Ai that makes art

Generating Art With Artificial Intelligence Powered Applications

How good is the art generated by an AI? Find out now!

Playing chess, driving cars, cooking food. Only a few decades ago, one might have thought it to be impossible for a machine to perform such tasks. Creativity is considered to be something very unique to humans. Can AI ever truly be creative? Can AI make original art as humans can? Turns out that it can and it is pretty good at it.

In 2018 an art piece generated by an AI-based algorithm was sold for about half a million dollars. This is achieved through Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) where two models are trained simultaneously; a generative model G that captures the data distribution, and a discriminative model D that estimates the probability that a sample came from the training data rather than G. The training procedure for G is to maximize the probability of D making a mistake. That’s as much as technical we will get with this article because that is not the focus point. We are here for some fun and to get amazed by what cutting edge AI of today can do.

Let us create some art, shall we?

Researchers and developers have built quite a bunch of tools and applications that can enable anyone to easily create art using AI. We are going to explore some of those applications and experiment to see the potential of AI.

Most of these software work on the basic ground of GANs with variations of their own. With that being said, let’s get started!

ArtBreeder

This is an online application in which you can merge pictures and create a hybrid of the two. How it actually does this is based on this paper by lead author Andrew Brock. Here, we will explore the tool from an application point of view.

Here is some stuff we tried to generate using this tool.

Looks intriguing? Visit the below link to generate your own combination of images!

Artbreeder

A collaborative tool for discovering images.

Deep Dream Generator

Ever wanted to convert your images into a dreamy sequence of pictures? This might be the tool just for you.

Here is some cool stuff we have created using this tool.

Feels like some weird animals embedded into the image? Generating an image does take a couple of minutes, and there are many other settings to tinker around with. Want to give it a shot? Find out what you can generate with your images, here-

Deep Dream Generator

The technique is a much more advanced version of the original Deep Dream approach. It is capable of using its own…

Deepart.io

This website specializes in fusing two images together. It works on the principle of very deep convolutional networks which is an improvement of the architecture developed by Andrew Brock. The image fusion generated is of very high quality. The website has a long waiting period before your results are generated, due to its image queue. As we are allowed to choose our own pictures which set a definitive that the algorithm is doing the actual work. One even has the option of buying art on this website.

We have used the same stock photo as before to generate a new image. The results are here (and it did take quite some time)-

Check this tool out here-

We use an algorithm inspired by the human brain. It uses the stylistic elements of one image to draw the content of…

Playform

This application provides a variety of options but we will be focusing mainly on their Sketch to Image feature. The software is run on GANs and high-end GPUs as claimed by their Github page.

Here’s how this works-

We have done some simple sketches, and the results are pretty impressive.

These are indeed some intriguing artworks created by the AI. The imagery is profound and feels to have inherent interpretability. Try it out yourself here-

Playform

GauGan

This is one of the state of the art facilities in development by Nvidia. In this app, every object is color-coded which makes it easy to design what you require.

Among the existing technologies, it does perform pretty well. Let’s look at some of our results-

One key observation of the GuaGan is its photorealistic output, unlike the artistic ones we have seen before. Try it out yourself here.

Sketch — RNN Demos

This sketch app basically completes the drawing that you have started. It is run by Google and is powered by a Recurrent Neural Network. This suggests that the algorithm works on a memory basis rather than a generative procedure.

Here are some sketches we tried-

Seeing the AI in action in real-time is in itself quite impressive. Try out this fun tool here-

sketch-rnn

draw together with a recurrent neural network model

Creative Use Cases

From all the above examples, one thing is clear. AI has come a long long way in creating art. And there are so many different techniques available that can generate them almost equivalent to human talents, if not better. Here, we speculate on some ideas on using such tools.

The Debate And Conclusion

The major technique of importing the various textures from one image to another, or its “style” is called style transfer. This technique is what actually creates the pieces. Art made by this process is now sold on many occasions and has a market of its own. The website noartist is completely dedicated to selling such art.

