How to get a perfect face match using Midjourney AI

Image generation using AIs like Midjourney is shockingly good. But the AIs also have a few weaknesses. In this article, I’ll show you how you can work around one of those weaknesses.

We’re going to learn how to make two or more characters with matching faces. 

Also: How AI helped get my music on all the major streaming services

Face matching is surprisingly inconsistent, and there are a few different techniques that can be used. When I created my music promotion poses, I had to use some special techniques to get the graphics to work.

How we use Midjourney, InsightFace, and Adobe Generative Fill to create this look

In my recent article about using AI to create an album, I glossed over the techniques I used, giving a thousand-foot view of what they were. But in this article, I’m going to dive in and show you how to make it all happen, step by step.

Also, for this article, I’m going to assume you’ve signed up for and set up your Midjourney account. If you’re not sure how to do that, this article by ZDNET’s Lance Whitney will walk you through the steps:

Also: How to use Midjourney to generate amazing images and art

First, I’ll show you what I did to create my images, and then I’ll show you some additional techniques.

To do this, double click on the plus icon at the bottom of the Discord screen (remember, Midjourney runs in Discord), choose your image, and then hit return.

Once it’s been brought into Midjourney, right click on the image and select Copy Link:

This link is what you’ll use in preparing your prompt. Next, give Midjourney the /IMAGINE prompt, followed by the URL, and then your spec. This screenshot of the set of four generated images shows what it looked like after I entered the full prompt. The top right picture is the image I wound up using for my profile. 

Please note that this set of images was most definitely not my first “roll” on Midjourney. Expect to do five, 10, even 20 different tries before you get something you like.

Also: 5 ways to explore the use of generative AI at work

That said, you can see how the generated version (especially the one on the upper left) looks reasonably close to what I look like. More interestingly, the leather jacket in the image looks weirdly like the one I’ve been wearing for the past decade or so. How does it know?

Just for completionist’s sake, here’s what might have been generated without using the uploaded image as guidance.

They’re all fine-looking gentlemen, but they look nothing like me.

You can use the starter-image trick for anything you want. Here’s what Midjourney thinks my little Yorkie Poo pup Pixel might have looked like as a Scottish warrior prince:

To get a seed ID, click the half-moon-plus icon (1) at the upper right of the image where you want to get the seed. Then, in the search box, type in :envelope: (2). Then click on the envelope (3).

Also: How ChatGPT can rewrite and improve your existing code

I know it’s completely intuitively unobvious, but this process will convince Midjourney to send you a message that contains the seed ID for the quad of images you’re working with.

It’s unfortunate that the seed is for the quad of images, because that makes it harder to drill into the one image you like. But it’s a starting point.

This time, instead of starting with the actual photo of me, I used the generated profile image as my starting point. As shown above, I uploaded it and got its URL.

Then, I combined the profile image with the previously retrieved seed value and a prompt, and after about 20 spins, I got this quad:

Notice the /imagine prompt. The URL is at the beginning, and the seed prompt at the end had my seed number. That’s how I tied the two images together.

Also: The best AI art generators: DALL-E 2 and fun alternatives to try

While the image on the lower left was absolutely terrible, the one on the right wasn’t bad. Strictly speaking, it didn’t look entirely like me. But it did capture the same thematic style as the original profile image, it was close enough, and the car looked good.

But this was not my face and most definitely not my hair:

This video is from PIXimperfect. I really like this channel because the presenter showcases some excellent image tutorials, particular on Photoshop features. So, don’t just watch the video — save the channel.

Once you have InsightFace set up, we can go to town. The process involves two steps: uploading the face you want to use, and uploading the image you want it applied to.

To upload the image you want to use, use the /saveid command.

When you type /saveid, you’ll be given a place to upload an image. Then you need to give that image a name ID. I called mine “daviddoor” because I’m standing in front of a door. Remember that ID because you’ll use it in the next step.

Now, it’s time for the face swap. Type /swapid:

Upload the image you want the face to be applied to. Then type in the ID you created earlier. If you’re lucky, once you hit return, you’ll get an image with the new face.

Of course, the hair still isn’t right.

The key problem was all the extra hair below the ears. To eliminate that, I first brought the Dave Head to something nobody had ever seen before: a bald me. I selected the space just where I wanted the hair removed, generated “bald”, and Photoshop did the work.

Then I selected a smaller area and generated “curly hair”. This took a few tries, but it worked out.

Also: How to use Bing Image Creator (and why it’s better than DALL-E 2)

And, after all the various AI effects, the final picture is below. 

One quick note: the hair here doesn’t quite match the tutorial hair above. That’s because I had to recreate the process for demonstration, and the AI always comes up with something slightly different. This is the actual final image from my original production process, but the rightmost image in the Three Daves graphic above shows how new hair could be generated, even if it’s not exactly the same output.

FAQs

Here are a few questions I’ve been asked since I published the original article.

Can I still use Midjourney for free? 

No. Midjourney no longer has a free tier. The plan I use costs $8 a month. So far, I haven’t hit any limits with it, although it sometimes can take a little while for images to be created.

What about InsightFace? Is it free? 

InsightFace does offer some free credits. I’ve done four or five face swaps and haven’t used them up. It appears to take about three “credits” per face swap, and you get 50 free credits.

Where does Picsi.ai fit into all this? 

So, when you run out of face swap credits, you’ll need to subscribe to a Patreon account for Picsi.ai. There are two plans. The base $10/month plan looks like it will do fine for most people. As to the relationship between InsightFace and Picsi.ai, it appears that InsightFace is an open-source project, and Picsi.ai has created a usable Discord client for it. But I’m sure more will be revealed over time.

Have you used any of these AI image tools? What do you think of the face swap technique? Does this spark any ideas for you? Let us know in the comments below.

You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to subscribe to my weekly update newsletter on Substack, and follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz, on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.