Better Prompts, Better Assets

Gen AI

Guide

An Introduction to Midjourney Prompts

for beginners & intermediates

Streamline your workflow and generate high quality AI assets that you can actually use in real world projects.

All styles, for all projects, for all people

The Fundamentals

Of Generative AI

Photography

In MidJourney’s own words, a prompt is:

“A short text phrase that the Midjourney Bot interprets to produce an image. The Midjourney Bot breaks down the words and phrases in a prompt into smaller pieces, called tokens, that are compared to its training data and then used to generate an image. A well-crafted prompt can help make unique and exciting images.”

learn The fundamentals of generative ai photography

These prompts can be used to create images in a range of styles, from watercolour paintings to vintage polaroids. In this guide, we’re specifically focusing on how to create photo-realistic assets that you can use in your projects. With that in mind, there are a few specific aspects to consider when creating high quality photography.

Better Prompts

All styles, for all projects, for all people

keep your prompts short

Detail is important, but keep it concise. Don’t overcomplicate your prompts with too much information. The more you add, the more likely it will confuse the bot and lose sense of the priorities.

choose your words wisely

Since we’re keeping our prompts short, every word matters. Instead of trying to specify every little detail, it’s best to focus on your priorities to avoid confusion, and use clear descriptive language.

use callbacks

When talking about the subject multiple times in a prompt, instead of referring to it as he/she/it, call the subject by their proper name. Do this every time, even though it may feel like overkill to you, it keeps it clear for the bot.

specify your angle, lighting & camera

Lighting and lenses make a big difference to the way an image looks. This is your chance to be specific, set the tone and mood of the image by experimenting with different lighting setups and camera rigs.

Key Aspects
of a Prompt

It’s worth noting that there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong way to create a prompt. It may take some experimentation to get your perfect image, that’s all part of the process. This guide should help to give you a starting point for success, but feel free to change and tweak it to see what works best for you.

Whilst MidJourney can generate you an image even just by using one word, when it comes to photo-realistic assets we need to be a bit more specific with our prompts. At the same time, we don’t want to over-complicate our prompts as it will likely confuse the responses.

Start with your subject (your character, object or scene) that you want to see in the image. Then add in your supporting descriptors such as photography style, lighting, camera, lens, angle etc. You can find a list of all of these that you can simply copy and paste into your prompt in our Prompt Builder.

Level 1

[ subject / action ]

Level 2

{ Photography Style }

{ shot type }

{ camera }

{ Lighting }

Example 01

Set in a stunning forest, capture beautiful trees as the early morning sun streams in through the tree canopy, worm’s-eye view, Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 20mm f/1.8G ED.

Example 02

A high-end product shot of a black leather handbag, balanced on a rocky platform surrounded by serene water, surrealism, fluorescent lighting, soft mist, Panasonic Lumix GH5s.

Additional Tip:

It can sometimes help to start your prompt with whatever is most important to you. Ie. if it’s most important that your subject is accurate, start with a description of the subject. If it’s more important that your camera shot is accurate, start with that.

Example 03

Using a Macro Lens, capture closeup shot of a beautiful Emperor penguin. Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8. Blue hour lighting.

Understanding parameters

Refining your results

There are a bunch of different parameters that you can tag on to the end of your prompt that will refine your results. All of them offer slightly different refinements, but for photo-realistic imagery there are 4 main ones that we’re going to focus on that will be useful in generating better responses.

stylize

--stylize

Scale

0 - 1000

The Stylize parameter changes the shift of priority between (a) how closely it respects your prompt and (b) how much focus it puts on creating a beautiful image. The closer to 0, the more accurately it will listen to your prompt (but may come at a cost of less visually appealing imagery). The closer to 1000, the more it will prioritise stunning results (but may not respect your prompt as much). If you’re not getting the result you wanted (ie. you’re asking for a ‘high angle shot’ but it’s not generating one, try lowering the stylize value.)

Mode

--style

Scale

Standard / Raw

Unlike the Stylize parameter where there is a draggable scale, the Mode parameter is a binary choice between Standard or Raw. Each version/release of MidJourney carries its own default aesthetic, which is automatically applied when Standard Mode is on. If you’re trying to create photo-realistic imagery, it’s often recommended to try switching Raw on, as it removes the default aesthetic of the Midjourney version.

variety/chaos

--chaos

Scale

0 - 100

Every time you feed a prompt into MidJourney it will create 4 possible images for you to review. The Variety/Chaos parameter gives you control over how varied those initial 4 images are. A higher number gives more varied results in the initial grid, a lower number or no number ensures the initial results are more similar/consistent.

Aspect Ratio

--ar

Aspect Ratio is the most self explanatory of the 4 parameters we’re featuring. There are a number of different aspect ratios you can use, some popular ones are listed below:

1:1 / 3:2 / 4:3 / 5:4 / 7:4 / 16:9 / 9:16

Angle, Light and Lens

They make all the difference!

Specifying which camera angle you want your shot taken from, and what lens and lighting setup you want to use is the difference between a satisfactory image and a jaw-dropping one. It can completely change the mood of the photograph, and in turn the impact it has on the audience. It's ok if you don't know the difference between Rembrandt Lighting and Split Lighting, we've designed a solution that let's you browse our library of angles, lighting, lenses and styles that you can simply copy and paste into yor prompt. Getting better results has never been so easy.