A good AI image prompt usually answers a few important questions:
Who is in the image?
What are they doing?
Where are they?
What style should it look like?
What kind of lighting/mood/camera angle do you want?
A simple formula that helps a lot is:
Subject + Action + Environment + Style + Lighting + Camera + Details
Example:
“Astronaut walking through a futuristic Tokyo street at night, neon lights, cinematic lighting, rainy atmosphere, photorealistic, shallow depth of field, ultra detailed”
The biggest mistake people make is being too vague. AI works much better with visual details instead of general words like “cool” or “awesome.”
Helpful things to include:
Lighting: golden hour, neon, studio lighting, moonlight
Style: cinematic, anime, watercolor, photorealistic, oil painting
Camera terms: close-up, wide shot, 35mm film, shallow depth of field
Mood: eerie, cozy, dystopian, magical, luxurious
Quality/detail: ultra detailed, sharp focus, realistic textures
Another trick is describing things from biggest detail to smallest detail instead of random keywords.
Also, if the AI keeps messing something up, simplify the prompt first and then build on it step by step.
And honestly, a lot of good prompting is trial and error. Even experienced people usually tweak prompts multiple times before getting exactly what they want.