How To Install ComfyUI and Create AI Art For Free

Hey Everyone,

Today, we will discuss one of my favorite AI Tools used for Stable Diffusion and AI ART, ComfyUI, and How to Get Started.

What is ComfyUI?

A user-friendly and efficient way to design and execute stable diffusion pipelines.

With its robust and modular GUI and backend, you can easily create advanced pipelines using a graph-based interface.

Step 1: Install Prerequisites

• Make sure you have Git Installed

• Make sure you have Python version 3.10.6

Step 2: Install ComfyUI

• For Windows Users, I Recommend using the Portable Version

  • Download, extract with 7-Zip and double-click run_cpu.bat or run_nvidia.bat.

• For Linux Users, I recommend following the Instructions for the Manual Installations.

• These Instructions are the same for Mac users as well.

Step 3: Load Models

• ComfyUI\models The directory hosts all Stable Diffusion checkpoints/models, embeddings, loras, etc.

• Make sure you put your Stable Diffusion checkpoints/models (the huge ckpt/safetensors files) in ComfyUI\models\checkpoints

• Feel free to use my favorite mix if you don’t have a model to create AI Art already.

• Or visit CivitAI

(Optional)How do I share models between another UI and ComfyUI?

Use this Config file to set the search paths for models.

This file is found in the ComfyUI directory in the standalone Windows build.

Rename this file to extra_model_paths.yaml and edit it with your favorite text editor.

Step 5: Install the Plugin Manager

1. Download scripts/install-manager-for-portable-version.bat into the installed "ComfyUI_windows_portable" directory.

2. double-click install-manager-for-portable-version.bat batch file.

If you installed ComfyUI using another method, follow the steps here

Step 6: Load Workflow and Plugins

ComfyUI Allows you to create custom workflows and plugins and share them with others.

Now that we have the Plugin Manager installed, we can set you up with a workflow allowing you to create your AI Art like me!

1. Visit My Notion Doc for Workflows

2. Select the version you want and visit the Gist.

3. Click on raw

4. Right-click the page, click Save as, and save the file in the location you set up ComfUI.

5. If you are running ComfyUI GUI, press the Load Button and select the basic.json file you downloaded earlier.

This being your first time using the workflow, you likely have a few missing nodes showing up red in your workflow.

Don’t worry; the plugin manager will help resolve the issue.

1. Using the ComfyUI GUI, you will want to click on the manager button.

2. Another Menu will appear, allowing you to install missing Nodes.

3. Once the Custom Nodes are installed, you must reset ComfyUI by closing the Terminal and rerunning it for the Plugins to work.

Step 6: Queue Prompt

If everything is set up correctly, you should be able to press Queue Prompt and, depending on your device, see an image in some time.

The Save Image Node is currently greyed out to prevent you from saving unwanted images; if you click the node and press ctrl+m, you will toggle the mute feature, unmuting it.

ComfyUI Support and Dev channel

Matrix space: #comfyui_space:matrix.org (it's like Discord but open source).