Getting Started
In this tutorial, we will cover the Imagine, Outpaint, Inpaint, and Transfer functions, as well as a few key Photoshop tips to help everything work smoothly.
Note that the videos you will find throughout this tutorial have been accelerated to keep them short, they do not reflect the actual time it takes to generate images.
Generating an image using Imagine
Now that we’re ready, let’s generate our first image. We can do this using the Imagine function. Click on the Imagine button, which should produce a pop-up box like the following:
Here, we can get started using one of the Alpaca templates to determine
the style of our output images. Let’s click the drop-down menus labeled Template
and select the option Manga. We’ll cover creating custom templates later in the
Configuring global settings section of the guide.
Next, we can input a text prompt to Alpaca. Let’s try the prompt A country house.
You can generate between 1-5 images per text prompt. It’s usually better to generate many images, since the style and quality can vary for each generation.
By default, Imagine will generate a square image and put it in the top left corner of your canvas.
However you can also tell Alpaca what size of image you want, and where you want it by making a selection before clicking on Imagine.
To do that, we’ll want to use Photoshop’s Marquee (shortcut M) tool to identify the region within which we want to generate our image.
We’ll want to keep the aspect ratio of this region less than 2:1 (i.e. the larger size of your selection must not be more than twice the smaller size), and no more than 1024x1024 pixels in area.
Extending an image using Fill
We can extend (or outpaint) an existing image using using the Fill function.
We’ll want to use the Marquee tool to identify the empty space we want
to outpaint. We can think of the parts of the existing image we include in
the Marquee square as “extra information” that Alpaca will use to extend
the image. Additionally, we’ll want to prompt Alpaca by
describing the what we would like to see in the outpainted section, in this
case, let’s try a small pond in front of a house.
Do make sure that you have the correct layer selected when you use Fill, as only the pixels from that layer will be used as context.
If you are new to Photoshop, an easy way to make sure you have the
correct layer selected is to simply merge all visible layers before
using Fill (you can do this by hitting Command + shift + e).
This will ensure that whatever you see on the screen is what the model
will also receive.
Inpainting an image using Fill
Fill can laso be used to change details of an image, amd to remove/replace existing objects (also called inpainting).
We can use Photoshop’s Erase tool (shortcut E) to remove an existing object
or to indicate where we would like to draw in a new one, then use the Fill
function to fill in the empty space however we would like. In this example,
let’s erase out a section a section in front of the house and inpaint a car
parked on the driveway using the prompt a car parked in front of a house.
Do make sure that you have the correct layer selected when you use Fill, as only the pixels from that layer will be used as context.
If you are new to Photoshop, an easy way to make sure you have the correct
layer selected is to simply merge all visible layers before using Fill
(you can do this by hitting Command+ shift + e). This will ensure that
whatever you see on the screen is what the model will also receive.
Transforming objects using Transfer
Transfer (also called image-to-image) is a great tool to transform parts of an image.
The Transfer function will generate a new layer in the shape of whatever we have selected using the Marquee tool. To blend things nicely, we can erase around the object using the Erase tool to reveal the previous layer and then merge all layers together when we’re happy with the result. A faster way to do this is to use Photoshop’s Object Selection Tool (shortcut `W“) to automatically select our new object, we can then right click on the object and choose Select Inverse to automatically select the surrounding context and delete it.
Transfer can also be used generate variations of an image, change the style of an image or even turn a quick sketch into a beautiful picture.
Here, we’ll change an image of a corgi into a funkier cyberpunk version. Again, we can use Marquee to select parts of the image that we would like to transform (in this case, our entire canvas).
Settings
Once you’re comfortable with the basic features of Alpaca, you can create your own custom templates in the Settings panel.
Click on the gear icon on the right side of the Alpaca window to open up the Settings panel. Here, we can select some modifiers, which describe the style we are trying to achieve. We can assign weights to our modifiers (must be integers) that tell Alpaca how much we want each modifier to contribute to the style of the outputs.
If you like, you can copy our example modifiers into your project settings:
soft light::1
highly detailed::1
studio ghibli::2
Presetting the Marquee tool to the right size
Square selections are be faster and cheaper to generate, compared to selection where the height and width are different. Creating a square selection preset for Photoshop’s Marquee tool is a quick and easy way to make the most out of your credits.
Congrats on making your first project with Alpaca! We hope you enjoyed, be sure to write to us on Discord, or by email at help@alpacaml.io if you ran into any problems along the way.