September 5, 2023

I’ve been trying out PlaygroundAI, which is text-to-image software. I thought it would be cool to have some images from my books to use as inspiration as I’m writing. 

Since a lot of my books have a couple running through the jungle, I thought I’d try that. I entered a prompt to have the couple running through the jungle, toward the viewer.

Photo of a man and a woman running through the jungle on a dirt path coming toward the viewer. The man is carrying a pack on his back.

This one was the best of the group of four. They don’t match any of my characters, but it’s not bad.

I decided to add in that there was an explosion behind them and also fire.

Photo of a man and a woman running through the jungle on a dirt path coming toward the viewer. The man is carrying a pack on his back. There are flames behind the woman and smoke behind the man.

Again, this is the best of the lot. It’s still not what I wanted, though.

After a few more unsatisfactory attempts, I tried using a filter and also tweaking the text.

Man facing away from camera toward flames shooting out from the left. rows of computerized equipment are on either side of him. He appears to be in a spaceship.

Um, hello?

There's nothing at ALL here that I asked for except the fire and a guy. What happened to the jungle? What happened to the woman? Is that figure off to the left supposed to be a female in some sort of spacesuit?

It seems as if adding in "cargo pants" for what they were wearing translated into "cargo ship" or "space ship." Good to know. 😉

And what about my instructions that they were supposed to be running toward the viewer?

Ugh.

Did I waste far too much time trying to get the image right before giving up? You betcha.

Am I annoyed that I spent all that time and didn't end up with something I'd want to refer back to as I'm writing? Heck, yeah!

Lesson learned. For now, I’d better stick with the visions in my head.

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