Write a Good AI Image Prompt
Most weak AI pictures come from weak prompts, not weak tools. If you want to write a good AI image prompt, the answer is not a secret phrase. It is describing what you want the way you would describe it to a person who has never seen your business. This article gives a short recipe, some before-and-after examples and a way to fix pictures that miss.
Start with what you would tell a photographer
Imagine you are briefing someone who will take the picture tomorrow. They would need to know:
- What is the subject? One main thing.
- Where is it? A table, a street, a studio, a field.
- How is it lit? Morning window light, warm lamp, bright noon sun.
- What does it feel like? Calm, busy, luxurious, playful.
- What shape is the picture? Square, portrait, story, wide.
- What words appear? Written out exactly, with the position.
If a prompt answers those six questions, it is already better than most.
Before and after
Before:
A nice picture of a candle.
This leaves everything to chance: the colour, the angle, the room, the mood.
After:
A portrait Instagram post of a single cream candle burning on a dark wooden bedside table, a folded grey blanket behind it, warm lamp light, quiet evening mood. Leave the top third empty for a headline.
Now the picture has a subject, a place, a light and a purpose.
Before:
Poster for our sale.
After:
A square sale announcement. Bold red background, large white text in the centre: "End of season sale". Under it, smaller: "Ends Sunday". A simple illustration of a shopping bag at the bottom. Flat, clean, no photograph.
Be concrete, not fancy
Long strings of impressive adjectives rarely help. Specific nouns do. Say "a green enamel kettle on a gas hob" instead of "a beautiful kitchen scene". Name colours. Name materials. Say how many things are in the picture.
Say what to leave out
Clutter is common. Add short instructions like "plain background", "no other objects" or "lots of empty space on the left". This is also useful if you plan to place the picture behind a caption or sale text later.
Handle words carefully
Text inside a picture is the part most likely to go wrong. Keep it short, put it in quotation marks and say where it goes. After you generate, read each letter. Prices, dates, phone numbers and health or legal wording must be checked by you.
Use references
If you have a photo of your product, shop or a style you like, attach it. An attached picture is a reference for the new one, so you can say "same bottle, but on a marble counter with morning light". To keep a product consistent, see Keep the Same Product in Every AI Image.
Fix a miss with one change
When a picture is almost right, do not rewrite the whole prompt. Ask for one change at a time:
Same picture, but make the light cooler and move the headline to the bottom.
Changing several things at once makes it hard to know what helped.
Name your brand
If the picture is for a business, name its brand with @. The logo, colours, fonts and voice in its guidelines are followed, so you do not need to describe them every time.
Doing it in Melon Cut
In Melon Cut Design, type your prompt in the chat. One prompt can make up to 4 pictures, so you can compare versions, and you can choose between Fast and Quality; see Fast or Quality for guidance. Pictures cost credits, shown on the pricing page.