I’ve generated thousands of AI images for video projects. Most prompt advice online is either mystical (“add 8k, masterpiece”) or outdated. These five rules are what survived actual production use, across every image model I’ve tried.
1. Structure it: subject, action, context, composition, style
Not a magic spell — a checklist. Who or what is in the image, what are they doing, where, how is it framed (close-up? wide shot?), and in what visual style. A prompt with all five reads like: “an elderly baker, sliding bread into a stone oven, in a dim early-morning bakery, medium shot from the side, warm watercolor illustration.” Miss one and the model invents it for you — usually badly.
2. Say what you want, never what you don’t want
“No text, no watermark, not blurry” barely works and often backfires — mentioning a thing puts it in the model’s head. Instead describe the positive version: “clean background,” “sharp focus,” “plain sky.” If text keeps sneaking in, describe surfaces that carry no writing: “an unmarked wooden crate,” not “a crate with no logo.”
3. Observable facts, not vibes
“A sad room” makes the model guess. “A room with a single unmade bed, curtains drawn, one cold cup of tea on the floor” — now the sadness is built from things a camera could actually see. Every adjective you can’t point at in the final image is a coin flip.
4. Attach descriptions to the thing they describe
“A red car and a bicycle” might give you a red bicycle. Write “a red car parked beside a black bicycle.” When a scene has two subjects, describe each one completely at the moment you mention it — models blend nearby attributes together.
5. Lock a style and repeat it word-for-word
If you need many images that belong together (a video, a brand, a series), write one style sentence and paste it unchanged into every prompt. Change even a few words and the images drift apart. Consistency doesn’t come from the model remembering — it can’t — it comes from you repeating.
The meta-rule behind all five: the model has no context except your words. Everything you leave vague, it decides without you.