As usual, we find some great gems on GitHub! Today, I present to you Fooocus, which allows you to generate beautiful images with AI. This free software is based on Gradio and incorporates the best concepts of Stable Diffusion and Midjourney while being offline, open source, free, and without the need for manual settings to make you bang your head against the walls.
The tool is capable of generating photorealistic images from a simple prompt, performing automatic refinement to avoid anything that appears too smooth or ‘plastic.’
Here is a rough example:
Fooocus is super easy to install and requires less than 3 clicks to get up and running. It is very lightweight and does not demand a powerful machine. Basically, 4 GB of GPU memory (Nvidia) and 8 GB of system RAM will be enough to keep you happy. Even a low-end laptop with an Nvidia 3060 can do the job.
It can be installed on Windows and Linux, and the broadcast templates are downloaded automatically via the Fooocus launcher. Note that a version for Mac or Windows with an AMD GPU is currently being developed, so stay tuned.
Here is an image I generated with Midjourney:
Here is its equivalent with the same prompt made by Fooocus:
Even if it’s still far from the rendering of Midjourney, it’s pretty good for something free with less power and money behind it. And above all, it can run locally.
If your machine lacks power, disk space, or if it’s a Mac, or if you are feeling lazy internationally, you can always go through Colab by clicking here.
You will then need to click on the ‘Play’ button on the script and find the Gradio URL when everything has been launched.
Have fun!”
