Guide
How to write a Midjourney prompt
A Midjourney prompt has four layers: subject, style, lighting/mood, and parameters. Most weak prompts are missing one or two of these entirely, not "badly written."
The formula
[Subject] + [style or medium] + [lighting and atmosphere] + [composition/camera angle] + [parameters]
elderly fisherman mending nets on a wooden dock, oil painting, warm golden hour light, low angle shot --ar 3:2 --style raw --q 2
Before / after
Weak: "a fisherman on a boat"
Missing style, lighting, and parameters — Midjourney has to guess all three, and will guess generically.
Strong: "weathered fisherman mending nets on a wooden dock at dawn, documentary photography, soft diffused light, muted blue-grey palette --ar 3:2 --style raw"
Every layer is specified — nothing left for the model to guess.
Parameter cheat sheet
| Parameter | What it does |
|---|---|
| --ar | Aspect ratio, e.g. --ar 16:9 |
| --style raw | Less stylized, more literal to the prompt |
| --q | Render quality/detail (higher = slower, more detail) |
| --chaos | Variation between the 4 results, 0–100 |
| --stylize | How much Midjourney's house aesthetic overrides literal accuracy |
Common mistakes
- Describing the subject but never the style — Midjourney defaults to its own house look, which may not be what you want.
- Stacking too many conflicting styles ("photorealistic, anime, oil painting") — pick one.
- Forgetting --ar for anything that isn't square — the default aspect ratio rarely matches the intended use case.
Have an image whose prompt you want reverse-engineered instead of writing one from scratch?
✦ Try image-to-prompt free