Tip 1: Imitating

I think the best way to learn image prompts, similar to learning to draw, is not to use templates directly. Instead, use real images or images generated by others to imitate. If your English is not good, you can first write in Chinese and then have ChatGPT translate it. After imitating several images, you will gradually understand how to create similar images.

Let's take the handshake image above as an example. Let's carefully observe what elements are in the image:

The main subject is two hands shaking together, and they appear to be two Asian men.
Both men are wearing suits.
The background looks like the main entrance of an office building. The two men seem to be shaking hands to say goodbye. The background is intentionally blurred, or it was taken with a camera.

Summarizing the key information:

Subjects: Two Asian men in suits shaking hands to say goodbye
Scene: Entrance of an office building
Image style: Stock photo, taken with a camera, blurred background

With this, we can try to write a prompt (if you don't feel confident about your English, try using a translation tool):

stock photo of two Asian men in suits shaking hands,say goodbye in front of the main entrance of the office building,taken with Canon

Here is the result generated by Midjourney:

Hmm 🤔 This doesn't look like what we expected. Don't panic, this is normal when first starting with Midjourney. The key is to keep trying.

Let's analyze why Midjourney generated this image. Looking back:

For the main subject, we want the "handshake", not the two people.
Camera mode doesn't seem to be able to blur the background? That's more of an image style, like an old photograph in image 4.

Let's adjust the prompt, adding keywords for the focus and background blur:

stock photo of two Asian men in suits shaking hands,say goodbye in front of the main entrance of the office building, focus on two hands, taken with Canon, background bokeh

The new results are much better. Images 1 and 4 basically meet the requirements. Cropping images 2 and 3 could also work. Note that Midjourney still has some issues generating hands - in images 2 and 4, one person has 6 fingers! But I expect this will improve over time.

Let's summarize the prompt structure:

Part 1 (red): Describes the main subject
Part 2 (blue): Describes the background/environment
Part 3 (yellow): Specifies the image focus
Part 4 (green): Describes the image style or special requirements

By summarizing, you have a prompt template! 😁