Nobody likes change, right? So when Stable Diffusion 2 launched a few days ago, I had concerns™. When it worked, Stable Diffusion 2 took several minutes to crunch through each prompt—a noticeable departure from the speed and efficiency of Stable Diffusion 1. And the resulting images were not as impressive. I found them cartoonish, illustrative and sleek. Like something made by another competitor, Midjourney; or something you’d mint as an NFT. The only nice thing I had to say about Stable Diffusion’s reboot was that the image files are slightly larger. Fortunately, Stable Diffusion 1 remains available.
However, I’ve since found some interesting differences between Stable Diffusion 2 and its predecessor. For one thing, it actually knows some of the artists I like!
Born in 1974, Mark Hearld studied illustration at the Glasgow School of Art, then completed an MA in Natural History Illustration at the Royal College of Art.
Hearld is now based in York, but finds inspiration in the flora and fauna of the British countryside. He works across a variety of media; from lithography and linocut, to paintings, collages and ceramics.
His work is gorgeous, isn’t it? If money was no object, I’d have his wallpapers in my home.
Anyway, when I first started working with Stable Diffusion 1, I tapped Hearld’s name and a few pastoral descriptors (birds, landscape, rosehips, etc.) into the prompt box.
What a disappointment! Stable Diffusion 1 rendered entirely uninteresting “collages” in an aesthetic you’d hardly recognize as Hearld’s. Sometimes, it would weight the name Mark above all else, rendering random blokes’ faces—bespectacled and bland.
Hearld’s images must have been added to Stable Diffusion 2’s database, because Stable Diffusion 2 makes more precise renderings than its predecessor. While they are totally lacking Hearld’s artistry, they’re closer now than ever before.
I don’t think Hearld has anything to worry about, but you might say, “an attempt was made”.
Below, a comparison of Stable Diffusion 1 and Stable Diffusion 2.
1 is on the left, 2 is on the right; both rendered with the same prompt, “Mark Hearld British landscape birds collage bright colours nature wildflowers grass clouds”.
You can see that Stable Diffusion 1 rendered collages of landscape photographs, while Stable Diffusion 2 more closely resembles Hearld’s exuberant paper cuts.
Still, I’d take the original any day. In this instance, score 1 for the artist, 0 for AI.
What do you think?
Any other thoughts? Share them in the comments!
The title of this post is borrowed from the title of Mark Hearld’s latest book, available from St. Jude’s Prints.