Microsoft Designer (preview) initial impressions: A step above Bing Creator and DALL-E for the casual creator
Microsoft Designer is a Large Language Model (LLM) image creation tool for, in my opinion, a casual creator — like me. From what I can see it provides a step up from OpenAI’s DALL-E and Microsoft’s own Bing Creator by letting the casual user easily make adjustments to the image created by the LLM.
My prompt for Designer was: Create a poster about a doodle-a-day conference scheduled for April 1, 2024. Include drawing tools around a doodle drawing. Designer generated a dozen (or so, I didn’t count) images. Interestingly, the design I liked best did not have a doodle-drawing. This worked in my favor, however, since I wanted to include one of my own doodles as part of the poster.
The next step was to edit the image I liked best. Designer let me import my own PNG image file, add it to Designer’s creation, and remove the background of my doodle. I probably should have tried to add something that looks like paper behind my doodle. But, for a quick test, I was happy with what I saw. I also added the text “Doodling enhances creativity!”
Finally, I used Designer’s Download feature to save the image to my local drive. Note: The image I saved includes the Designer watermark. However, there is an option (checkbox) to remove the watermark.
This Microsoft Designer preview has been available for a few months. However, I was given preview access just yesterday (April 6, 2023). I’ve read that Designer will be part of the consumer Office 365 suite. So, the price is right for me. Note that I have not tried other design tools such as those offered by Canva or Adobe. I have, however, tried DALL-E and Bing Creator (both Creator and Designer use the DALL-E technology). Designer let me create a nice little poster for a mythical conference in just a few minutes. I appreciated the ability to fine tune the output and the ability to add my own doodle image.
It is nice to have this tool for no additional cost over and above my annual Office 365 subscription fee.
