution.
For instance, Adobe’s “Superscale” feature can double pixel density and resolution, making your images print-ready for larger sizes, from 16x24 to 24x36 inches. Topaz AI provides a noise reduction and detail enhancement solution, while Gigapixel AI, another product from Topaz Labs, offers a standalone upscaling tool that’s more budget-friendly.
ON1’s Resize AI, thanks to its machine learning capabilities, shines when handling multiple textures during image resizing. AI Image Enlarger provides an all-around, user-friendly software for enhancing, upscaling, and retouching images. Img.Upscaler, a free tool, uses AI for upscaling and supports batch processing.
Printing Perfection: The End Result
Printing an image with low resolution at a larger size could result in significant detail loss. Therefore, upscaling before printing is paramount. Even though Midjourney v5 doesn’t currently support resolutions higher than 1024x1024 due to computational constraints, upscaling offers a practical solution to this limitation.
Using software tools such as Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, Topaz AI, and ON1’s Resize AI, digital artists can upscale their Midjourney images beyond the current maximum. This ensures that their physical prints maintain the vibrancy and detail of the original digital art, ultimately paving the way for a seamless transition from screen to print.
Real Image Comparison:
