Crazy week for AI Tools: Midjourney, Runway, Canva and Ideogram launched upgrades
All the news from the AI world for creatives
Good day, humans.
In today’s Newsletter:
1️⃣ Midjourney has upgraded its editing capabilities
2️⃣ Runway releases Act-One for motion capture
3️⃣ Canva launches new Dream Lab
4️⃣ Ideogram now has an infinite Canvas
5️⃣ Character.AI and Google sued after chatbot-obsessed teen’s death
6️⃣ Create custom voices with ElevenLabs
7️⃣ Steal this Midjourney sref
Let’s go.
Midjourney has upgraded its editing capabilities
Midjourney has just launched an upgraded image editor, opening up capabilities that make it a serious contender to legacy photo editing tools like Photoshop.
Here’s what to know about Midjourney’s latest features:
Edit External Images: For the first time, users can edit images uploaded from outside Midjourney. This goes beyond generative AI images, enabling wider creative control.
Re-texture & Lighting Adjustments: Users can alter textures, materials, and lighting, making it possible to transform settings—like changing a room from day to night with a few clicks.
Sketch-to-Art Capabilities: Users can upload simple sketches or hand drawings and transform them into fully realized artwork with AI-enhanced design.
Moderation Enhancements: To maintain quality and safety, Midjourney is implementing more restrictive moderation and privacy protocols as this feature rolls out.
This feature is currently available only for members with yearly subscriptions, those subscribed for 12+ months, and users with over 10,000 images created.
Read more: How to use the new Midjourney AI Image Editor and Image Retexturing Features
Runway releases Act-One for motion capture
Runway has introduced Act-One, a new tool within Gen-3 Alpha that allows users to generate expressive character animations using only a single driving video and a character image, eliminating the need for traditional motion capture or rigging. The tool faithfully captures an actor's performance, including eye-lines, micro-expressions, and pacing, and applies it to different character designs across various styles.
Why It's Important:
By removing the need for costly and time-consuming motion capture systems, it enables creators of all skill levels to bring complex, emotional characters to life with just a cell phone.
Read more: Runway Act-One: A big step in AI-driven character animation
Canva releases new Dream Lab
Canva has added a bunch of new AI features to its web-based design platform, including updates for generating text and video effects and a more powerful text-to-image app. The latter is called “Dream Lab” — a new image generator tool born from Canva’s acquisition of generative AI startup Leonardo.ai earlier this year.
Ideogram now has an infinite Canvas
Canadian AI image startup Ideogram, founded last year by former AI researchers from Google Brain, is getting in on the trend of expanding its web-based user workspace to include a new interactive, infinite Canvas where users can spread newly generated images out, compare them to older generations, resize and reorder them at will, and even combine multiple AI generated images into one new composite.
Important to know: Character.AI and Google sued after chatbot-obsessed teen’s death
A lawsuit claims that Character.AI’s founders launched a dangerous product that it advertised as safe for use by kids without warning them or their parents of possible risks. Read the news.
ElevenLabs now lets you create a custom voice from a text prompt
ElevenLabs has launched a Voice Design engine that allows users to create custom synthetic voices from text prompts, enhancing generative AI's dialogue capabilities.
Why it’s important
This tool enables the rapid design of unique voices, making it ideal for applications in gaming and multimedia where real-time voice changes are needed.
Steal this Midjourney sref
To use it, add --sref 386961075 at the end of your prompt in Midjourney. Your images will be generated with this style.
Read more: Discover the otherworldly: Midjourney's latest Sref Styles unveiled