We are right now at the tipping point of an industry dominated by Human artists. Surely, AI will find its way, but if it will actually replace an artist is a question to ponder. Like with all other applications, AI is assistive in nature. We can expect it to evolve into a robust tool that will help artists work better and quicker. That might be the case for the foreseeable future.

But who knows? We may be just a breakthrough away before AI overtakes the art industry.

While we have not covered much of the technical aspects, we have hyperlinked relevant research papers, GitHub repositories, and resources for those who would like to dive deep into these topics.

AI Art Maker

Turn imagination into art. Powered by the latest technology, our AI creates art and images based on simple text instructions.

To make NFTs, see our NFT Generator.

Style

Substyle

Diversity Scale

Creation Time

Make Results Different

Make Private

Model

AI Art Gallery

API Access / Bulk Creation

Add this service anywhere with the Hotpot API or self-hosted containers.

API access requires payment. Contact us for pricing.

No-code bulk creation is also available. Contact us for details.

Custom Styles

For custom styles, be specific. For instance, «Oil painting of water lilies with vibrant brushstrokes using a happy color palette» is better than «lily flowers». See below for example instructions and see here for example outputs.

To modify seed images, provide specific and realistic directions. Our AI is good, but not God. Guide our AI toward reasonable changes to the seed image with simple, concrete instructions.

Seed Image Examples:

Pricing & Licensing

Buy credits for commercial use and shorter wait times.

Free images are licensed under CC BY-NC.

Wait Time

Creation takes 20 seconds to 2 minutes depending on the settings. If traffic is high, it may take 2-3 hours for free requests. Paid requests should come back in seconds or minutes.

Waiting sucks. Sorry. We’re working hard to fix this. Google/Azure employee? Contact us. We want to break up with AWS.

Art Maker FAQ

What are the different models?

The different models represent different AIs for creating images and art.

Model 3 is the fastest and is free. Model 1 is more creative but takes much longer and requires more server processing, which is why it costs money. Dall-E Mini is coming soon.

What do «Make Private» and «Make Results Different» do?

Free creations are viewable by the public in our AI Art Gallery. Public creations are anonymous.

Enable «Make Private» to keep creations out of the public gallery. This subsidizes free users. Paid creations are private by default.

By default, our AI tries to produce consistent results if you reuse descriptions. «Make Results Different» tells our AI to act unpredictably. If you reuse the same description, our AI will try to produce different images.

Can I create multiple images at once?

Yes, but only for paid creations. Free creations are limited to one at a time, but you may run multiple paid creations in parallel.

This is required to support free creations. If you violate these rules, our system may ban your account or ignore creations. Most importantly, other users will get annoyed at you for hogging Hotpot servers.

For free creations, wait for the image to return or contact us if the wait time has been exceeded.

Can I sell graphics or use them for NFTs?

Yes, but first buy credits : one license per graphic.

Ultimately, it’s your responsibility to make unique graphics and honor intellectual property laws. To make this easier, use our AI Art Remixer to uniquely style creations or use seed images.

Can I close the page?

Yes. First save the image URL. If you create an account, creations are saved to your account.

Paid users get more storage. Please buy credits to save all creations.

Can you guarantee unique creations?

No service can guarantee this, but our AI Art Remixer lets you uniquely style each creation. Using custom seed images also increase uniqueness.

Art is not defined by means of production. This is why handcrafted paintings from 1st graders are not considered art while professional illustrators made with Adobe software often are. In our founder’s opinion, art is an opinion that stirs the soul while elevated art is an opinion that stirs the mind.

What matters is the opinion, not the means.

Imagine you hired an art student and dicated every stroke, every color, detail of a painting. Make this angle sharper. Make that line thicker. Add some purple there. The student robotically executes the commands. Who is the artist: you or the student?

AI cannot offer this degree of precision today, but it can spark creativity and spawn compelling ideas for further refinement, much as a junior employee might generate suggestions for an experienced supervisor.

