FREE AI Programs?

[Connie]

I realize that all the major AI generating sites aren't really free, but are there any that let you generate the images and then decide whether to pay for the finished images if we like them? I don't want to have to buy credits or pay ahead of time when it is very unlikely I'll get anything useful anyway. (Not using AI for "artwork," but hopefully for mockups.

[PenguinPower]

I don’t think any of them work that way… each time you generate you use computing power, so you “pay”, wonky or not.  Dall-E does give you, I think, 15 free credits at the beginning of each month. Most of the others give you a free taste, then make you start paying, I think. 
I’ve been experimenting with Firefly for mock-ups. It and Dall-E seem to be similar in quality and accuracy to the request. It’s been very successful with some asks - a jar or bag of food, a pet to put a bowl in front of. It’s been hopeless at some things you’d think simple - like a pair of double doors (I have a some signs for hospitals/labs)… The main thing at the moment seems to be keeping things relatively simple. The more complex the request, the more elements it needs, the greater chance of weirdness.. I tried getting it to make a garage and a farm stand. The results are super weird. The AI doesn’t get scale.. it knows the elements to use, but not how to put them all together. 

[Connie]

Since I'm only looking to make some mockups and backgrounds, 15 credits a month is fine to start out with to see if I can even get anything usable. I've been having a terrible time trying to get a decent looking coastal Christmas tree. Either I get a Christmas tree on the beach, or made out of seashells, or ones that are way too dark. Maybe it's because I haven't been able to find any on the stock photo sites either! But if they really are scraping images from the whole internet for learning, then they should see all the ones on blogs and stuff and Pinterest! Currently I've been using Design Bundles' AI program, because I have the Gold Pro membership, but it isn't that good, so I'm trying to find something better.

[Cat]

Ha! Well, in AI's defense, I have no earthly idea what a coastal Christmas tree is either! But I have to laugh when people get all worked up over AI replacing artists because "it can create pictures from just a sentence." I suppose that's true as long as you don't particularly care what the picture looks like. I've been trying to get images to use as backgrounds for wedding covers and every time I use the phrase "baby's breath" it sticks a baby in the middle of the picture! Suffice it to say, I think there's a LOOOONG way to go before it will get anywhere close to replacing artists or photographers!

[sm]

Just because you can't use it effectively, doesn't mean others can't. Take a look at the AI generated content on Adobe Stock. They have 2 million in there already and it's growing fast. They can't keep up with approvals anymore because creating content takes a lot less time. That's just on Adobe. Imagine what it will be like in a year when it improves?

[TanChoonHong]

Try LeonardoAI. They're giving 150 free daily. I was on free tier, then moved to paid tier which is affordable 8000/mth. for better features.

[Connie]

Thank you, that sounds good!

[ColsCreations]

I use NightCafe (link in sig). It's free to join, doesn't require discord, and as SimplyDesigned said, you get 5 free credits a day just for logging in. You can earn another 2 just for voting on the Daily Challenge.  Plus there's a list of things  a new user can do to earn extra free credits. I've currently got 1,233 credits that haven't cost me a penny as I accrue them faster then I spend them. NC has many different output options and many of the older models cost zero credits to use.

Anyways, I have no idea what a "coastal christmas tree" would look like either or what type image you are looking for, but I just generated these two. They are only 1024x1024 but if you think you could use them for anything, I can generate them up to 8000 x 8000 for you.

[Cat]

Starry AI gives you 5 free credits each day - but they're only good for that day, you can't accrue credits unless you subscribe. It's pretty good at faces but has plenty of its own weirdness - in group shots of people it often doesn't center them and cuts off parts of people's heads and such. The images are also fairly low resolution. I've actually used Dall-E out-painting in combination with StarryAI people to try to fix things like mangled hands and cut off heads - results are iffy, but I've managed to get a few things that are useable as placeholder images.

[Connie]

Thank you. 5 free credits a day is enough for me to experiment with. I'm not trying to make people, only things like a decent coastal Christmas tree.

[PenguinPower]

That's a pretty tough ask for an AI...

I don't know if you ever read the Amelia Bedelia books, but you've got to treat the AI like her... be very, very specific. It's probably going to misinterpret "coastal Christmas tree" because it just has too many meanings. You've got to say something like a Christmas tree decorated with blue and white ornaments and white starfish - and then to not get a close up (unless you want that) you need to specify a setting - in a cabin, in a beachouse in, in a modern living room... Something that complex, it'll still probably look a bit weird. 
Here's the best of the 4 that Firefly came up with, with the prompt "a modern living room containing a christmas tree decorated with blue and white ornaments and white starfish"

It's closer... but it's still just odd looking.. There are some really random things, like the sprigs of fir tree and snow flakes just scattered around and the stuff on the shelves isn't anything recognizable.. 

Both Firefly and Dall-E have a function that allows you to pick an image from your original prompt and create variations (at a cost of credits... it's not free). Neither of them seem as good at refining things as Midjourney though. 

[Connie]

Yes, that's the kind of stuff I get! For some reason, starfish are like human hands- they end up with all random number of points! And I don't know why it can't figure out that a Christmas tree goes on the floor!

I tried beachhouse- that was a disaster, LOL! Basically the beach was in the house! I'm pretty sure, though, that it proves that AI isn't just taking everything from the whole internet, and is just using stock photos, because stock photo sites don't have coastal Christmas trees either! At least not whole ones, and not in a whole coastal themed living room.

[ievajen]

if you have photoshop subscription can use beta to generate background fill, they made it now free for commercial use

[Connie]

I don't have the subscription. I'm still on CS5.

[SimplyDesigned]

I see nobody has mentioned NightCafe, they also have a credit system that gives 5 free credits a day that DO roll over 🙂

[Connie]

Thank you very much.

[sm]

Bing gives you 100 credits every day but you can't use it for commercial use. Others that allow commercial use, don't guarantee you won't be sued, and perhaps falsely transfer IP rights to you. They are covering their backsides. In their terms:

• Once your Artwork has been created and delivered to you, all Intellectual Property Rights subsisting in that specific Artwork is transferred to you and you may use your Artwork for personal or commercial purposes. However, we provide no warranties that you will be able to trade mark or claim copyright ownership of our Artwork or that any trade mark application or copyright claim will not infringe on any third party Intellectual Property Rights;

Imagine a product gets taken down because of a cover image. Is it worth it?

[Connie]

I highly doubt anybody would ever be able to recognize the background of my cover images.

[paperiecris]

Stable Diffusion is free. And you can use your generated images for commercial purposes.  

Do you have a Discord account? It only works there. It is free and pretty easy to set up. 

I think it is worth it because it generates really good images. And is 100% free.

[Connie]

Thank you. I do have a discord account- I signed up for it when I checked out Midjourney, but found out that MJ wasn't free.

[PenguinPower]

I hadn't played around with Stable Diffusion at all before.. Looks like there's plain web interface now, no need for Discord and it is apparently totally free, without daily limits even. The output is very nice looking, but its accuracy to the prompt isn't great.... I have yet to get it to make what I've actually asked for. Watch out - in order to get quick results the default setting for size is 768 x 768, about 1/2 of what you need for even a cover image.. go into advanced and change it before you generate.. 
https://stablediffusionweb.com/#demo

[annelaure]

I also recommend Leonardo AI and its 150 free credits per day. It's a very nice tool with different integrated upscalers.