#+title: S02|L13 - turn midjourney art into high-res images to print & sell #+HTML_HEAD: #+OPTIONS: H:6 * Links #+attr_html: :class links - [[../../toc.org][TOC - ecomm clubhouse]] - [[https://jellyfin.ronnyabraham.com/web/index.html#/details?id=d5c4bc7a653e919db2e4186326bfd340&serverId=99488804638e465693eed17924c57b60][video]] * Notes - by default midjourney images are too low res to be used in POD ** max quality of images - generally 1024x1024 - if you are generating a design with multiple objects try to design each one individual for higher pixel quality ** removing backgrounds - canva - photoroom ** upscaling the image - imglarger.com - upscale.media * Review - Turning Midjourney Images Into Print-Ready Files ** Summary Midjourney images are not automatically large enough for print. To use them for print-on-demand, you usually need to: - download the chosen image - remove the background - upscale the image - upload the final PNG to Printify ** Core Problem By default, Midjourney images may be too small for high-quality printing. Example: - square Midjourney image: about 1024px × 1024px - good enough for viewing - often not good enough for print ** Important Print Quality Rule When creating a design with multiple elements, generate each element separately if possible. Example: If creating solar system stickers: - do not generate all planets on one sheet - generate each planet individually - upscale each planet individually - combine them later in Canva or another editor ** Why If all planets are generated on one 1024px square image, each planet only gets a small fraction of the total pixels. That means: - lower resolution per planet - worse print quality - harder upscaling Better: - Mars gets its own image - Jupiter gets its own image - Earth gets its own image - each image starts larger - each image upscales better ** Multi-Element Design Checklist [0/5] - [ ] identify each separate design element - [ ] generate each element separately - [ ] download each element separately - [ ] upscale each element separately - [ ] combine final elements into one design ** Downloading A Midjourney Image Midjourney gives four image options. Numbering: - image 1 = top left - image 2 = top right - image 3 = bottom left - image 4 = bottom right To upscale/download one: - click =U1=, =U2=, =U3=, or =U4= - open the upscaled version - open it in browser - save the image ** Editing Before Upscaling Sometimes Midjourney images contain small mistakes. Examples: - extra dots - unwanted marks - strange artifacts - background clutter - odd details You can edit these before or after background removal. ** Background Removal Midjourney images usually do not have transparent backgrounds. For print-on-demand, you often need: - PNG file - transparent background Otherwise, the background prints as a box. ** Canva Pro Background Removal If you have Canva Pro, this is one of the easiest options. Workflow: - upload image to Canva - select image - use Background Remover - export as PNG - select transparent background Note: Transparent PNG export requires Canva Pro. ** Free Background Removal Option Use PhotoRoom for free background removal. Workflow: - go to PhotoRoom - upload image - let it remove the background - download the transparent PNG Good for: - simple objects - clean backgrounds - fast workflow ** Background Removal Checklist [0/4] - [ ] upload image to Canva or PhotoRoom - [ ] remove background - [ ] confirm no box remains - [ ] download as transparent PNG ** Upscaling After removing the background, upscale the image. Upscaling increases the usable print size. Old problem: Making a small image bigger stretched the pixels and caused blur. AI upscaling: - redraws missing detail - adds new pixels intelligently - keeps the image sharper - makes the image more suitable for print ** Upscaling Tools Mentioned - AI Image Enlarger - Gigapixel - Upscale.media - Canva upscaler ** AI Image Enlarger Good results, but uses credits. Free account: - limited free credits - usually 2x or 4x options Paid account: - more credits - may allow 8x upscaling ** Gigapixel Higher upfront cost, but useful if upscaling many images. Good for: - serious POD workflow - repeated upscaling - avoiding monthly credit limits ** Upscale Amount Common starting point: - 4x upscale Use 4x when: - image will be used on stickers - image will be combined with other elements - image does not need to cover a huge print area Use 8x when: - image will be printed large - image is the