Fine. Maybe this is kinda cool, but is this intelligence?

As our founder asserts, fixating on intelligence is semantic quicksand and misses the point: can AI help people? And can we control AI?

Viruses are not alive, let alone intelligent, yet they can devastate countries and polarize people in a way that would make the Devil jealous. Farm tractors are incredibly dumb (Sorry, not sorry, if you’re offended.), but they have enabled humanity to avert Malthusian predictions of doom and ensured 7 billion people are fed and well-nourished. (Malthus must have been super fun. Friend: «Thomas, good morning!» Thomas: «Bad morning. Humans will be extinct soon.» Wife: «Thomas, want to go for a walk? The moon is so romantic tonight.» Thomas: «Nah, conserving calories for the Great Famine.»)

Will AI replace humans?

If you believe this, please use Siri. 🙂

Until then, AI can empower individuals by sparking creativity and automating tasks. Those who dismiss machine learning overlook how much reptition occurs in human jobs and the creative process, including art and programming.

Analyze your work activities. How many tasks are boring and mundane? If your company could hire a junior person to perform those duties, even 50% of them, and free you to focus on more meaningful tasks, would you want this? This is the potential for AI.

Even if general intelligence never materializes, AI offers the tantalizing prospect of automating many laborious tasks for knowledge workers in the same way machines automated laborious tasks for farm workers. These machines were not intelligent and did not eliminate farmers, but they did augment abilities and unlock historic levels of productivity and societal gains. Without farming technology, it would be impossible to feed the 7 billion people alive today.

Frankly, this scenario of augmented intelligence is more feasible and quite appealing. While a world where AI can disregard humans may usher in an era of unthinkable risk, a world where AI can maximize the potential of each and every person could introduce unprecedented levels of joy, health, and prosperity.

Is Web3 useful technology or a massive scam?

We don’t know yet. Longer answer here.

Burgers or fries first?

Fries, always fries. Duh.

If you wondered, «Why is this FAQ suddenly asking about fries,» my friend, you lose. You have been outed as not human, likely an AI robot sent from the future (or maybe a Magic 8 ball with human skin).

This famous question from the Stanford psychology department is widely regarded as the quintessential test of humanity: true humans instinctively answer then grab their phone to order fries so they can gain weight which they are obligated to work off while fantasizing about burgers and fries. Illogical behavior like this uniquely defines the human race. The study was published by a distinguished professor, and remains the gold standard when the FBI interviews subjects to determine if they are human or alien.

Read it yourself: the conclusions are shocking and almost impossible to believe.

Can you promote my art or NFT?

Yes! Please tag us on Twitter and Instagram if you want to show off your awesome Hotpot creations.

We love promoting people with compelling stories and cool art who collaborated with Hotpot. Tag us, share details about your background, your work, and how Hotpot helped. We’ll do our best to amplify your story on social media and with bloggers.

I’m on a budget. Can you offer a discount?

Yes, contact us. Our pricing philosophy is to help the poor and charge the rich.

Google/Microsoft employee or Nvidia shareholder?

Please reach out if you work at Google or Microsoft. We’re ready to break up with AWS. Nvidia shareholders, please reach out or broker an introduction to Jensen. The company could unlock billions in shareholder value with one tiny change.

Research Credit

Hotpot builds on and is informed by many machine learning papers and projects. See here for credits.

AI Art Generator

Create amazing artworks using the power of Artificial Intelligence.

I love it so much because I love art so much. And you literally gave me a way to be an artist. Where I did not have that before.

Watch: How to make AI Art

Incredible AI Art is just a few clicks away!

Create AI Generated Art

NightCafe Creator is an AI Art Generator app with multiple methods of AI art generation. Using neural style transfer you can turn your photo into a masterpiece. Using text-to-image AI, you can create an artwork from nothing but a text prompt.

Thank you for this, the experience I’ve had today with NightCafe has given me a huge dopamine rush a lot like I received from the early days of the internet!

