Overview

This article will guide you through installing Stable Diffusion Web UI on Mac and using it locally.

What is Stable Diffusion?

Stable Diffusion is a type of image processing technology using AI. By inputting text, it can generate images corresponding to that text.

Ways to Use Stable Diffusion

There are two main ways to use Stable Diffusion:

• Using web applications like Hugging Face or Dream Studio
• Using Stable Diffusion Web UI locally

This article focuses on using Stable Diffusion Web UI locally. While web applications are easy for trial purposes, they might have limitations or costs for generating a significant number of images. Thus, local usage is recommended for more extensive needs.

How to Use Stable Diffusion Web UI Locally

We will use stable-diffusion-web-ui published by AUTOMATIC1111 for this purpose.

1. Prepare the environment
2. Install stable-diffusion-web-ui
3. Place the model files
4. Start stable-diffusion-web-ui and generate images

1. Preparing the Environment

First, we need to install Python and other necessary libraries using homebrew.

Install homebrew:

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/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Set the homebrew path:

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export PATH="$PATH:/opt/homebrew/bin/"

Install related libraries:

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brew install cmake protobuf rust pyenv git wget

Set up the Python environment using pyenv. This allows you to use multiple versions of Python. For building the Python environment, refer to this article.

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pyenv install 3.10.6
pyenv local 3.10.6

2. Installing stable-diffusion-web-ui

Clone the repository using git clone:

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git clone https://github.com/AUTOMATIC1111/stable-diffusion-webui.git
cd stable-diffusion-webui

Set up a virtual environment using venv to keep the environment clean:

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python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate

Now the environment is ready.

3. Placing the Model Files

Next, download the model files and place them in the stable-diffusion-webui/models/Stable-diffusion/ directory. Model files can be downloaded from sites like:

• Civitai
• Hugging Face

For this example, we’ll download the blue_pencil model from Civitai.

Search for blue_pencil in Civitai’s search bar, select blue_pencil from the search results, and click the Download button.

Move the downloaded model to the directory:

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mv ~/Downloads/bluePencilXL_v401.safetensors models/Stable-diffusion/

4. Starting stable-diffusion-web-ui and Generating Images

Finally, start stable-diffusion-web-ui and generate images:

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./webui.sh

After launching, input the text in the prompt and generate images:

1. Select the downloaded blue_pencil model in Stable Diffusion checkpoint.
2. Enter elements you want in the image in the prompt.
3. Enter elements you don’t want in the image in the Negative prompt.
4. Click Generate.

By inputting “a dog wearing pink sunglasses,” the output matched the input. You can generate various images by inputting different texts.

Summary

This article introduced how to install and use Stable Diffusion Web UI on Mac locally. Using it locally allows you to generate images freely without the limitations or costs associated with web applications.