Elements of Style

People opening PictureStudio for the first time often take a surprisingly long time to write their first prompt. We think partially this is because making images with prompts is a new way to think about image making… and for many visual people it might also feel foreign. Then of course, there’s terror of the blank page.

Our advice: don’t overthink it. The best way to learn how to prompt pictures is dive in. Start simple, get more complex. Add reference images chips. Experiment. Play. 

Using one of your own images as a starting point is a great way to start to learn how images can interact with prompts and vice versa.

Different people have different prompting styles. I am methodical. I try to start simple with a series of small scale prompts to make sure the model understands various concepts I’m trying to represent, and then I build to a longer prompt. I almost always use some sort of reference image. They can be used for for composition, for style, or sometimes for an ephemeral quality. 

Today I wasn’t looking to do anything complicated. I just wanted to generate a few images for a project in my own childish scrawl. To do this I quickly made a sketch and snapped a picture of it.

They I put the image into my prompt and set the Image Chip to “Style”.  Now with a very simple prompt I can approximate my style in any scene I can describe… be it simple or complex. In this case I used the generated images quickly create some personalized invites for friends. On a bigger scale with collaborators it can be a springboard for visual riffs and chasing down ideas.

It's easy. Try it yourself. Here's my horse prompt if you want to play around in my style.