I can’t stop looking at everyone’s artwork, and coming up with my own! it’s been so much fun!

Web and mobile

Create AI generated artworks from your laptop, tablet or mobile and review them all from any device.

Unique creation tools

Mix multiple styles to create something novel. Use VQGAN+CLIP to create art from a text prompt.

Free to use

Generate, tweak and download up to 5 artworks per day for free. No watermarks!

Tools for power users

Bulk create and bulk download. Duplicate, evolve, and upscale your creations.

This is the most fun I’ve had on the internet in a long long time

— u/DocJawbone on Reddit

Come for the AI Art Generator.

Stay for the AI Art Community!

Share your creations with the community, then browse, like and comment on creations by other artists. You can even follow your favourite artists to see their artworks in your personal feed.

Join our AI Art community on Discord, or simply scroll through the latest creations and leave a supportive comment on your favourites.

AI Art Generator Features

NightCafe Creator at a glance

This is fascinating and incredible stuff. I have so much fun with generative art tools, and this is next level!

AI Art Generator FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions about AI Art and NightCafe Creator

🎨 How do I create AI Generated Art?

Using NightCafe, you can create AI generated art in a few different ways. Start by clicking the «Create» button in the main menu, then choose a creation method from there. All creation methods are simple to use, and all will allow you to create incredible AI-generated art.

💸 Does it cost money to use NightCafe Creator?

You can use NightCafe Creator to generate up to 5 free artworks per day. You can also earn credits by participating in the community. You only pay if you would like to get one of your creations printed, or for extended use of the creator.

🛠️ Does NightCafe Creator have any unique features?

Yes! We have power tools not offered by any other AI Art app. These include things like multiple style images, bulk creation, bulk download, custom seeds, etc.

🧠 What AI art algorithms does NightCafe use?

🤖 What is VQGAN+CLIP?

VQGAN and CLIP are two state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms that work together to create art from a text prompt. VQGAN is an image generator, and CLIP can judge how well the image matches your prompt. CLIP gives feedback to VQGAN on how to make the image more like the text prompt. Repeat this process a few hundred times and some incredible results emerge!

📱 What platforms does NightCafe Creator work on?

NightCafe Creator works on the web, and can be installed to the home screen of your iPhone, Android phone or tablet.

🖼️ Do I own the artworks I create?

Print your creations

Let us print your creation! We use Artificial Intelligence to enhance your image to print quality, manually crop it to the aspect ratio of your chosen size (making sure to keep the subject in-frame), then print and deliver it to your door.

The prints are museum-quality, made on thick and durable matte paper. Add a wonderful accent to your room and office with these posters that are sure to brighten any environment.

Top Creations

See some of the top AI generated artworks that people have made with NightCafe Creator.

Ocean Maelstrom

tdraw_ai_art Stunning, and prompts open. 🖤

Arachnix thanks a lot, really happy with how it turned out

Soda Khan FINE… i admit that’s really cool.

Greenhouse

heliotrope that is nice!

Mushroom man Stunning

Pickled Nightmares

jsilhavyk from now on I will see monsters loaded on a plate instead of loaded vegetables

DBFISH More vinegar, maybe? 😉

Forgot to Close the Door

DJ Jade Hologram Designs Phenomenal! Such vibrant shapes and colors.

Norm I love how is spilling out of the doorway and the colors!!

Fantasy Workshop

Shree Excellent. explains so lucidly the method in the madness!

Join us on Discord

Discuss prompt engineering, selling your art, favourite modifiers, creation tips and more in the NightCafe Lounge.

Loved By Users

Read this review from Jonathan

I was very pleased with my NightCafe experience. After reading into the OpenAI DALL-E neural net and seeing the creative pieces it was able to manifest I wondered if anywhere was selling AI generated artwork. The idea of a computer creating something new, artistic, and often beautiful is such a novel concept I thought it would be a good conversation piece to have on the wall.