main design - product has a large print area ** Upscaling Checklist [0/5] - [ ] use transparent PNG - [ ] upload to upscaler - [ ] choose 4x or 8x - [ ] download final image - [ ] inspect for AI glitches ** Watch For Upscaling Problems AI upscalers can sometimes create: - strange artifacts - distorted edges - unwanted details - texture changes - weird facial/object changes Always inspect the final image before uploading. ** Printify Test The tutorial compares three versions in Printify: *** Version 1: Raw Midjourney Image Problems: - low resolution - white background box - not print-ready *** Version 2: Background Removed Only Improvement: - transparent background works Problem: - still too small / low resolution *** Version 3: Background Removed + Upscaled Best result: - transparent background - higher resolution - suitable for printing ** Final Workflow [0/7] - [ ] generate image in Midjourney - [ ] choose best version - [ ] upscale selected version in Midjourney using =U1–U4= - [ ] download image - [ ] remove background - [ ] AI-upscale image - [ ] upload final PNG to Printify ** Key Insight Do not treat Midjourney output as finished art. Treat it as raw material. The print-ready file usually comes after: - cleanup - background removal - upscaling - testing inside Printify ** Bottom Line For print-on-demand, the correct workflow is: Midjourney image → transparent PNG → AI upscale → Printify upload → check resolution. Never assume the first downloaded image is ready to sell. * Transcript #+begin_example 00:00 Okay. In this video, we are gonna discuss, 00:04 how to, 00:05 turn your pictures in MidJourney 00:08 into 00:08 high resolution images 00:10 suitable suitable for printing. Because by default, 00:13 they're not suitable. 00:15 But using AI, 00:17 we can make them high resolution which is great. In 00:20 the future, Midjourney 00:22 might upscale images to be big enough to be printed 00:25 as is. Currently, it does not. So here's how we 00:28 do 00:29 it. The first thing we need to discuss 00:31 is the concept 00:33 of how to generate images in the first place to 00:36 maximize print quality size. 00:38 So currently, right now, if we were to save 1 00:41 of these images, 00:43 it would save in, 00:45 a 10 24 by 10 24 pixel 00:49 square image. 00:51 Now, 00:54 let's say I wanted to create a series of stickers 00:56 to sell that were off that were showing all of 00:58 the different planets in the solar system. You know, I 01:01 wanted to sell them on Etsy. 01:03 Well, there is 1 technique I could use to, in 01:07 theory, speed up this process. So I could come and 01:10 I could imagine. 01:19 Different 01:20 planets 01:21 in 01:22 the solar 01:24 system. Sorry. 01:26 Sheet. 01:27 Now I'm sorry about my accent there. I know that 01:30 that word sounds very different than my New Zealand 01:33 accent. 01:35 Yeah. If you're a New Zealander listening to it, you 01:37 probably don't really hear it. But if you live anywhere 01:40 else in the world, you probably hear that my e 01:42 sounded like an I just then. That's how it sounds 01:45 in New Zealand. 01:48 Of a different oh, that's system. 01:54 From the perspective 01:56 of, 01:59 how they look 02:00 in space, 02:02 minimal 02:03 design, 02:05 flat 02:06 cartoon, 02:09 2 d animation 02:11 style 02:12 on a white 02:14 background. 02:17 So 02:18 what my journey is going to attempt to create here 02:20 is a single page. 02:23 I probably should have said the word page so that 02:25 I didn't have to pronounce 02:26 the word sheet 02:29 in my New Zealand accent. 02:31 It's gonna try to create multiple different pictures of planets 02:34 on a page. 02:36 You can see here already that it's starting to do 02:37 that. 02:39 Now, people do use this 02:42 as a way to 02:43 create pictures which do look very similar because it's definitely 02:46 a lot easier than having to constantly, you know, picking 02:49 like, if I wanna create multiple planets that all look 02:52 the same, 02:54 I'm probably gonna have to prompt it multiple times 02:56 for each of the different ones to get them looking 02:59 fairly similar even though I'll still use the same prompt 03:01 to help minimize the amount of times I'll need to 03:03 achieve that. 03:05 But yeah, this is just a real quick way to 03:06 do it, isn't it? 03:08 They all look the same. They're all the same style. 