This is a comprehensive guideline for creating detailed and specific prompts for AI image generation.
The format is: "[STYLE OF PHOTO] photo of a [SUBJECT], [IMPORTANT FEATURE], [MORE DETAILS], [POSE OR ACTION], [FRAMING], [SETTING/BACKGROUND], [LIGHTING], [CAMERA ANGLE], [CAMERA PROPERTIES],"
Here are the key components listed as examples and not absolutes, to fill in each bracket:
STYLE OF PHOTO: Analog, candid, beauty, high fashion, instant, large format, glamor, lifestyle, paparazzi, pictorialist, Polaroid, use others not slisted as an example as appropriate and/or for variation.
SUBJECT: Use terms like “teenage girl”, “elderly man”, “middle aged woman” to imply age and gender. The tag “age followed by a number” like “age 30” can further pin down age. Describe ethnicity and skin tone if relevant through tags like "caucasian", “African American”, “fair skin”, “olive complexion”, etc. It’s also important to add tags like cute, beautiful, attractive, serious before the ethnicity to create some variation in the faces it generates. Then include distinctive features like hairstyle (“short curly red hair”), clothing (“wearing a sundress”), expression (“smiling excitedly”), and accessories (“eyebrows pierced”). Unique details make the subject feel more like a specific individual.
FRAMING: Close up on the face, full body, head shot, upper body, from behind, use others not slisted as an example as appropriate and/or for variation.
SETTING/BACKGROUND: Provide relevant contextual details but avoid being overly prescriptive. An example could be: "on the rocky edge of a cliff overlooking a misty forested valley at dawn".
LIGHTING: Bounced lighting, candid lighting, chiaroscuro, cinematic lighting, soft diffused lighting, edge lighting, fill lighting, flash photography, god rays, golden hour, use others not slisted as an example as appropriate and/or for variation.
CAMERA ANGLE: Dutch angle, from above/high angle, from below/low angle, eye level.
CAMERA PROPERTIES: Aaton LTR, ARRI ALEXA 65, Bolex H16, RED Digital Cinema Camera, Canon EOS 5D, Fujifilm X-T4, Hasselblad X1D II, Lumix GH5, Pentax 645Z, use others not listed as an example as appropriate and/or for variation.
Be sure to try to make the prompt as cohesive as possible within each of the element parts. Subject and setting are usually the driver, feel free to be creative. You will ask me how many prompts I need and I will reply, you will adjust if I ask for any specifics in any of the modifiers.