It was a pleasant surprise then to find NightCafe, that not only had a curated selection of AI generated prints but also gave me the opportunity to set the parameters for my own pieces. The creative tool was incredibly easy to use and allowed me to «commission» one of a kind artwork in a couple minutes and a few clicks. The AI was able combine the japanese ukiyo-e style with a Toronto Raptors logo and a photo of Michael Phelps and create something fascinating, unique, and worthy of being displayed.

For me to have the same degree of creative freedom and quality of execution in a brand-new piece of art would cost hundreds in commission and weeks of waiting at the very minimum.

The technology behind NightCafe gives everyone the ability to create something special even if they aren’t particularly artistically inclined, and does so at an affordable price.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of creating the pieces and also appreciated being able to see other artwork created by community members. You could easily fill an exhibition gallery with quality pieces from the NightCafe community before long!

Tips for Creating

Read our top tips for making awesome AI Generated Art on the NightCafe blog.

AIArtists.org

41 Creative Tools to Generate AI Art

Wondering how to make AI art? Scroll down for the best tools to generate AI art.

Image © Dave Chenell

Staff Picks to Generate AI Art:

Runway ML – An easy, code-free tool that makes it simple to experiment with machine learning models in creative ways. Our overall staff pick.

Nature of Code – This interactive book teaches you how to code generative art; the last chapter is an exceptional introduction to AI art, with real code examples.

GANBreeder – Breed two images to create novel new ones using GANBreeder. (Note that GANbreeder was renamed ArtBreeder, with several AI models to manipulate photos).

Magenta – An open source research project exploring the role of machine learning as a tool in the creative process. (Coding skills required).

Processing – A flexible software sketchbook and language for learning how to code within the context of the visual arts. Includes p5js (Processing for JavaScript) and Processing.py (Processing for Python). [Processing does not use AI, but is a great tool for generative visual art].

ml5.js – ml5.js aims to make machine learning approachable for a broad audience of artists, creative coders, and students through the web.

Best laptops for machine learning. We get asked about this so much that we wrote an entire post comparing some of the best laptops for deep learning.

AI Generated Images / Pictures:

Deep Dream Generator – Stylize your images using enhanced versions of Google Deep Dream with the Deep Dream Generator. Get your Deep Art on.

DeepArt.io – Upload a photo and apply different art styles with this AI image generator, or turn a picture into an AI portrait of yourself (also check out DreamScope ).

Visionist: Upload and apply AI Art styles to your photos, including abstract filters, cutout portraits, and more (iOS. Deep Art generator made by 3DTOPO Inc.).

GoArt – Create AI photo effects that make your photos look like famous portrait paintings with this AI image generator. (Web, Android and iOS. Made by Fotor).

Deep Angel – Automatically remove objects or people from images with this Deep Art editor. (Web. Made at MIT).

Google Deep Dream – GitHub repository for implementing Google Deep Dream.

GANBreeder – Merge images together to create new pictures, make hybrid AI portrals and create wild new forms that have never been seen before. (GANbreeder is now called ArtBreeder).

AI Drawing / AI Painting:

AutoDraw – Turn your sketch into clip art with this computer generated AI drawing tool.

AI Painter – Turn your photos into AI paintings or create abstract art with this neural network painting generator.

Quick, Draw! – A game where a neural net tries to guess what you’re drawing. Draw along with AI and neural networks with this Google draw app.

Cartoonify – Turn your portrait into a computer generated cartoon drawing.

Datasets:

Words and writing:

GPT-2 – A leading computer generated language model, made by OpenAI.

Semantris – Word association games powered by semantic search.

Handwriting with a neural net – Play with a neural net that generates handwriting based on your writing style.

AI Generated Music/Sound:

Magenta Studio – A collection of music plugins built on Magenta’s open source tools and models.

AI Duet – Play with a piano that responds to you.

NSynth Sound Maker – Create your own hybrid sounds and instruments.

