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I ran into this too. When I got my invite, I told a friend I would learn how to talk to DALL-E by having it make some concept art for the game he was designing.

I ran into this too. When I got my invite, I told a friend I would learn how to talk to DALL-E by having it make some concept art for the game he was designing. I ran through all of my free credits, and most of the first $15 bucket and never really got anything usable. Even when I re-used the exact prompts from the DALL-E Prompt Book, I didn't get anything near the level of quality and fidelity to the prompt that their examples did. I know it's not a scam, because it's clearly doing amazing stuff under the hood, but I went away thinking that it wasn't as miraculous as it was claimed to be.

jfk13 4y ago
I suspect that many of the "impressive" examples that we see from tools like this have been carefully selected by human curators. I'm sure it's not at the level of "monkeys + typewriters = Shakespeare [if you're sufficiently selective]", but the general idea is still applicable.
- grumbel 4y ago
  Most of DALL-E2 output is great out of the box, the selection process is just fine tuning the results to create something the human in front of the computer likes. DALL-E2 can't mindread, so the image produced might not match what the human had in mind. There is however one thing to be aware of, the titles posted on /r/dalle2/ and other places are often not the prompts that DALL-E2 got. Instead they are a fun description of the image done by a human after the fact. Random example: "Chased by an amongus segway" * https://www.reddit.com/r/dalle2/comments/wkv7za/chased_by_an_amongus_segway/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dalle2/comments/wkv7za/chased_by_an... But the actual prompt was: "Award winning photo of a mole driving a red off road car through a field" * https://labs.openai.com/s/xnaoxiWeSjiQX1QyVUCHGkl1 https://labs.openai.com/s/xnaoxiWeSjiQX1QyVUCHGkl1 Which is quite a bit less impressive, as the actual prompt doesn't really match the image very well. And if you put "Chased by an amongus segway" into DALL-E2, you won't get an image of that quality either.
  - aetherson 4y ago
    I wouldn't at all agree that most Dall-E output is great out of the box. It has areas that it's good at and areas it's poor at. Here's a result for the prompt of "Woman with green skin, leaves instead of hair, wearing a simple dress, far shot, digital art, hyper-realistic, 8k, ultrahd," for example (all four images) https://imgur.com/a/f4d8N0u https://imgur.com/a/f4d8N0u You will note that none of them are even basically fulfilling the prompt, as well as all four being, in my estimation, ugly and uninteresting. That's not unusual for prompts that involve some element of the fantastic -- though there are corners of less-realistic digital art that it does do well.
    - TillE 4y ago
      It's not the whole problem, but it looks like the "digital art" bit is dominating the style in a way you maybe didn't intend.
      - aetherson 4y ago
        Here is the same prompt minus "digital art." https://imgur.com/a/aVbSxHe https://imgur.com/a/aVbSxHe You will still note that none of them are far shots, that no depicted character actually has fully green skin, and one of the four has nothing even remotely like leaves for hair. I mean, is it better? Sure. They're less ugly, though none of them are what I'd call great results. But they also aren't really doing a basically competent job of fulfilling the prompt, much less producing a particularly striking or interesting images. And my point is, outside of a few areas, this is what you get from Dall-E. Lots of misses, and if you're willing to put time into it and work on your results, a few hits. Don't get me wrong, I've gotten stuff from Dall-E that I think is great (I really like this "watercolor painting" for example: https://labs.openai.com/s/AQ7Wy5VHBWcLL5bJ5LbU5SuW https://labs.openai.com/s/AQ7Wy5VHBWcLL5bJ5LbU5SuW) but I think it misrepresents Dall-E to suggest that most of the time it produces basically good images. I'd say more like, "If you put time and attention into learning its quirks, in its best areas, it'll produce like one in ten images that are basically good." And, I mean, on some level that's incredible. You can produce 10 images in about three minutes in Dall-E and get some great stuff. But I think people mostly see the top 10% of what Dall-E produces.
Filligree 4y ago
If you're not tired of the whole affair, you should try MidJourney. It's good at different things from DALL-E, but I do feel it produces higher quality pictures on average.

jfk13 4y ago

I suspect that many of the "impressive" examples that we see from tools like this have been carefully selected by human curators. I'm sure it's not at the level of "monkeys + typewriters = Shakespeare [if you're sufficiently selective]", but the general idea is still applicable.

grumbel 4y ago
Most of DALL-E2 output is great out of the box, the selection process is just fine tuning the results to create something the human in front of the computer likes. DALL-E2 can't mindread, so the image produced might not match what the human had in mind. There is however one thing to be aware of, the titles posted on /r/dalle2/ and other places are often not the prompts that DALL-E2 got. Instead they are a fun description of the image done by a human after the fact. Random example: "Chased by an amongus segway" * https://www.reddit.com/r/dalle2/comments/wkv7za/chased_by_an_amongus_segway/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dalle2/comments/wkv7za/chased_by_an... But the actual prompt was: "Award winning photo of a mole driving a red off road car through a field" * https://labs.openai.com/s/xnaoxiWeSjiQX1QyVUCHGkl1 https://labs.openai.com/s/xnaoxiWeSjiQX1QyVUCHGkl1 Which is quite a bit less impressive, as the actual prompt doesn't really match the image very well. And if you put "Chased by an amongus segway" into DALL-E2, you won't get an image of that quality either.
- aetherson 4y ago
  I wouldn't at all agree that most Dall-E output is great out of the box. It has areas that it's good at and areas it's poor at. Here's a result for the prompt of "Woman with green skin, leaves instead of hair, wearing a simple dress, far shot, digital art, hyper-realistic, 8k, ultrahd," for example (all four images) https://imgur.com/a/f4d8N0u https://imgur.com/a/f4d8N0u You will note that none of them are even basically fulfilling the prompt, as well as all four being, in my estimation, ugly and uninteresting. That's not unusual for prompts that involve some element of the fantastic -- though there are corners of less-realistic digital art that it does do well.
  - TillE 4y ago
    It's not the whole problem, but it looks like the "digital art" bit is dominating the style in a way you maybe didn't intend.
    - aetherson 4y ago
      Here is the same prompt minus "digital art." https://imgur.com/a/aVbSxHe https://imgur.com/a/aVbSxHe You will still note that none of them are far shots, that no depicted character actually has fully green skin, and one of the four has nothing even remotely like leaves for hair. I mean, is it better? Sure. They're less ugly, though none of them are what I'd call great results. But they also aren't really doing a basically competent job of fulfilling the prompt, much less producing a particularly striking or interesting images. And my point is, outside of a few areas, this is what you get from Dall-E. Lots of misses, and if you're willing to put time into it and work on your results, a few hits. Don't get me wrong, I've gotten stuff from Dall-E that I think is great (I really like this "watercolor painting" for example: https://labs.openai.com/s/AQ7Wy5VHBWcLL5bJ5LbU5SuW https://labs.openai.com/s/AQ7Wy5VHBWcLL5bJ5LbU5SuW) but I think it misrepresents Dall-E to suggest that most of the time it produces basically good images. I'd say more like, "If you put time and attention into learning its quirks, in its best areas, it'll produce like one in ten images that are basically good." And, I mean, on some level that's incredible. You can produce 10 images in about three minutes in Dall-E and get some great stuff. But I think people mostly see the top 10% of what Dall-E produces.

Filligree 4y ago

If you're not tired of the whole affair, you should try MidJourney. It's good at different things from DALL-E, but I do feel it produces higher quality pictures on average.