Tip of the Week: 5 Ways to Power Up Your Image Prompts

Many business owners are using AI image generators to create all kinds of images for their websites, newsletters, social media, or other material, often with mixed results. Sometimes things look blurry, and other times they look unnatural. It’s easy to blame the software, but more often than not, it’s generic prompts that yield these generic results. To get the best output, you have to maximize your input, and that involves explicit, granular instructions.

Today, we’ll show you how to achieve clean, professional visuals with AI. Here are five practical tips to get the best output for your business.

Offer a Concrete Subject

AI engines need a solid foundation to build on, which means providing an anchor for the image to build around. If you request a vague marketing image, the system has to guess your intent, which is bound to result in something you don’t want or need. Offer an incredibly specific prompt that takes into account the exact objects in the frame and you’ll get much better results. For example, you could describe an antique watch with a worn leather strap sitting on a dark oak desk instead of simply using the word watch.

Specify Your Lighting

If you want your images to look real, then you need to have the lighting locked down. When people want a realistic photo, they might use words like photorealistic or hyper-detailed, but these words tend to have the exact opposite impact on the image, making them look plastic instead. Tell the model where the lighting comes from, and be sure to use this explicit language to get the best results:

• Natural window light with soft shadows
• Dramatic studio strobe lighting
• Warm golden hour sunlight
• Harsh midday overhead lighting
• Hazy overcast outdoor lighting

Use Photographic Elements In Prompts

Since these AI models are trained on millions of real photographs, you can trust them to know how photography works. Add in basic camera terminology, such as 35mm lens or shallow depth of field, to tell the AI you want the image focused on the primary subject and softly blur the background.

Name the Real-World Textures You Want on Your Surfaces

An easy way to tell if an AI image is low-quality is to look at its surfaces. AI often provides super-smooth, perfectly clean images that look and feel fake. To break this perfection, AI needs to be told what you want, and you can do so by explicitly naming the textures you want it to use. We recommend you use specific phrases, like visible fabric weave on a cotton shirt, grainy wet asphalt, or detailed skin textures to get the results you want.

Use Images to Reverse-Engineer the Style You Want

A cheat code for getting better images is to offer examples of images you like. Here’s a short process for what that looks like:

• Upload the reference image into an AI assistant.
• Ask the tool to describe the photo's composition, lighting, and visual style.
• Copy the generated description and use it as the foundation for your new image.

Remember, you don’t want to use any old AI slop for your business. Make sure that anything you produce looks exceptional. Technology can be a great tool when used this way, but it serves no one to take undeserved shortcuts.

Learn more about how your business can thrive with technology by calling us at 607-433-2200 today.