03:11 The problem with this though, 03:14 people teach this as a shortcut and 03:17 I don't think those people are thinking about the printing 03:19 quality. Maybe those people don't actually print things. I'm not 03:22 really sure. But the problem with this is that if 03:25 we were to save 1 of these, it would be 03:27 in a 1024 03:28 pixel by 1024 03:29 pixel square box. And even when upscaled, these are already 03:33 gonna be starting at small because it's just a fraction 03:35 of that size. So I I can't I can't do 03:38 the math in my head of how exactly small this 03:40 would be right now but it's not many pixels at 03:43 all. 03:44 And so 03:45 that is why 03:48 if you have if you create if you are creating 03:50 a design that has multiple elements on it now if 03:53 you just say if you're just creating 03:54 a single picture, like let's say you're just creating, you 03:57 know, a picture of a corgi and that's all it 03:59 is and it's fantastic, obviously, you're just gonna save this 04:02 as is. But if you are creating something that's got 04:05 multiple different elements such as multiple different 04:08 planets, 04:10 then you want to generate them 04:12 individually if you can because that will mean then that 04:14 each 1 is going to print out in a higher 04:16 quality resolution so you can then upscale 04:19 that image 04:20 and then you can combine them together. So if I 04:23 was creating, for example, a t shirt which featured different 04:25 planets of the solar system as well, not, you know, 04:27 a series of stickers, but instead a t shirt that 04:29 featured different planets of the solar system, I would do 04:31 this exact same thing. I would create each planet individually 04:35 and I would upscale each planet individually, and then I 04:38 would place each of those different pictures 04:41 onto the t shirt design. 04:42 That way, they're all upscaled into the highest resolution possible. 04:46 Okay, Sarah. I can hear you say, I have created 04:49 my picture or pictures 04:51 and I've got them and I wanna save them. How 04:53 do I do that? How do I upscale them? Well, 04:56 very good question. 04:57 So let's come and let's say what we're gonna do 05:00 is I'm gonna pick 1 here that we might wanna 05:02 modify because I'm gonna show you a few things. I'm 05:05 gonna show you, 05:06 how to download it 05:08 and then I'm going to show you how to edit 05:10 it because, 05:12 a lot of the times these pictures will have, 05:15 errors or mistakes that you want to fix. 05:19 And so, 05:21 and it can be often small errors to fix and 05:23 we can edit them quite easily for free. So we 05:26 will discuss that. 05:28 If you don't have to edit it, you can skip 05:30 that step. 05:32 And, 05:33 we will then, 05:36 remove the background. And I'll show you 2 different ways 05:38 that you can remove the background 05:40 and then we will upscale it. So 05:43 for the sake of this, 05:45 let's say that I wanted to download this picture here, 05:47 which is definitely gonna need some editing because I don't 05:49 want all these little dots. Dots. These little dots are 05:51 not what I want. I don't want this either. 05:54 What I would do 05:56 is I'd go, okay, this is image this is image 05:58 1, this is image 2, this is image 3, this 06:00 is image 4. I want image 2. So you come 06:03 and you click U2. 06:05 And 06:06 now, 06:07 if we scroll down to the bottom, 06:10 you see that it has generated 06:12 a large upscaled version of it. So we can come 06:16 and we can click on it and then we can 06:18 come and open it in our browser and then we 06:21 can save the image. 06:22 So I'm gonna save this image 06:24 and then I'm gonna show you what to do next. 06:27 So, 06:28 chances are a lot of you watching have a Canva 06:31 Pro account. And if so, you can use that to 06:35 remove the background of pictures from the journey. 06:38 Now you do need a Pro account because you're gonna 06:40 have to save this as a PNG with a transparent 06:42 background. That is a feature which currently is only available 06:46 for Pro accounts, and it does include people who are 06:49 currently on the free trial for the pro account. 06:52 So as long as you have a pro account, you 06:54 can use Canva for this. Otherwise, I'll show you how 06:57 to do it. 06:58 But, if you have it, you might find Canva the 07:00 easiest. It's very, very good. Canva's very good at removing 07:03 backgrounds from images which are more complex. Obviously, this is 07:06 a pretty easy 1 to remove the background for but 07:08 you could have some images which have a lot, 07:11 more which have lines that are a lot more, 07:14 that require 07:15 a much, more complex AI technology to figure out. So, 07:20 yes. But this 1 here, pretty simple. So we're gonna 07:22 come and click little background remover. 