Disclaimer: Technically, Remaster makes variations of your prompt while adding --test --creative to it. And although I do not personally like --test mode as it is, in combination with --v 3—e.g., Remaster—is a tremendous tool.

I want to start this section with a little quote: "This is kind of a crazy and experimental feature."

Remaster is what they say it is—a crazy and experimental feature that (I quote again) "can increase the quality and coherence of the image… or could also make it worse!" Oftentimes, Remaster works like sorcery, taking your images to the next level—especially given enough rerolls. Sometimes it will do the opposite, stripping the outcome of its magic and rendering a bizarre, messed up, or downright dull result.

A cool tachikoma bot against smoking cyberpunk city backdrop turns into a weird teletubby with a messed up background…

An interesting-looking bioreactor with a plant whirling inside the tank becomes a dull miniature tree in front of it after a Remaster. And a complex environment of a vintage scientific research lab with intricately textured walls turns into an empty space built… out of paper? That happens…

The bottom line here: there is no manual on Remaster mode. It’s a just-press-the-button-and-see-what-happens kind of feature. However, I will share a few observations that might help you better feel Remaster’s behavior.

From my experience, Remaster works somehow similarly to Image Prompts: instead of building upon the text of your prompt, it works with the visual part, reinterpreting the image itself.

To establish it beyond my instincts, I ran a simple test. First, I asked Midjourney to render a nonsensical prompt: jdshgiusdh sh ss9hs in both --v3 and --test --creative modes.

The results were VERY different, so I knew that my abracadabra was not common knowledge shared between modes. I also saw how --test --creative interprets the words themselves.

I then upscaled variation #2 from the --v3 result and Remastered it.

Et voila! Remaster ignored the words but rendered the image based on the visual component of the --v3 result.

Now that we have a hypothesis about how Remaster works, let's deduce a few factors that affect Remastering:

Remastering primitive images tends to render the closest result to the original. A more abstract and less obvious subject will sometimes lead to unexpected results.

The same as #1 goes for easily recognizable subjects.

The larger your subject is, the more space it takes in the image—the more chances it will be "seen" and make it into the Remastered variant. The smaller the details, the harder it is for Midjourney to spot and reinterpret them. Expect some weird Remasters!

Remastering the same --v3 result several times will give you different results each time. Rerolls behave the same way, but each reroll builds upon the image that you are rerolling at the moment instead of the original generation. In both methods, every iteration may change the outcome dramatically.

Finally, Remasters often correct glitches in the original generations. And rerolls may fix those that might have appeared during a previous Remaster iteration.

Remaster is a mystery, difficult to understand and wield. But it is also a powerful tool that requires many trials and errors to learn to feel and use. And if you do, your prompts will undoubtedly lead to some fantastic results!