The Best Stable Diffusion GUI for Beginners: Image2Image Tools Like Midjourney

Lada Hang
6 min readMay 26, 2024

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When we mention Stable Diffusion and image-to-image tools, what comes to mind? ComfyUI, Automatic1111, Midjourney. However, there’s an efficient and beginner-friendly tool — — Fooocus. This remarkable tool perfectly replicates the functionality of Midjourney while being more user-friendly and ideal for beginners. Let’s compare these applications and highlight why Fooocus stands out.

What is Fooocus?

Fooocus is an innovative image-generating software built on Gradio. It reimagines the designs of Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, offering the best features of both platforms. Here’s why Fooocus stands out:

  • Inspired by Stable Diffusion: Fooocus is offline, open source, and free to use, providing accessibility and transparency.
  • Inspired by Midjourney: The software eliminates the need for manual tweaking. Users can focus on their prompts and images, making the creative process seamless and intuitive.

Fooocus also automates numerous internal optimizations and quality improvements, allowing users to forget complex technical parameters. Instead, they can enjoy the seamless interaction between humans and computers, “exploring new mediums of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species.”

Comparing Fooocus with Other Tools

ComfyUI

  • Pros: Highly customizable, robust community support, extensive documentation.
  • Cons: Steep learning curve, requires manual tweaking for optimal results.

Automatic1111

  • Pros: Feature-rich, versatile, supports various plugins and extensions.
  • Cons: Complicated setup, not beginner-friendly, requires technical knowledge to utilize fully.

Midjourney

  • Pros: High-quality outputs, an intuitive interface, and minimal manual input are required.
  • Cons: It is not open source, expensive, and has limited customization options.

Why Fooocus is Perfect for Beginners

Fooocus stands out for its simplicity and ease of use. It combines the best features of Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, providing an effortless image-generation experience. Here’s why it’s ideal for beginners:

  • User-Friendly Interface: Fooocus is designed to be intuitive, requiring no prior technical knowledge.
  • Automated Optimizations: The software handles all the technical details so that you can focus solely on your creative prompts.
  • Free and Open Source: Unlike other tools, Fooocus is entirely free and open source, making it accessible to everyone.

Start Fooocus on MimicPC

Using Fooocus with MimicPC makes transforming and enhancing images simple and accessible, especially for beginners exploring creative possibilities without technical hurdles. Here’s a simple guide to get you started with Fooocus on MimicPC:

Step 1: Sign Up on MimicPC

  1. Visit the MimicPC website and sign up for a free account.
  2. Log in to your new account.

Step 2: Access Fooocus

  1. Navigate to the AI Applications section on MimicPC.
  2. Select Fooocus from the list of available applications.

Step 3: Launch Fooocus

  1. Click on “Launch” to start Fooocus.
  2. Wait for the application to initialize, which should take just a few moments.

Using Fooocus: A Seamless Experience

Using Fooocus is extremely easy. Enter your prompts, and Fooocus will handle the rest, generating the images you envision. With its user-friendly interface and powerful capabilities, creating stunning visuals has never been simpler.

Upscale or Variation

Featuring image-based toolbars, Fooocus offers a complete software solution for seamlessly generating high-quality images.

The toolbar is motivated by the Midjourney toolbar.

Fooocus empowers users to effortlessly create stunning images, regardless of the length or complexity of the prompt. Like Midjourney, it enables users to drag any images within the generated sets, ensuring a seamless and beautiful experience. For instance, with a simple prompt like ‘Witches fighting dragons,’ Fooocus easily delivers captivating visuals.

Upscale is designed to enhance image quality, offering a solution to elevate the visual appeal of your images.

The Upscale (Fast 2x) is very fast and suitable for upscaling 2k or 1.5k images into 4k images.

Paired with Advanced functionality, you can adjust image parameters:

Image Prompts

Fooocus 2.1.0 has successfully implemented image prompts, bringing it on par with Midjourney's features. With this update, Fooocus now includes nearly all the functionalities of Midjourney, making it a powerful tool for creative image generation. Image Prompt is one of the most essential features of Midjourney. Below is the banner from Midjourney:

In Fooocus, it looks like this:

Technically, this feature is based on a mixture of an IP adapter, a pre-computed negative embedding from the Fooocus team, an attention-hacking algorithm from the Fooocus team, and an adaptive balancing/weighting algorithm from the Fooocus team.

The detailed differences are in the table below:

Let’s try dropping in a few images and generating a direct:

Image Prompt +Advanced Lingting:

Inpaint or Outpaint

Fooocus inpaint and outpaint are similar to Midjourney’s “left/right/top/bottom” arrows:

In Fooocus, it looks like this:

Inpaint Example:

Advanced: Detail Fix

Improve Detail(face,hand,eyes,etc)

Add detail:

Advanced: Add New Objects / Change Background:

Fooocus Describe

Since 2.1.831, Fooocus added a Describe tool to convert images to prompts.in line with Midjourney Describe.

You can click “Describe this Image into Prompt” to use :

also works for anime tags:

Describe + Advanced:

Metadata

Metadata in Advanced can read the data of pictures generated with Fooocus. Click Apply Metadata to use the same settings and prompts.

Advanced

Fooocus streamlines the configuration process by default, allowing users to concentrate on prompting and generating without worrying about parameters. However, for advanced users seeking more customization, Fooocus offers a range of additional features. This list is regularly updated to include new functionalities.

Fooocus prioritizes simplicity akin to Midjourney, yet without compromising functionality. Here’s what you need to know:

Conclusion

Fooocus is a game-changer in the world of Stable Diffusion and image-to-image tools. It combines the best features of advanced tools like Midjourney with a user-friendly interface that makes it accessible to everyone. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced user looking for a straightforward tool, Fooocus covers you.

Ready to dive into the world of AI-powered image generation? Give Fooocus a try and unlock your creative potential today!

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