07:27 Our background is now transparent just like that. 07:31 And now, we can save the picture. 07:34 So that's 1 way you can do it if you 07:36 don't have a Canva Pro description. I'll show you how 07:38 else you can do it for free. 07:41 Photo room. Yes. Photo room is how you can do 07:43 this, for free really easily. I've tried out a lot 07:47 of the free background remover AI apps. This is currently 07:51 the best 1 that I could find. 07:53 That had the best results. So 07:56 it's also really, really simple to use as an added 07:58 bonus. 08:00 You just come here, take your image, 08:02 drop it in, 08:05 let it load. 08:10 And now you have a bit and have transparent background. 08:13 Yay. 08:14 And then you can just download it 08:18 for free. 08:20 I'm not even signed in to an account, by the 08:22 way. 08:23 So you don't even have to have an account with 08:25 them. 08:26 Either way, once you've got your transparent your your your 08:29 I'm gonna draw a transparent background, 08:32 we now need to 08:34 scale it. So that's what we're gonna do next. 08:37 And so now with the power of AI, we can 08:39 upscale it using an AI image 08:43 in larger or upscaler. So previously, 08:47 increasing an image from being small to large 08:50 was 08:51 very challenging. You basically had to redraw the image from 08:55 scratch. 08:56 But now with AI technology, 08:58 it's completely changed. And so the reason why is because, 09:01 when you make an image 09:03 and you make it small, there's only so much, there's 09:06 only so many pixels there in the image. It's, you 09:10 know, limited by the amount of pixels there is. And 09:12 so if you just make the pic if you make 09:14 the picture bigger without redrawing it, 09:17 then you're just gonna stretch out your image and you're 09:19 not adding additional pixels. And so it's gonna look pixelated 09:22 because now you're stretching it across even more pixels. 09:25 So with an AI image outscaler, what it's doing is 09:28 when you increase the image by, say, 2 times or 09:31 4 times or 8 times, 09:33 the AI 09:35 is using its smart technology to figure out how it 09:37 should be redrawing that image to fill in those extra 09:40 pixels, 09:42 which is why we can now upscale images without reducing 09:46 the quality, which used to be impossible unless you completely 09:49 redid the picture from scratch. It's amazing technology, 09:54 something which 09:55 my younger self would have just found absolutely 09:59 incredible to have. 10:01 So 10:02 you can see here 10:03 the power of it. It's taking this image here 10:06 and it's upscaling it. Now, there are so many different 10:09 AI image upscalers out there. I really like AI Image 10:12 Enlarger. This 1 has been really, 10:14 has has created great results for me. 10:17 If you could when it upscales an image, you know, 10:19 just like with Medjutie, how Medjutie can create glitches with 10:22 things, how how things look, when when you're using AI 10:24 technology to upscale, in theory, it could also create glitches 10:27 too. So I found this 1 to be very good 10:29 for making the least amount of glitches possible. 10:32 But you do have to pay 10:35 for credits. 10:36 So you've got 8 free credits to use. So if 10:39 you wanna just get started, you can get started for 10:40 free. 10:42 With the premium account, 10:44 you can, get 100 credits per month. And then with 10:47 advanced, you can get 19 credits per month. You can 10:49 get for 19 dollars, you can get 500 credits per 10:52 month and obviously, there's a discount too for yearly subscriptions. 10:56 But if you just want to have a, flat fee, 11:00 then Gigapixel's 11:01 really great. Now this 1, obviously, it's not necessarily the 11:04 cheapest thing upfront. 11:06 But, you know, if you calculate it out, paying this 11:09 up here upfront for it, 11:11 versus having to pay a monthly fee, you're very gonna 11:14 quickly make back your money. 11:16 But there's also so many different AI image enlargers and 11:19 upscalers out there too. So you could take advantage of 11:22 the free ones and then you could go to free 11:24 ones like, you know, upscale medias and use those. 11:28 So, 11:31 I I have personally found better results with the paid 11:33 ones, 11:34 but you can get some pretty good results from here, 11:36 especially if your images are not complex images. 