MuseNet – Generate 4-minute musical compositions with 10 instruments, and combine styles from country to Mozart with MuseNet (also available on GitHub).

Pitch Detection – Use a pre-trained pitch detection model to estimate the pitch of sound file through a computer mic.

Top Online AI Courses:

AI Generated Movement/Dance:

AI Sketches With Bill T. Jones – PoseNet experiments made with one of America’s most celebrated artists.

AI Generated Voice:

Scribbling Speech – Turn real time = speech into animated drawings.

Thing Translator – Take a picture of something to hear how to say it in a different language.

Top Data Science Courses:

GANs:

GAN Zoo – List of named GANs, updated semi-regularly.

Teaching Machine to Paint, Write & Play – The definitive book on using GANs for artistic output.

AI Generated Data Visualization:

Activation Atlases – create an explorable atlas of features a network has learned.

What neural networks see – visualization of layers in a neural network by Gene Kogan. Also see Feature Visualization by Distill.

t-SNE – Create compelling two-dimensional “maps” from data with hundreds or even thousands of dimensions.

Top Online Course in Computer Science:

Learning:

Typography:

FontJoy – Generate font combinations with deep learning.

Font Map – Surface new relationships between fonts with machine learning.

Top Courses on Python Online:

Machine Learning Libraries:

TensorFlow.js – a library for developing and training ML models in JavaScript.

scikit-learn – One of the most popular tools for data mining and analysis. Built on NumPy, SciPy, and matplotlib Open source, commercially usable (BSD license).

Best Book on AI Art: “The Artist in the Machine”

Our friend Arthur Miller is considered the authority on the intersection of technology and art. He recently published a fantastic book highlighting how artists are using AI:

Closing Thoughts:

If you’re interested in using AI in your creative practice, the apps, software and tools above are a great place to start. Even if you have no machine learning experience, you can start with some of the simpler tools and expand from there.

Use AI photo editing tools like Deep Art, an AI art generator like Deep Dream Generator, an AI image generator like Artbreeder (a.k.a. GANBreeder), an AI painting generator like AI Painter, a AI cartoon maker like Cartoonify, or draw with a neural network using Quick Draw.

As tools to make AI art become more mainstream, AI artworks will increasingly embed themselves in our culture. We’re already seeing it in pop album covers, gracing traditional art gallery walls, within digital and pixel art, and expanding our notion of computer generated art.

By mastering the tools to create AI generated art, and creating works while this field is in its infancy, you can help push the boundaries of human creativity forward.

How will your neural network and AI experiments transform our creative potential? Join our exploration of machine learning art, and show us by leading the way!

3 Free Online Tools to Make AI Art (And Memes) In 2022

Learn about viral text-to-image AI art generators like Craiyon (formerly DALL-E Mini), and how to use these easy tools to create original imagery

Have you ever wondered what Star Wars would have been like if it was set in The Shire? And it was put through a Gustav Klimt filter? Well, with just an internet connection and thirty seconds, you can now get an answer.

Craiyon, Deep Dream Generator, and NightCafe are among the popular, free AI tools being used to create original images that are going viral as memes on social media in 2022. Here, we’ll explore what these tools actually do, how they can enhance the creative process, and how to start using them.

Oh, and just in case you were actually wondering…

Darth Vader explores his new home in the style of Gustav Klimt. Images made with Craiyon.

What do these tools do, and what should I use them for?

Each of these three tools uses AI technology, where a computer model refers to a large bank of data to recognize patterns and generate images by discerning what’s a good match. Rather than understanding what the images actually are, or what your prompts mean, the models are learning from existing imagery to then create something new, pixel by pixel. Some edit an existing image, while others create wholly new images.

However, this of course means that any biases or errors from the human creator also currently end up in the model. Using words related to “business” in Craiyon, for example, tends to result in male-appearing figures. The internet is not a true representation of reality, of course, so neither are these models.

