Amanda Smith is a freelance journalist and writer. She reports on culture, society, human interest and technology. Her stories hold a mirror to society, reflecting both its malaise and its beauty. Amanda's work has been published in National Geographic, The Guardian, Business Insider, Vice, News Corp, Singapore Airlines, Travel + Leisure, and Food & Wine. Amanda is an Australian living in the cultural center of gravity that is New York City.
The holidays are almost upon us, and you probably won't have time to catch up with everyone you'd like to see before the new year. So how can you show your extended family and friends that you're thinking of them? Send a card.
You know the type. The Hallmark-esque holiday card, with a cute family photo and a "Happy Holidays" message. A little cheesy? Maybe. But we all secretly love it.
With artificial intelligence, you can create a custom card in minutes, just like you can do with wedding invites or a dinner party menu. Could Midjourney capture the Christmas magic? If the text-to-image tool can create realistic product images, food photography, comic books and magazine front covers, surely it can mockup a Christmas card.
The tool came out in 2022, and the membership prices range from $10 to $120 per month. If you subscribe to the yearly membership, you get 20% off these rates. Midjourney no longer offers a free version.
Before jumping into Midjourney, I had a few family photos ready to go that I liked. Some photo cards are a compilation of images from the year, while others are just a single shot.
It's worth Googling family holiday cards for design inspiration to get a feel for styles and keywords for your prompt. For example, words like retro, traditional, themed or minimal work well.
I opted for a single image, just because I have so many photos from the year that it's hard to narrow down my top few.
Once I had my photo, I chose a Midjourney membership. The basic plan is fine, which set me back $10. As with all AI tools, it helps to be as specific as possible with prompts. Give it as much context upfront. If you're planning to print and send it like a postcard, specify that.
To upload a photo with your prompt, type/imagine, then drag your photo into the prompt box. Click on the icon in the "what will you imagine?" box to use that image.
Here was my prompt:
"Use this image to create a Christmas card printable postcard with a happy holidays message."
It missed the mark entirely, fabricating a snowy setting in Big Sur, California.
For prompt two, I asked Midjourney to place the photo (unchanged) on a festive Christmas card... and it got worse. I like cats and all, but I love my wife more.
Next, I tried a different approach. I asked Midjourney to generate Christmas card templates. I found a simple template I liked, then asked Midjourney to add my photo onto it. Again, super weird.
I tried various workarounds, such as asking Midjourney to create a Christmas card that I can add a photo to, but it just kept generating fake families.
Midjourney turned cheesy into cringe.
I was on the website version of Midjourney, so to give it one more go, I tried the Discord route but didn't have much luck either. I couldn't get my photo into the prompt, even though I'd given Discord full access to my photo library. So I opened the Discord desktop and was able to link my photo. It didn't help at all.
I had a quick look on Reddit and it seems I'm not alone. Midjourney is known to change the faces of images you upload. One comment said to rerun until you get an image you like, then use Photoshop to swap faces.
Someone replied saying they had to rerun 50 times to get a good one.
That's a Christmas mood crusher.
For the sake of this experiment (and because I was now set on sending a Christmas card), I went to VistaPrint to see how fast I could create a card. I'd received a couple in the mail from friends that were adorable.
With VistaPrint, I made this in under a minute. It's just missing my Christmas note.
While Midjourney did produce a few cute images, I couldn't get it to create a design that incorporated my photo directly -- instead, it altered the image or used it as "inspiration."
It kept adding Christmas elements to my original photo, like switching out my wife with a reindeer or a cat.
Midjourney might have merit creating Christmas cartoons, DIY advent calendars or generic printable cards to hole punch and string onto presents. But like I found when I tried to create a personalized cartoon for my nephews, AI has a hard time nailing personal features and consistency.
It still feels very cartoony and very obviously AI.
I'd much rather send a handwritten note to a few of my favorites than rely on a robot to deliver Christmas wishes.
