release
Midjourney V8.1 creator tests report faster renders, better moodboards, and lingering hand errors
Creator tests say Midjourney V8.1 renders faster and improves moodboards and lighting, but hand errors and some style outputs still split opinion. Alpha users should compare it against current workflows before upgrading, since the gains depend on the task.
2 min read
TL;DR
- Midjourney’s V8.1 alpha announcement says HD mode is now 3x faster and 3x cheaper, while standard resolution is 50% faster and 25% cheaper, and early creator tests from _OAK200 and _VVSVS broadly line up with that speed-first pitch.
- The official release frames moodboards and style references as “super stable,” and that claim shows up in practice through _VVSVS’s moodboard-heavy portraits and ai_artworkgen’s fashion studies.
- The aesthetic verdict is split: _OAK200, ai_artworkgen, and CharaspowerAI call V8.1 cleaner and more artistic than V8 alpha, while Artedeingenio says V7 and V6 still feel more artistic.
- Hand errors are still hanging around. ai_artworkgen says the model still produces weird hands, and gizakdag’s side by side shows V8.1 improving a surreal hand prompt without solving anatomy cleanly.
- Access is still limited. According to Midjourney’s version docs, V8.1 Alpha launched on alpha.midjourney.com only, is not on the main site or Discord yet, and creations do not appear on the main website for now.
Midjourney’s release post also slips in a few useful workflow details beyond the pretty pictures: a new “Run as HD” rerender button, the return of image prompts and image weights, and a prompt shortener that activates when prompts get too large. Meanwhile, creator tests quickly clustered around three things the company highlighted itself, faster iteration, more dependable moodboards, and an aesthetic drift back toward V7.