Once upon a time, 'Deep Style' was all the rage at the Deep Dream Generator. These days this unique AI option has fallen from grace at the site, but it still has a lot to offer when creating AI images.
Well, it's official. I have been creating images with Artificial Intelligence for 2 years now. Sometime back in August of 2022, I began my AI journey at the Deep Dream Generator. Two years doesn't seem like a long time ago, but when it comes to the evolution of AI artwork and how it's made, I guess it means I'm a bit of an 'old timer' now.
Way back in those days, DDG didn't even have the option to create images from prompts yet, though it wasn't much longer before that option would appear at the site. Instead, the site's main attraction was something called 'Deep Style', an option that's still available there, though it's somewhat hidden and pretty much ignored these days.
Thankfully I got addicted to using Deep Style, which kept me coming back to DDG daily. This eventually lead to me learning about prompts and all the other things AI artwork has become. I owe a lot to DDG's Deep Style, as it is responsible for bringing me to where I am today in my AI artwork adventure!
In case you're unaware of what Deep Style is, it's an early version of AI that allows a user to sort of miX 2 images together to create a new and unique image in the outcome. You upload a 'base' image, which is the main image and subject matter, and then you upload a 'style' image, which will add colours and teXtures to the base image. There's also 5 options to fiddle with, including how much you'd like the AI to miX the images, and how large or small you'd like the style image to be in the final outcome. It takes a bit of practice but it's easy to learn, and once you know what you're doing with it, you can make some amazing things!
I personally haven't used it 'properly' in ages. Yes, all the public images I have in my gallery at DDG have been published using Deep Style, but I've used 2 identical images so I can publish with my watermark there. This isn't what Deep Style is really about. It's about miXing 2 DIFFERENT images.
The other day I thought it would be fun to use it properly again. Sort of as an ode to how I began my AI journey. I thought the image I made came out pretty good and would be a good eXample of how Deep Style worX, for folks who aren't familiar with it, and for those who are but have pushed it aside to make other things.
WHERE TO FIND DEEP STYLE
Just click on your account icon and you'll find it in the drop down menu.
HOW TO USE DEEP STYLE
As I mentioned above, you'll need to use a BASE and STYLE image. Here are the images I chose.
My BASE image was just a random AI image I had made previously but never published. I cropped & tilted the image and then put it on a black background. The thin green border was not part of my base. I just added it for clarity here so you could see the actual base image's size against the black background of this page.
My STYLE image was just an image of leaves I found at Google. I figured leaves would (obviously) go well with my base image!
My BASE image.
My STYLE image.
Unfortunately I don't remember the eXact settings I used, but this doesn't really matter. You need to eXperiment a bit with them and each DEEP STYLE image you make will work best with individual settings for the image you're working on anyway.
I can tell you that I DID NOT keep (preserve) the original colours, and I DID make the leaf style smaller than the original style image. Here was my result...
The DEEP STYLE added leaves all over the black background and made the base image the same colours as the style image. It also changed the smoothness of the base image, making it more 'leaf like', like the style image. Even her face has some leaf teXtures now.
If I had chosen to keep the original colours of the base image, the face would have retained all its colours, and the background leaves would have remained black instead of the green they are now.
Also, you might have noticed that along the right and left sides of my DEEP STYLE image I have vertical lines going through the leaves. This was actually my own fault, as apparently I used 2 different shades of black when adding my black background to my base image. I didn't notice this until I saw the outcome, but I thought it was interesting so I left it. A 'happy accident', as they say.
AND THAT'S THAT!
In conclusion I'd like to say that I think DEEP STYLE still has a lot to offer when we create with AI, especially in today's AI art world of 'well polished' images that we see daily from most AI sites. It's UNIQUE, and creates images that really stand out in the crowd!
Once upon a time these types of images were common, but now we hardly ever see them. That's a good thing when you're going for something different!
DEEP STYLE is actually BETTER NOW than it used to be when it was popular! Now we can use our images made from prompts as our BASE and STYLE images. This can turn them into total ORIGINALS once they're fed through the DEEP STYLE option. Really, the possibilities are endless.
I wish that DDG would show a little more kindness to DEEP STYLE and would promote it better than they currently do. Give it the love it deserves! It's an important part of DDG's history.
Actually, it's an important part of ALL AI ART'S HISTORY!
Then again, now that I think about it, maybe it's best just the way that it is. A 'secret' that's waiting to be used.
Well informed AI artists will still use it, I hope you'll be one of them!
"X"
August 16th, 2024