This post was created as a support resource for participants of the image generation pilot. It may also be helpful for anyone who’s interested in the applications of generative AI and image generation in education.
Overview
During one of our Image Generation Pilot drop-in sessions, Shaun Daubney (Digital Marketing and Communications Lead at Newbury College), introduced us to Ideogram. Piquing our interest, he shared a number of AI generated images that were almost indistinguishable from stock photographs (please see the image above as an example).
After exploring the free tier of Ideogram for myself, I have been impressed with its outputs and its wider user experience.
Getting started
At the moment, you can only sign up to Ideogram using your Google or Apple account. To do this, you can:
- Go to the Ideogram login page
- Click ‘Continue with Google’ or ‘Continue with Apple’
- You will need to agree to the Terms and Conditions, which will vary based on your sign in route. Please review these carefully before continuing
Once you’re in:
- There should be a text input bar near the top of your screen, with a black ‘Generate’ button on the right.
- Getting started can be as simple as typing in your prompt, and hitting ‘Generate’
- On the left-hand side, you’ll see a vertical tools bar. You should be in ‘Feed’ by default. If you click ‘Creations’, you’ll be able to see the images you’ve already created
- The Feed also shows you creations from other users
Examples of use
A potentially useful application of image generation is producing photorealistic images that could be used on college/university websites, prospectuses, etc.
As a former science teacher, I immediately jumped to generating images of students in a science laboratory. I started with the following prompt:
“Please generate me an image of three university students conducting a chemistry experiment. I want the students to be diverse in terms of gender and ethnicity. And I want the image to be photorealistic – and hyper real.”
…and this is what I got:
I wasn’t too impressed. Even the quickest glance was enough to tell that this was not a genuine photo. However, having previously seen the photorealistic images created by Shuan Daubney, I was still confident that perseverance could be rewarded with better outcomes. I got back in touch with Shaun to pick his brains.
He suggested this prompt:
“Stock photograph of three university students conducting a chemistry experiment in a university science lab. Diverse mix of gender and ethnicity. shallow depth of field.”
…and encouraged me to build upon the following prompt structure, moving forward:
- Type of image: (e.g. stock photo.)
- Subject: (e.g. three students )
- Background: (e.g. university science lab)
His advice paid dividends. Here’s the image I got when using his suggested prompt:
Pricing
The free tier currently includes the following:
- 10 ‘slow credits’ per day. This means you can generate images up to 10 times per day (you’ll usually get 4 images per generation; some generations use up more than 1 credit each). But you’ll have to wait up to a few minutes each time to see your outputs.
- You can download your images as JPG files, but not as PNG files
- All the images you create become publicly available to all other users of Ideogram (you can turn this setting off with the ‘Plus’ tier)
The basic paid tier costs $7 per month (with available discounts for annual payments). For this you get:
- 400 ‘priority credits’ per month. These credits mean you only have to wait a few seconds to produce your images.
- 100 slow credits per day.
- You can download your images as JPG and as PNG files
- All the images you create become publicly available to all other users of Ideogram (you can turn this setting off with the ‘Plus’ tier)
If you go to Ideogram’s pricing page you’ll also be able to see details of the Plus ($16 per month) and Pro ($48 per month) tiers.
Key considerations
- Please review Ideogram’s privacy policy before deciding whether to use it. Note, in accordance with this policy, user inputs may be used to train Ideogram’s model.
- Please also review Ideogram’s Terms of Service before proceeding.
Find out more by visiting our Artificial Intelligence page to view publications and resources, join us for events and discover what AI has to offer through our range of interactive online demos.
For regular updates from the team sign up to our mailing list.
Get in touch with the team directly at AI@jisc.ac.uk
