How I Write Image Prompts (And What I Stopped Doing)
I've generated somewhere around two hundred images with AI over the past few months, and my prompt style has completely changed. My first prompts were basically wish lists: 'beautiful, stunning, masterpiece, 8k, trending'. The results were… fine, I guess. Generic everywhere, specific nowhere.
The change: describe one scene
What actually improved things was writing like a photographer directing a shot. Instead of adjectives, I describe what is physically in front of the 'camera': where the subject is, what light is doing, what's in the background, how close we are. 'A golden retriever sitting in 4 inches of shallow ocean water at sunset, waves so soft they look like glass, shot from waist height' beats 'stunning beautiful dog masterpiece' every time.
Order matters more than people think
Models tend to weigh earlier words a bit heavier. Put the subject and its most important quality first, environment second, style last.