A few years ago in January, I took a random weekday off to go snowboarding on powder without the crowds. Every time I ride the gondola up, I'm curious what the scene will be. In Washington, we say "I wonder if the mountain will be out." Well, this view certainly exceeded expectations!

Mt. Rainier, called Tahoma by the Native American Tribes, as seen from the top of Crystal Mountain Ski Area.

I love this place.

#MountRainier #Tahoma #snowboarding #lenticular #photography #Washington #PNW

#photography #fotografia #fotografie #yas #sunset #sunsetphotography #Nature #naturephotography #seascape #sea #caribbean #LauraCochranPhotography

The fall colors reflected in the water created a wonderful backdrop for this duck.

#photography #naturephotography #birdsofmastodon #outdoorphotography

#SilverFalls in #Oregon is gorgeous dressed in #spring #green. 
#WaterfallWednesday #LandscapePhotography #Landscape #NaturePhotography #Nature #PhotoOfTheDay #Waterfall #LongExposure #Cave

Prince Charming shuffled from foot to foot, awkwardly looking down at the sleeping princess Briar Rose. He'd heard tales all his life about the beautiful princess who lay sleeping for a hundred years, waiting for the prince who would come wake her up.

And now he was here! Actually in the princess' castle, standing right in front of the sleeping princess and he felt like an intruder.

She was sleeping so peacefully, not a care in the world. Did he really have the right to wake her up and let the worries and troubles of the world cloud that beautiful face?

She probably knew no one alive. Everybody she knew had died years ago. Would she even be able to make her way in a world which had gotten ever crass and cruel since her time?

Prince Charming nodded his head decisively, turned his back resolutely on the sleeping princess, and rode off into the gathering darkness, perhaps thinking wistfully of a princess who dreamed of a prince coming to wake her.

#AlternateEndings #FairyTale #Writing
A princess sleeping in a room w…

I have been doing most of my #AIArt generation on macOS using python scripts that I created myself to use the various #StableDiffusion models available out there. However, recently it has become a bit of a struggle to keep up with updating the scripts, generate art, work on my other coding projects etc. (and all this in my spare time ...)

So I figured over the weekend that I'd switch over to using a webUI for StableDiffusion work and that I'd give up on maintaining my own scripts. I decided to go with automatic1111 since that is the most popular webUI around at the moment. Big mistake ...

While automatic1111 is feature-rich and heavily developed, it really doesn't seem to be that well suited for using on a mac. Sure, there are install instructions for macOS and they are supposed to work. But my experience wasn't that great.

First, I ran into an issue on Apple Silicon macs with cryptodome which wasn't even a package directly needed by the webUI but was an ancillary supporting package. No matter what I tried, it seemed to install the non-Apple Silicon version of the package. No info on the automatic site or help about this.

I finally discover that you can't use pip to install cryptodome since that apparently installs the wrong version on Apple Silicon. The only way to do this correctly is to use conda ...

Great! I'd just nuked my conda install since the automatic1111 webUi uses a different virtual environment. And that installation method used pip 😕 So, I wade into the automatic1111 installer code, figure out what is going on, disable the virtual environment creation and the setup and instead, install conda, set up an environment manually and install all the requirements for the webUI. Launch the webUI and it finally works ....

But, try to generate an image using Stable Diffusion 2.1 and it crashes! Hard!! Every single time!!!

I went through this several times over the day and it was a mess. Tried on a Windows machine and while the install ran fine, trying to generate on Stable Diffusion 2.1 again resulted in errors.

Switched to Linux and finally it all worked fine within like 10 minutes. I still got errors and crashes while generating images but the the image generation at least would go through.

I went back to macOS yesterday and got things working somewhat but only with SD 1.5 models. Nothing I could do seemed to make automatic1111 work with newer Stable Diffusion models 😕

On a whim, I decided to try the InvokeAI webui (https://github.com/invoke-ai/InvokeAI) today. Set up a new conda environment, followed the directions to install the requirements, and had the webUI running in about 20 minutes! It's a much nicer UI and it works with SD 2.1 immediately! No fussing about and no crashes when generating images.

