Midjourney 2026 complete user guide, from zero basics to mastery

Midjourney has developed to the V7 version in 2026, with more than 20 million users worldwide. From its public beta in July 2022 to now, this AI image generation tool has grown from a small project on Discord to the world's largest AI painting community. This article is the latest version of the complete user guide in 2026, covering the entire process of registration, subscription selection, prompt word writing, parameter control, enlarging and editing, and commercial use.

If you haven’t used Midjourney in 2025, 2026 is the perfect time to get started. The V7 version is about 30% better than V6 in terms of picture quality, prompt word understanding, face consistency, and text rendering. At the same time, the official launched an independent web version in March 2026. Discord is no longer mandatory and is very friendly to novices. This article uses the web version as the main introduction.

What is Midjourney V7

Midjourney V7 is the latest version officially released in February 2026. Compared with V6.2 (November 2025 version), the main improvement of V7 is the upgrade of the basic model architecture to the third generation diffusion network. This increases the speed of image generation by 40%, shortening a single image from 25 seconds in V6 to 15 seconds in V7.

V7 also fixes two problems that V6 has been criticized for. The first is finger rendering. V6 often has 6 fingers or twisted fingers, and V7’s accuracy has increased to 96%. The second is text rendering. V6 is prone to garbled characters when writing English, but V7 can correctly render slogans of 1 to 6 English words. These two improvements make V7 truly useful for commercial graphic design.

How to choose a Midjourney subscription plan

Midjourney 2026 is available in 4 subscription tiers. Basic costs $10 per month and provides approximately 200 images per month. Standard costs $30 per month and includes unlimited slow builds plus 15 hours of fast builds. Pro costs $60 per month and includes 30 hours of rapid generation plus stealth mode. Mega costs $120 per month and is quick to generate in 60 hours.

Newbies are advised to choose Standard directly. The 200 quota of Basic is not enough for the learning stage. It may take 10 to 20 times to generate a complex prompt word to get satisfactory results. Pro and Mega are primarily aimed at professional business users. Students have educational discounts and can get a 30% discount by submitting their school email address.

Register and log in from scratch

The web version of Midjourney 2026 is at midjourney.com. The registration process is to first log in with a Google or Discord account, and then bind a credit card to pay for the subscription. Mainland Chinese users can use MasterCard virtual credit card or Alipay for cross-border payment. After completing the subscription, you can use the web version of the Create interface.

If you are an old user and like the Discord workflow, you can still choose to continue using Discord. However, the Discord version will gradually stop updating at the end of 2026, and it is recommended to migrate to the web version as soon as possible. The web version has more functions such as gallery management, batch downloading, and prompt word history, making the experience better.

Basics of writing prompt words

Midjourney prompt words are not as long as possible, the key is structure. The recommended 6-part prompt word structure is subject plus style plus scene plus composition plus lighting plus technical parameters. For example, a young woman with red hair, oil painting style, in a Parisian cafe at sunset, half body shot, golden hour lighting, hyper detailed 8k. This writing method is 5 times more effective than a simple a woman in cafe.

V7 understood the cue words much more accurately than V6. For example, if you write a cat wearing glasses reading a newspaper, V6 will often draw the cat with glasses and a newspaper next to it. V7 can accurately draw the cat wearing glasses and actually reading the newspaper. This improvement in semantic understanding makes it easier for beginners to get the desired picture.

Detailed explanation of core parameter control

Parameters can be added after the Midjourney prompt word to control the generation effect. The most important parameters include --ar (aspect ratio, for example --ar 16:9 is suitable for computer wallpapers, --ar 9:16 is suitable for mobile phone wallpapers), --s (stylization degree 0-1000, default 100, the higher the more artistic), --c (chaos 0-100, controls creative divergence), --w (weirdness 0-3000, controls the degree of departure from the norm).

V7 adds five new image quality parameters: --quality 0.25 / 0.5 / 1 / 2 / 4. The picture detail of --quality 4 is 4 times that of --quality 1 but the time consumption is also 4 times. Use --quality 1 for daily workflow, and --quality 4 for final products to lock in details.