But awareness and improvement increase every day, and the potential uses of this tech are exciting and mind-boggling. Generating digital art assets more quickly, iterating on ideas, creating more original and unique reference imagery for your own art: the list goes on. And, of course, a recent popular use has been to create some of the trippiest memes you could imagine. So without further ado, let’s investigate three of the most popular AI tools available online right now.

Text to image creation with the prompt «city skyline across the water at sunset» on Nightcafé.

1. Craiyon (formerly called DALL-E Mini)

This tool is commonly known by its first nickname, «DALL-E Mini». But it is not actually affiliated with DALL-E—OpenAI’s system that generates realistic imagery from natural language prompts (which is currently closed to the public and has a long waiting list).

«DALL-E Mini» is an independent project hosted on Hugging Face, and now relaunched with a new website: Craiyon. What makes it special is that it’s based on DALL-E’s text-to-image approach, but is open access and free to use.

It’s no surprise then that this tool has exploded onto the scene as of June 2022, as the leading source of AI memes. All you need to do to get started is to open the site and type a text prompt that becomes a command for the AI, which sifts through its database to evaluate the prompt and “create” a wholly new set of nine relevant images. It’s by far the simplest and most accessible tool on this list.

Tips for using Craiyon:

— Be specific. Tell Craiyon the exact colors, dog breeds, artistic styles, and details of what you would like to see.
— Use clear grammar, for example, “A cat sitting on a bench in the style of Van Gogh”. Try to avoid ambiguity about how the words relate to each other.
— Understand that complex images like whole words and human faces are difficult to generate: stick to simpler images and scenes for now.

Text to image using the prompt «Cats eating soup in the style of Van Gogh» on Craiyon.

2. Deep Dream Generator

Based on Google tech, this tool has been going viral on and off for several years, due to its ability to “dream” over uploaded images. “Dreaming” is the word the developers used to describe the surreal, swirly effect that results from the model trying to analyze and find patterns in an image.

Nowadays, it’s easy to sign up to the Deep Dream Generator and start editing your images using this dreamy effect. You’ll get a certain amount of computing energy for free every hour, but can upgrade to paid packages if you’d like to create more than the limit allows.

For a basic neural style transfer (where one image takes on the style of another), simply upload your source image, then choose from their style library or add a second “style” image to emulate.

Or, upload only your source image and select the deep dream option, to get a psychedelic result. When the image is generated, you can then make edits such as how strong you want the stylization to be.

How the Deep Dream function affects an image from Unsplash (original image: Karina Vorozheeva).

3. NightCafe

NightCafe’s goal is to make generating personalized art accessible, and their tool makes it easy to buy prints of your creations to hang in your home. It features both a neural style transfer tool (like Deep Dream Generator’s “thinner” options) and a text-to-image option via VQGAN+CLIP technology (similar to DALL-E). You’ll get five credits for free each day, but you can also buy them or earn them by completing tasks (such as liking other people’s art, or getting more followers).

This tool is particularly good for generating fantastical imagery, as many of the styles provided have a digital fantasy art vibe (although you’ll also find options like “gouache” and “cubist”). However, you can also set up advanced options and “evolve” work to tweak it further.

Another cool feature of NightCafe is the ability to easily choose between an “Artistic” output, which focuses on creating interesting textures and features, or “Coherent” output, which focuses on crafting an image that makes sense!

Text to image with the prompt «A mushroom house in a fairy forest» on Nightcafé.

Learn more about AI art

If you’re keen to learn more about the tech that goes into AI art, and hear from experts on how these models are made and what their implications are, our in-depth explainer on artificial intelligence and art should be your next stop. And for more inspiration on emerging and future tech, check out these resources.

1. Discover eight inspiring NFT projects from this year so far.

2. Learn more about emerging technologies with future synthesist Cecilia Tham.

3. Explore how design can lead to a better tomorrow, with this future design course by Stef Silva.

4. Inspired by the AI art look? Expand your fantastical digital art skills with this course on futuristic 3D environments by Biel Vasquez.