So yeah, I'm sticking with InvokeAI for the time being. I'm sure that automatic1111 is technically better and is developed at a much faster pace, but I just don't want to deal with all the issues. If I did, I'd be working on my own scripts instead 😛

#photography #MastoArt #FotoMontag #PhotoMonday

There’s a long way to go until spring but keep this in your mind as this is what it will look like. #ThickTrunkTuesday #tree #leaves

Pink and white quince flowers. They are the first thing to bloom in our garden. #2023AYearForArt #AYearForArt #JanuaryJoy
#Art #Artist #IrisRichardsonArtist #ArtCollector #ArtMatters #ArtJanuaryCalendar,
#mastoart #quinceblossoms #FruitFlowers #Flowers #GiftIdeas#FediArt #FediGiftShop https://iris-richardson.pixels.com/featured/pink-and-white-quince-blossom-against-soft-greens-and-browns-iris-richardson.html

A croc resting on the banks of the Chobe River in Zimbabwe Africa. See more here: https://fineartamerica.com/featured/what-a-croc-zambabwe-africa-joan-carroll.html #croc #crocodile #Zimbabwe #africa #african #wildlife #wildlifephotography #AYearForArt #BuyIntoArt #ArtMatters #BuyArtNotCandy #giftideas @joancarroll

Sunrise on Superior (vertical photo - click it to see it all if you can't see a vertical image in your app)

I was super excited to snag this shot of sunrise on Sunday. There was something slick about the situation. That sidelight from the sun was so sweet.

Sunrise Beach, Lake Superior, Cook County, MN

#Photography #LandscapePhotography #LakeSuperior #Minnesota

#introduction Hi! I’m Ruthanne, #writer of #fantasy and #scifi.

#ChronicIllness and #neurodivergence once left me deep in #WritersBlock. I beat that block, and now run a community helping stuck artists. I also post daily videos under #CreateIt22.

In my spare time, I read, play games, mess with website design and book covers, and pet my cats. Also, food is a love language and no one can tell me otherwise.

 #author #TwitterMigration #TwitterPurge #writinglife #books #authors #twitter #writing

Looks as if sigmoid.social is down 😕 So far haven't been able to find any info as to what is going on, but since that's where I do most of my #MachineLearning posts, and I do daily #NewPaper posts, have to figure out what is going on and whether I would need to move everything over to this account (and server) in order to avoid this happening again ...

Coastal Beauty in La Jolla, California. Joseph S. Giacalone Photography and Wall Art.
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https://buff.ly/3820qmu
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#wallart #AYearForArt #NaturePhotography #coastal #homedecor #california #beauty #love #meditative #lajolla #MastoArt

I don't know how good Mastodon is for sharing a big panoramic photo, but here I go.

This panorama is from my hiking trip to the Scottish Highlands this summer - this photo taken during our day hiking at Isle of Skye.

Raw photo file: https://00.reschat.dk/PXL_20220705_113715153-PANO.jpg

#Photography #Scotland #ScottishHighlands #Nature #Mountains #Hiking

Velveteen moss creatures have been awakened by the rain storms.

#Napa #California #nature #moss

Pink Azaleas

#flowers #flower #florespondence #azaleas #art #mastoart #garden #nature #artodon #artmatters #artofmastodon #artonmastodon #ayearforart

Moments before we were photographing this guanaco in Patagonia Chile standing serenely and regally on a hillside. In a flash, it took off running! And boy are they fast and powerful! They can run as fast as 40 mph (64 kmh), similar to horses. See more here: https://fineartamerica.com/featured/guanaco-on-the-run-patagonia-chile-joan-carroll.html
#wildlife #wildlifephotography #patagonia #chile #AYearForArt #ArtMatters #BuyArtNotCandy #giftideas #ArtJanuaryCalendar @joancarroll

The beautiful & mystical Joshua Tree National Park during sunrise.
Joseph S. Giacalone Photography & Wall Art.
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Explore Art Prints Here: https://buff.ly/3ijckgY
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Inspiration: Love is the only reality and it is not a mere sentiment. It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation. -Rabindranath Tagore
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#wallart #joshuatree #nationalparks #nature #photographylovers #california #fineart #AYearForArt #ArtMatters #beauty #fediart #love

#ParrotsAtoZ #37: B is for blue-crowned lorikeet (Vini australis), broad range in the South Pacific, including the Lau Archipelago (Fiji), Wallis and Futuna Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga and Niue. Pic at Tau, Manu'a, American Samoa, by Casey Weissburg https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/20089827
#birds #parrots #lorikeets #BirdPhotography #birdwatching