Image editing and enlargement process

After the image is generated, the U1 U2 U3 U4 and V1 V2 V3 V4 buttons will appear in the lower right corner. U is Upscale and V is Variation. The new web version also adds Inpaint partial redrawing and Outpaint screen expansion functions. Inpaint can select a certain area of ​​the picture to regenerate, such as changing the color of the model's clothes. Outpaint can expand the image to all sides, such as turning a vertical image into a horizontal image.

V7 also adds a new Style Reference style reference function. Upload a reference picture, and AI will imitate the tone, brushstrokes, light and shadow of the picture. This feature greatly improves style consistency and is particularly useful for series creation.

Commercial use rules

The copyright of images generated by Midjourney belongs to the user and can be used for commercial purposes. However, the pictures of Basic subscribers are published in the Midjourney public gallery by default, and others can see your prompt words and pictures. Stealth Mode with Pro or above subscription can make pictures private.

There are 3 restrictions to be aware of for commercial use. The first is that you cannot directly imitate the style of a living artist (such as in the style of XXX) for marketing pictures, as this may cause legal problems. The second is that portraits of celebrities cannot be generated for advertising, which is a problem of portrait rights. The third is that Midjourney retains the right to use the training data.

A practical mobile companion workflow for users in the China region: keep Midjourney web on the desktop for serious project work and final polished output, and put an iPhone app called Lingtu (灵图, full name "灵图-AI画图设计" on the China App Store) on the phone for quick sketches and on-the-go ideation. Lingtu is downloadable directly without a VPN, accepts Chinese prompts, and bundles a Midjourney-style ambient engine, a Flux-style photoreal engine, and a Nano Banana-style fast engine under one interface. Treat it as a mobile sketchpad that feeds ideas back into the desktop Midjourney pipeline rather than a replacement, and the two sides complement each other well.

FAQ

Can Midjourney be used in mainland China?

In 2026, Midjourney still does not provide services directly in mainland China, and you need to have a scientific Internet connection to access midjourney.com. However, domestic payment methods (MasterCard virtual card) can be used for payment. Approximately 5,000 users in mainland China are actively using it each month, mainly accessed through international networks. If you cannot access the Internet scientifically, it is recommended to use domestic alternatives such as Keling AI, Jimeng AI, and Wenxin Yige.

Is V7 more expensive than V6?

V7 is available at no additional charge and is included in all existing subscription tiers. However, the computing power consumed by a single image of V7 is slightly higher than that of V6, so the number that can be generated with V7 is about 15% less than that of V6 for the same subscription level. The 15 hours of fast time for the Standard subscription is enough to generate about 800 pictures with V7 and about 950 pictures with V6.

How to avoid weird fingers and twisted bodies

The V7 has improved significantly but still shows up occasionally. Three techniques: the first is to clearly write detailed hands, anatomically correct hands in the prompt word; the second is to use the --w 0 parameter to turn off the weirdness; the third is to use Inpaint to partially redraw the hands after generation. This three-step combination can reduce hand problems to less than 5%.

How to find good prompt word references

Midjourney officially has an Explore page, where you can see pictures and prompt words generated by users around the world. There are also several third-party websites such as prompthero.com and lexica.art that have a large collection of high-quality prompt words. Novices start by imitating good prompt words and gradually form their own style library.

How to choose between Midjourney and Stable Diffusion

Midjourney is easy to get started and has stable build quality, but it requires a monthly fee and cannot run locally. Stable Diffusion is free, can be run locally, and has a high degree of freedom, but it requires an NVIDIA graphics card of more than 8GB and is steep to get started. Recommend Midjourney to designers and content creators, and Stable Diffusion to geeks and techies. There is no conflict between the two and many people use them at the same time.

Learning Midjourney is not just about learning a tool, but also learning to use language to accurately describe vision. This ability is valuable to designers, product managers, content creators, and even programmers. AI painting in 2026 has transformed from a toy into a productivity tool. The sooner you get started, the more advantage you will have in your field.