Image generation
Image models reward specificity more brutally than any other tool. Vague in, stock photo out. Here is how to guarantee the stock photo.
14 ways to get it wrong
“a beautiful modern office, professional, high quality, 4k, trending”
- 2.1
Describe the subject and nothing else.
WhyAn image is subject plus light plus lens plus framing plus mood. Name one of five and the model invents the other four.
ResultCentered subject, soft blue light, shallow depth of field. The default look everyone recognises instantly.
- 2.2
Stack quality words instead of describing anything.
Why'8k, ultra detailed, masterpiece, award winning' carries almost no visual information. It is decoration on an empty prompt.
ResultOver-sharpened, over-lit renders that look expensive and say nothing.
- 2.3
Ignore aspect ratio until after generation.
WhyComposition is built for a frame. A square hero cropped to a banner loses the part that made it work.
ResultHeads cut off in the website header. Regenerate everything.
- 2.4
Ask for readable text inside the image.
WhySome models do type well now, most still do not. Letters are shapes to a diffusion model, not language.
ResultA logo that spells your brand with two extra consonants.
- 2.5
Skip the negative space.
WhyIf a headline goes on top of the picture, the picture needs an empty area planned into it.
ResultWhite text on a white shirt. Unreadable hero, again.
- 2.6
Never lock the lighting.
WhyLight is the strongest carrier of mood. Golden hour, overcast, single hard key light, all give completely different results.
ResultA gallery where no two images belong to the same brand.
- 2.7
Generate one image and use it.
WhyGeneration is sampling. The tenth sample from a good prompt beats the first sample from a great one.
ResultYou settle for the near-miss and it sits on your homepage for two years.
- 2.8
Change five things between attempts.
WhyChange one variable and you learn what it does. Change five and you learn nothing.
ResultNo prompt craft is ever built. You start from zero on every project.
- 2.9
Use the same visual style as every AI-built site.
WhyGlossy 3D blobs, purple to indigo gradients, glass cards floating over blur. These read as 'made in four minutes'.
ResultInstant loss of credibility with exactly the audience you were trying to impress.
- 2.10
Never check hands, ears, teeth or reflections.
WhyThese are where models still break, and they are also where human eyes go first.
ResultSix fingers on the smiling consultant in your pitch deck.
- 2.11
Put a real person's face in it without asking them.
WhyLikeness is a legal and human matter, not a prompt parameter.
ResultA takedown request, or worse, a friendship.
- 2.12
Treat AI images as free of rules for commercial use.
WhyLicence terms differ per tool and per plan, and clients ask.
ResultA campaign pulled two days before launch.
- 2.13
Never edit the result.
WhyGeneration gets you eighty percent. The last twenty is crop, colour, retouch and typography.
ResultAmateur output next to any competitor who spent ten more minutes in an editor.
- 2.14
Skip reference images when the tool accepts them.
WhyOne reference transfers style, palette and composition faster than any description.
ResultWeeks of prompt archaeology to approximate something you already had on screen.
Grading your failure
Three levels. Anyone can reach bronze on a Monday morning.
It looks like the free tier of a stock site.
Your two campaign images clearly come from different companies.
Someone screenshots your hero image for a 'spot the AI' thread.