The one-page cheat sheet
The skeleton, the parameters, quick fixes, and ten words per wall. Print it and tape it next to your keyboard.
The skeleton
Subject first, plain words. One style, one light. Change one thing per render. The Start Here guide walks it end to end.
Ten words per wall
full walls one click awayrenaissance · synthwave · watercolor · cinematic still · historical illustrations · baroque · y2k aesthetic · golden hour photo · fantasy worlds · medieval castles
Natural Sunlight · Three-Point Lighting · Natural Lighting · Moonlight · Volcanic Lava Glow · Metal Halide Lamps · Umbrella Lighting · Glow Effects · Hard Light · Underwater Lighting
Art Deco Palette · Tropical Palette · High Contrast Palette · Chartreuse · Scandinavian Palette · Country Palette · Summer Palette · Complementary Palette · Burnt Sienna · Saffron
smiling · joyful · arms crossed · tense atmosphere · grinning · winking · lonely · exhausted · reaching out · eerie atmosphere
Aperture · Sharpness · Balance · f/1.4 · 3200 · Rule of Thirds · Manual Focus · DSLR · Focus Assist · Complexity
DSLR photo · wide-angle lens · Kodachrome · extreme close-up · shallow depth of field · street photography · mirrorless camera · 200mm lens · bird's-eye view · focus stacking
clear sky · dawn · early spring · god rays · overcast · mist · ice storm · midnight sun · autumn wind · ocean mist
Bark · Cotton · Brick · Paper · Peeling Paint · Ceramics · Brushstrokes · Stone · Wool · Mesh
Parameters that matter
Midjourney
- --ar aspect ratio. Decide it first.
- --stylize 0-1000. Keep it low when wall words do the work.
- --chaos 0-100. Raise to explore, drop to refine.
- --no the negative prompt. Better than writing "without".
- --seed pin it to compare word swaps honestly.
Chat image models
- No flags Nano Banana and GPT-Image read sentences. Say "wide" instead of --ar.
- Edit, don't reroll "keep everything, make it dusk" beats regenerating.
- Exact text in quotes they render signs and labels; give the wording.
- Reference images upload one and ask for it restyled in a wall word.
Stable Diffusion
- Negative prompt name what keeps showing up wrong.
- CFG scale how literally it reads you. 7-9 is the usual range.
- Steps 25-35 covers most work. More is slower, not better.
- Seed fix it, then swap one word at a time.
Quick fixes
- Image looks flat → add one word from the lighting wall.
- Style is mush → cut every adjective, keep one concrete style word.
- Wrong feeling → one word from the emotions wall.
- Midjourney ignores your style → halve --stylize before changing words.
- Objects keep intruding → name them in --no or the negative prompt. The negatives guide covers when not to.
- Blank-box paralysis → let the builder deal a hand.
Everything here comes from the word walls. Press / anywhere on the site to search all of them.