“Midjourneyv6 Means the End for a Big Chunk of the Photo Industry: Why, and How to Adapt”, Thomas Smith2023-01-22 (Midjourney)⁠:

“With Midjourney 6, it’s now possible to rely entirely on AI images for my websites.” Those words—spoken to me by a large independent online publisher—should strike fear into the hearts of anyone in the photography industry. I agree with the publisher. Using Midjourney’s new Version 6 doesn’t initially feel revolutionary. But once you dig deeper, you begin to realize it’s a massive step forward for AI-generated imagery.

…As a photographer, it was easy to look at AI imagery examples like this one [DALL·E-1 avocado armchairs] from 2021 and go “Nah, that’s not going to replace a human any time soon.” Of course, the experts turned out to be completely right…We went from grainy, low-res, clip-art-like images to beautiful, photorealistic renders in just under 3 years. It’s mind-blowing.

…As with Anna and Elsa, Midjourney V6’s images look even a bit better than real images. Our pretend lawyer is a handsome dude! His perfectly coiffed hair and smooth skin would be hard to achieve in a real photo shoot, without the help of a skilled makeup department. While the background of the V5.1 image looked like Hogwarts, the V6 image has a tasteful, blurred background of hefty-looking lawbooks. If this image was in the brochure for a law school, we’d probably feel compelled to go there.

In fact, that’s exactly what I’ve discovered in my own experiments with using Midjourney V6 images in advertising campaigns. Midjourney’s aspirational images of people convert better than images of real people. Customers can’t get enough of them.