Good prompts are specific, ordered and not overloaded. This five-part formula works in Midjourney, DALL-E, Leonardo AI, Flux and most other image tools.
The five parts
- Subject: what is in the picture.
- Setting: where it is and what surrounds it.
- Light and mood: time of day, weather, colour.
- Style or medium: photograph, oil painting, flat illustration.
- Camera and framing: lens, angle, aspect ratio.
Example: one subject, five parts
a lighthouse on a basalt coast, at blue hour, soft sea haze, long exposure photograph, 35mm wide shot --ar 3:2Change one part at a time to see what it does. Swap “blue hour” for “stormy afternoon” and the whole mood shifts.
Keep it focused
One clear subject beats a long list of ideas. If a result goes wrong, remove words before adding more.
Adapt it for each tool
A lighthouse stands on a dark basalt coast at blue hour, with soft sea haze. Make it a long-exposure photograph in a wide 3:2 frame.Tools that like plain sentences, such as GPT Image, respond well to the second form. Midjourney is happy with short phrases plus parameters.
Next steps
Browse the tool reviews for ready-made prompts, or the Midjourney tutorials.