Prompting glossary
Image prompt
A description an AI image tool can render.
What it means
An image prompt describes subject, setting, lighting, camera angle, style and mood, in that order of importance. Vague adjectives like beautiful do almost nothing; concrete nouns and lighting words do most of the work.
Example
Overhead shot of a wooden desk at dawn, soft window light, matte ceramic mug, shallow depth of field.
Also called
ai image prompt
How to use this in practice
Knowing the word is the easy half. The useful half is writing the instruction so the AI does not have to guess: say who it should act as, give it the background it cannot know, state the outcome you want, set the limits, and name the format the answer should come back in. That is the same structure behind every template in the free prompt library.
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