How to Use Midjourney: The 2026 Beginner's Guide to the Web App

Subscribe and post your first prompt

1. 1

   Sign up at midjourney.com and pick a plan

   There is no meaningful free tier anymore, so start at midjourney.com, click Sign up, and authenticate with a Google or Discord account. The Purchase a Subscription page bills yearly at a 20 percent discount: Basic $8 a month (about 200 image jobs), Standard $24 (15 fast GPU hours plus unlimited slow generations), Pro $48 (30 fast hours) and Mega $96 (60 fast hours plus Stealth mode). Monthly billing runs $10, $30, $60 and $120 for the same tiers. The source video's author recommends Standard so you always have Relax mode as a fallback.

   

2. 2

   Write your first prompt in the top bar

   Every page of the web app keeps a prompt bar at the top — it asks "What will you imagine?". Type a plain description and press Enter or the send arrow. The demo prompt in the source video is deliberately odd: a man in a business suit, but he has an old television for a head, with static and noise onscreen. Odd is fine; Midjourney handles surreal combinations well. Submit, and the job moves to the Create tab while the four images render.

   

3. 3

   Read the four-image grid in the Create tab

   Midjourney always returns a grid of four takes on your prompt, and the Create tab stacks every job chronologically so you can watch results pop in. Click any image to open it full size, then use the on-screen arrows or your keyboard to flip through the four variations and compare details. This is the judgement step: pick the grid that matches what you meant, because the next section's settings only help once your wording is close.

   

Steer the look: prompt formula and settings

1. 4

   Structure prompts: subject, scene, style, layout

   Random adjectives get random results. The source video builds a prompt in explicit slots: main subject, scene or location, style of image, then layout and composition, with colors, lighting and finer details as optional garnish. Watch it fill the bar: a shaolin monk, in a futuristic temple, unreal 3D videogame cinematic, a wide shot showing the full body of the monk. Swap the style slot — professional photography shot on 35mm film — and the same subject comes back with film grain. Unhappy with a grid? Hit Rerun to resubmit the identical prompt for four fresh takes.

   

2. 5

   Set the aspect ratio before you submit

   The settings icon next to the submit arrow opens a panel that travels with your prompt. Under Aspect Ratio you get Portrait, Square and Landscape presets plus a drag slider: the video walks from the default 1:1 square through 9:16 phone format and settles on 16:9, the TV-shaped ratio used for the rest of the walkthrough. Aspect ratio changes the native pixel size too — a standard square is 1024 by 1024, while a 16:9 render comes out around 1456 by 816.

   

3. 6

   Choose a model version, Raw mode and HD

   The same settings panel holds the Model section. Version defaults to 8.1, the current flagship — version 8 is being retired, and older models down to Niji for anime are still selectable when you want a period look. Raw mode strips away Midjourney's opinionated color grading so the image follows your prompt more literally. HD doubles the resolution — a square renders at 2048 by 2048 instead of 1024 — but burns more GPU time, and the video prefers the Run batch as HD button afterwards, which re-renders just the four images you liked.

   

4. 7

   Dial Stylization, Weirdness and Variety

   The Aesthetics block tunes how much Midjourney imposes its own taste. Stylization runs 0 to 1000 with a default of 100: at zero the model obeys your wording literally, cranked to the maximum it returns the house look — the video notes a green-and-red tint creeping into every image. Weirdness goes up to 3000 for genuinely strange outputs. Variety, also known as chaos, changes how different the four images in a grid are from each other; around 20 adds spread while keeping your subject, while the maximum can replace your monk with random strangers.

   

Inspect, upscale and vary the keepers

1. 8

   Open an image full size and download it

   Click a result and Midjourney opens a full-screen viewer with the rest of the batch as a filmstrip down the right edge, so comparing variations takes one click each. The top bar shows the exact prompt and parameters that produced the image, plus the download control — the video's habit is to grab the keeper immediately, before moving on to upscales or variations that would bury it in the feed.

   

2. 9

   Upscale with Subtle or Creative

   With an image open, the Creation Actions panel offers two upscales. Upscale Subtle raises the resolution while keeping the picture effectively identical; Upscale Creative allows the model to invent a little extra detail as it enlarges. The video runs both on the same television-head image and compares: results come back labeled Upscale S and Upscale C in the Create feed, resolution doubled, composition intact. This is the cheap route to 2K — no HD re-render, no surprise re-development of the scene.

   

3. 10

   Vary and remix what is almost right

   Hover any grid image and Vary Subtle and Vary Strong appear underneath. Subtle generates new takes that stay within a few details of the original — the video calls it the move for a grid that is 95 percent right; Strong keeps the palette and layout but wanders further. Turn on Remix in More options and varying also edits the prompt: the demo changes a shaolin monk to a samurai warrior and resubmits, keeping the temple and mood while swapping the figure.

   

Animate images and steer with references

1. 11

   Animate a still into a video clip

   The Animate button turns any image into video. Animate manually is the controllable route: your image becomes the start frame, and you write the motion — the demo uses a Shaolin monk who turns to face us, then runs toward the camera as lightning strikes in the temple. Choose Loop or set an end frame, pick low or high motion, and note the video settings: HD renders 720p clips, SD 480p, and dropping the batch from four videos to two saves credits. Extend adds roughly four seconds per pass — the demo grows a 5-second clip into 9 — and finished clips download as MP4.

   

2. 12

   Steer results with image and style references

   Drag any image into the prompt bar and Midjourney asks which role it should play, via three chips. Image Prompts use the elements of an image as raw material; Style References copy the look — colors, grading, mood — onto your prompt; Omni Reference is covered in the next step. The demo attaches a sneaker photo to a close up of some pink and black shoes, in a city street at night, and the new grid borrows the shoe's colors and the photo's layout without duplicating it.

   

3. 13

   Keep one exact object with Omni Reference

   Omni Reference is the strongest of the three: it reproduces a specific object's form — or a character's likeness — inside new scenes, as long as the prompt mentions it. The strength dial defaults to 100; raising it pulls in more of the reference, lowering it lets the scene breathe. The video's sneaker test lands noticeably closer to the original shoe than a plain image prompt. One caveat from the walkthrough: omni jobs currently render on version 7, even if you normally generate on 8.1.

   

Explore, organize and download everything

1. 14

   Mine the Explore page for prompts that work

   Explore is Midjourney's public gallery: trending and top images and videos, searchable by style or category, with a heart button that saves anything you like into your Likes. The real value is forensic — open any image and the viewer shows its full prompt, every parameter and the style reference codes behind it, plus the creator's profile. The video treats it as a free prompt-formula library: find a look you want, read its recipe, adapt the slots to your own subject.

   

2. 15

   Select and bulk-download in the Organize tab

   Downloading one by one does not scale, so the Organize tab collects everything you have made with filters for model version, media type and orientation. Click the plus symbol on a date to select an entire day's work, hold Shift to tick or untick individual images, or drag a box across a group. The download button then ships the whole selection as one zip — the video's example pulls 174 images and videos in a single archive, a routine monthly cleanup rather than a stunt.

   

3. 16

   Track GPU hours and manage your plan

   Open the profile menu and choose Manage subscription to find the page that matters most month to month: Usage Details. It shows remaining fast GPU hours — the video's Pro account sits at 13h 27m of 30 — when those hours refresh, and which plan features are active. The same page handles switching, upgrading or downgrading plans and flipping between monthly and yearly billing. Check it whenever generations start feeling slow: you are probably out of Fast hours, and Relax mode is the workaround.

   

Frequently asked questions