How to Make Impressive AI-Generated Art for Free With DALL-E

You can create an account on DALL-E like any other website by using an email address and setting a password. When you are in it, the homepage has a search bar that you can use to start creating. Below the search bar are examples of art DALL·E made, including the search term that leads to the image.

On DALL-E, the AI-generated images you create are called “Generations”. They are based on text you type into the search bar called “Prompts”. You can also upload images to DALL-E, called “Uploads”, and create images from them.

The details you can search for are seemingly limitless, including the art style or artist you want the AI ​​image to resemble. For this search I specified that the image should be “digital art”.

The first search I did on DALL-E was for cats eating soup. One of my favorite pictures is “The Kiss” by Gustav Klimt, so I searched for this picture and added “in the style of Gustav Klimt”. This picture was the best of the four DALL-E gave me, but none of the pictures really resembled “The Kiss”.

I did another search with another artist in mind. For this image I searched for “Van Gogh style painting of a Formula 1 car racing on Mars”. Compared to what DALL-E gave me for Klimt, I thought this picture looked more like a Vincent van Gogh painting.

Here’s a closer look at my favorite of this batch. I had no real expectations for this quest, so I was curious to see how DALL-E would interpret it. I liked this one the best because DALL-E added more scenery to this “generation” to indicate that they are in another world.

Every detail of your search affects how DALL-E creates your image. For example, I used the same search term for two photos. For this one, I was looking for “a bright painting of a girl walking across a bridge into a waterfall that opens into another dimension…”

…then “a dark painting of a girl walking across a bridge into a waterfall that opens into another dimension.” Both sets of images came out very differently depending on whether I entered “light” or “dark”.

Unless your search is very specific, the “generations” can really vary in style. For example, I just searched for “astronaut cowboys at a rodeo in space.” Here is a generation:

And another one in a different style:

You can also edit a “Generation” on DALL-E using one of your credits. Editing options include deleting part of the “Generation”, adding a frame, or uploading another image to add to the “Generation”.

You can check your collection by clicking “My Collection” at the top of the DALL-E homepage. You can also check how many credits you have for the month by clicking on your user profile in the top right.

When you open an account to use DALL-E, you get 50 credits for the first month. Each credit is used toward a DALL-E search, edit request, or change request. You get 15 credits for each month after the first month, but the 50 free credits don’t carry over after the first month. You can also buy more credits.

According to the OpenAI Terms of Service, images you create with DALL-E can be used for any legal purpose, even commercial ones. That means you can sell the rights to the images and use them in books, websites and presentations.

Further terms of use of OpenAI can be found here.

OpenAI’s content policy for DALL·E states that no images should be created, uploaded or shared that depict hate, violence, self-harm, illegal activities or anything political.

For more information on OpenAI’s content guidelines, click here.