11:40 So it's up to you. 11:42 But you definitely need to upscale your image because currently, 11:45 if we were to upload the, our picture of Mars 11:48 as is onto a product within Printify, 11:51 it would not be high enough resolution for printing. 11:55 So I'll show you how to do it with this 11:57 1 here. But, again, you can use whichever 1 that 11:59 you like. 12:00 So we are gonna come and we're gonna take our 12:04 transparent 1. Take your transparent 1 and we're gonna drop 12:08 it in. 12:10 And, 12:12 now I've got paid accounts. I've got access to 8 12:14 times. The free accounts only have access to 2 times 12:17 and 4 times. So I'm gonna just select 4 times. 12:19 4 times is often enough for an image especially if 12:22 you're combining multiple images together and the images are gonna 12:25 be reduced downsize even more. 12:27 But 4 times is often 12:30 about more than enough. 12:32 And so, 12:34 we're then gonna come and click start. 12:38 And this can definitely take, 12:41 a little while, especially if you're doing 8 times. 12:45 So 12:46 we're just gonna 12:48 sit here for a bit 12:50 and let it process. 12:53 My dog stopped. He has been very quiet while I've 12:56 been filming recently. He must have gone back to sleep. 13:01 He must be having another nap. He went for a 13:03 huge walk this morning. 13:08 So 13:09 he's probably still quite tired 13:11 from his walk. 13:15 Still loading. 13:18 So sorry again, by the way, about my cough. 13:23 Again, you can fast forward this if you like, but, 13:26 for The Ecomm Clubhouse, 13:28 I really like to show things in their totality 13:32 because, 13:34 the patience of everyone here is so much better, understandably, 13:37 because you're paid to join program to get the information. 13:40 So, you are actually really looking for the information rather 13:43 than just looking to be entertained. So, 13:47 I can, 13:47 give you the full show it to you in in-depth, 13:51 so you can get a realistic idea 13:54 about what's actually involved 13:56 without me having to skip over things. So here we 13:58 go. We've got our image 14:01 looking fantastic. 14:02 We're gonna come and we're going to, 14:05 save this image. And 14:07 we're then going to upload this upscaled image, 14:11 onto our product. 14:14 Alright. So I'm here on Printify. 14:16 I've got up our Kiss Cut sticker and I've got 14:19 up their largest 1. And I'm gonna show 14:22 you how much of a difference it makes, the process 14:24 that we just went through. So let's start off first 14:27 of all with 14:28 that picture that we saved from Midjourney and then edited 14:31 in Photopea as is. So if we were to upload 14:34 this picture 14:36 as is, 14:39 you would see number 1, the resolution 14:41 is not good. So here we can make it bigger. 14:45 The resolution is not good. 14:47 And also because the background 14:50 is not transparent, 14:58 there is a big white box around it. Alright. That's 15:01 not what we want. So 15:04 come and delete this. 15:06 If we were to upload the transparent version 15:10 with the transparent background, there still hasn't been 15:14 you did you'd see this time around, 15:17 we've still got the problem that it's not being upscaled. 15:19 So it's still tiny. 15:22 But at least at least the background's transparent. So now 15:25 we've got the little kiss cut, 15:27 circle around it, 15:30 which is the goal. 15:34 So there we go. 15:38 However, if we come and if we take our 15:41 upscaled picture of Mars 15:47 and let it load in. It's gonna take a bit 15:49 long because it's a bigger image. 15:51 You can see 15:52 much higher resolution 15:54 because it's been upscaled. 15:56 So now 15:58 we can print 15:59 in high quality. 16:01 And remember, we did this at 4 times. For bigger 16:03 products, you may wanna do it to up to 8 16:06 times. 16:09 And then if we come and if we preview it, 16:13 you will 16:14 see, and it loads, 16:15 that, 16:16 it's got the transparent background 16:19 as well. 16:21 And so 16:22 that means in that, 16:23 we've been able 16:25 to 16:27 take a picture from the journey. 16:30 And then we've been able to upscale it and, 16:33 make it, ready to be printed 16:36 on better products. 16:38 Just let this go up like that. Beautiful. 16:42 So 16:43 that's how you do it. 16:45 I hope you've enjoyed, 16:47 these videos 16:48 and I will see you on the next 1. #+end_example