On 23rd June 2023, Midjourney team announced the release of some new updates and features, one of which is the new Zoom Out feature. Here is what they shared in the annoucment:
New “Zoom Out” Feature
- All upscales now have ‘zoom out’ buttons underneath you can use to reframe the image
- [Zoom Out 1.5x] [Zoom Out 2x] pulls the camera out and fills in details on all sides
- [Make Square] adds details on two sides to make a non-square image into a square one
- [Custom Zoom] (advanced) gives you a popup text box that allows you to change the prompt as you zoom out as well as the aspect ratio or precise zoom. To change aspect ratio set
--zoom 1then change the--arto your target. This option will try to remove black bars on your previous images.
In this post, I will share some cool ways to use this feature.
Character Placement
Once you have created a character in Midjourney you can take the image and using Zoom Out place the character in various situations and scenes. Let’s explore this example below where I create a portrait image of an indian female.
Starting with the prompt: a close up portrait of 21 year old indian model, high definition, highly detailed skin
Upscale the desired image from the grid, you should see the Custom Zoom button. Now to use the Zoom Out we use the Custom Zoom button and this is where the fun starts.
Let’s put the model on a fashion shoot set. So when clicking on Custom Zoom we get a popup with the original prompt and we replace it will: on the set of a fashion studio --ar 3:2 --zoom 2. You can change the prompt, the aspect ratio and the zoom setting.
on the set of a fashion studio --ar 3:2 --zoom 2All of a sudden our model is now placed in what looks like a fashion studio set, you see the clothes on the hanger behind her on the left, another male in the background and some lights as well.
Now let’s click on the same Custom Zoom button on the original upscaled image and place her in a jungle with a tiger. At the same time we change the composition to 16:9 ratio, more cinematic size.
stranded in a jungle with a tiger --ar 16:9 --zoom 2Again going back to the original image we can place her on a beach and change the image in vertical orientation.
on a beach in a mini swimsuit, tropical islands --zoom 2 --ar 2:3
standing on a beach, under a beach hut --upbeta --style raw --ar 16:9let’s take this upscaled image and zoom out further, which means you can keep zooming out until your heart is content.
standing on a beach --ar 16:9 --zoom 2Now to finalise the demonstration of this approach we will turn the image back into a square 1:1 ratio and zoom out the above image even further. In a square ration we hope that Midjourney will create a full body image of this beautiful model.
standing on a beach --upbeta --style raw --ar 1:1Create Wall Art
Create images of that a framed and ready to share online. You create the image you want and then using the Zoom out feature place the image inside a frame. I found this cool technique from the Midjourney documentation site.
drone shot of taj mahal, high quality image, 8k uhd --ar 3:2Once you upscale the image of the Taj Mahal you like we are going to frame it by clicking on the “Custom Zoom” button. A popup appears like the one below where we modify the prompt and place it inside the frame. You can change the ratio and zoom level to your liking.
Midjourney will produce a grid of 4 images, you can choose the one you like. Here you can see in the below we have the final beautifully framed image.
A framed picture on a wall in a minimalistic living room --ar 3:2 --zoom 2Although in its early stages, this feature looks quite promising in opening up more creative possibilities using Midjourney AI. One of the drawbacks still remains that even though we are zooming out original image the zoomed out image is still limited by the maximum pixel size of Midjourney generated images.
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