What is an AI image prompt?
An AI image prompt is a text-based instruction that you enter as input to an AI image generation model to generate a unique image.
With an AI image prompt you specify the subject, color palette, background, style and other additional details to transfer your imagination to the model you’re using.
📌 Prompt example:
“Imagine a grand medieval kingdom floating among the stars, armored knights riding celestial dragons through asteroid fields, a gothic stone castle built on a drifting moon fragment, stained-glass windows glowing with constellations instead of saints, monks studying holographic star maps by candlelight, banners waving in zero gravity, cosmic nebulae illuminating polished steel armor, a royal wizard forging a sword from condensed stardust. Ultra-detailed, cinematic lighting, epic scale, dramatic composition, volumetric cosmic fog, rich textures of stone and metal, fantasy realism blended with deep space sci-fi, 8K, masterpiece concept art.”Your prompt can be as brief as a few words or as detailed as several paragraphs. However, the longer, more detailed and more specific your prompt, the higher the quality of the visual output you will receive (and the more it will match what you imagined to obtain).
How to Write an AI Image Prompt?
Writing an AI image prompt is a lot like generating text, but you need to be conscious of the structure and some basics to get the result you want.
Check out the following quick tips and tricks for enhanced AI image prompt writing.
Beginning of a Prompt
To generate images, you need to start your prompt with trigger words or phrases. Such as:
- Draw - "Draw a..."
- Create - "Create an image of..."
- Generate - "Generate a picture of..."
- Image - "Generate an image of..."
- Picture - "Picture this..."
- Visual - "I need a visual of..."
- Illustration - "Create an illustration of..."
- Artwork - "Craft artwork depicting..."
- Render - "Render a scene of..."
- Design - "Design an image of..."
- Show - "Show me a..."
- Visualize - "Visualize a..."
- Imagine - "Imagine a..."
Subject / Main Objects
In this section, you need to explain what you want to see in the visual and what you want the visual to be about.
What you want to see in the visual could be as simple as a cat, or it could include your brand’s logo and products.
Descriptors
In this part, you need to use descriptive words about colors, textures, coatings, quality and tones. This allows the AI image generator model to have descriptive instructions to generate the desired image.
For optimal results, describe the image you want in as much detail as possible and avoid using vague phrases. This way, the AI image generator model can use your descriptions as a guide when examining the prompt to generate the output.
Artistic Style
Specifying the aesthetic style of the final visual output is an additional factor that will help the model create the image you want.
Advanced AI image generator models are familiar with thousands of AI art styles and can create new styles by combining them. This allows you to create the visuals you want without compromising on your creativity. For example, the image below was created by combining Salvador Dali's and a cyberpunk style.
Format
Your prompt should have format specifiers in its final stage, which you can also separate with commas. In the output format, you can specify the resolution, aspect ratio, additional art styles and lighting.
Sum It Up
When writing an AI image prompt, the essential parts you need to include in your prompt are:
- Trigger Word
- Subject and Objects
- Descriptors
- Artistic Style
- Output Format
How to Spell Text on AI Image Generators?
The most challenging aspect for AI image generator models, and the one that makes achieving a precise output the most difficult, is spelling/text rendering.
Image spelling refers to adding desired text to the unique images you create with an AI image generator. However, thanks to advancements in AI technology, there are now some models that offer more precise image spelling.
Best AI Image Generator Models for Image Spelling
If you're looking for the best AI image generator models for image spelling, you can try the following:
- Gemini 3 Pro Image (Nano Banana Pro)
- GPT-Image-1
- DALL-E 3
Utilize Quotation Marks
To render text using an AI image generator model, you must ensure that the text you want to add to the image is clearly highlighted. You can enclose the text you want to add in quotation marks and write it in parentheses.
Keep in mind that if there is additional text you want it to be in a different position or separated from the previous one, it should be enclosed in different quotation marks.
📌 Prompt example:
“Imagine a surreal futuristic cityscape where giant floating chrome letters spelling “FUTURE” stretch across the sky like architectural structures, glowing neural networks forming the word “AI” in electric blue light between skyscrapers, the word “RELIEF” sculpted from soft clouds gently dissolving above exhausted workers, and “AUTOMATION” built from massive golden robotic arms assembling themselves in mid-air. Cinematic lighting, ultra-detailed, reflective metallic textures, volumetric fog, hopeful yet slightly dystopian atmosphere, wide-angle perspective, hyper-realistic, 8K resolution, dramatic contrast, visionary concept art.”