Best Prompts for Midjourney V5 (many styles & applications)

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Only 5 months after the release of Midjourney V4, Midjourney V5 was released on March 16, 2023.

David Holz, Midjourney founder and CEO says this edition of V5 is only an alpha test and is subject to change in the future.

As a Midjourney power-user, I’m already pretty thrilled with what I see.

What’s new? To sum it up:

• Resolution has increased considerably
• Prompting is more important than ever, because a lot more nuance in natural language can be detected. Try playing with the following:
  • prepositions eg. in front of, in a row
  • materials eg. made of marble
  • lighting conditions eg. golden hour lighting, moonlit
  • artist styles eg. style of klimt
• Use case fine-tuning: the new model “knows” the most important characteristics of each use case: vectors are cleaner, flat designs are flat, environments have more depth, realism is…well more realistic
• Photographic realism is Midjourney V5’s default style. If you want other styles you have to be explicit. More explanation on this below.
• Upscaling is really fast now. No seriously, try upscaling anything.

Setting V5 as your default:

To set V5 as your default, type /settings and then select MJ version 5 as your default version. Otherwise, you’ll have to include “–v 5” after every prompt.

NOTE: In the examples below, you won’t see the “–v 5” command because I’ve set it as the default.

Some new features that you should try:

• --tile command for seamless tiling (experimental)
• --ar aspect ratios greater than 2:1 (experimental)
• --iw for weighing image prompts

Photorealistim

Midjourney V4 was a huge jump up from V3 in terms of realism. It’s fair to say V5 is an even bigger jump.

People

Be detailed as possible, take note of the prompt lengths:

medium-full shot of an elderly french woman with deep wrinkles and a warm smile and eyeglasses, sitting in a charming cafe with plants in the background, looking at the window, wearing a pastel linen blazer with a floral print, natural afternoon light shining through the windows, shot on Agfa Vista 200, side-angle view, 4k --ar 16:9 --stylize 1000

Multiple angles

This is not 2 generated images, but a single one! It’s scary how good Midjourney is at creating multiple angles of the same person or thing now.

hyper realistic portrait photography of beautiful happy girl, pale skin, golden earrings, summer golden hour, kodak portra 800, 105 mm f1. 8; image split into 2, different angles of the girl --ar 2:1

Realistic fictional characters

Real-life People

I can’t tell how many people Midjourney V5 ‘knows’ about yet, but one this for certain: it generates realistic people much more accurately than before.

Stock photos

Midjourney is officially a stock photo website killer. Sorry, Shutterstock.

Realistic japanese girl, 22 years old, working on a laptop, new Macbook Pro 16” 2022 on a White Clear Background with a lot of light from the ceiling. Real photo, cinematic image taken with the high key mood and tone, very detailed face and very sharp eyes. Super Realistic image with High Dynamic Range and very high resolution and no watermark.

Environments

We’ll go through both realistic environments and stylized environments below:

Realism

If you simply describe the scene in your imagination, the default style with tend towards realism.

One thing that people don’t take advantage of enough: lighting conditions. As photographers and painters know, light has a huge effect on the final impression an image creates.

Describe the type of light you want to see and the time of day it is. You don’t need complex vocabulary either, sometimes “large windows” is all it takes to create light pouring into a room:

A living room of a beautiful bright modern Scandinavian style house with large windows opening onto a swimming pool. The room is globally well illuminated and the photograph is taken with a Canon EOS 5D with a wide aperture lens set to F/8 and ISO set to 400. --ar 16:9

Hall of a magnificent baroque palace filled with golden statues of skulls and paintings of skulls, beautiful staircase, Renaissance paintings, marble columns, high plants, large windows --ar 16:9 --s 1000

an inside view of a wizard's glasshouse. The glasshouse is attached to a house and has a sitting area that's surrounded by plants and small trees. Morning and a beautiful light passes through the glass. --ar 16:9 --s 500

Aerial shot

cinematic masterpiece, spring equinox festival, ancient cyberpunk celtic village, stunning architecture, jubiliant mood, cernunnos temple, aerial view, photorealistic --ar 4:3

Fantasy and Sci-fi style

Even without specifying the names of illustrators, V5 will create a fantasy illustration style if that if what your subject matter is about.

Design

Let’s get into what’s really exciting about V5, the practical use cases:

Logo Design

The most striking thing about V5 design: vectors graphics look like vector graphics.

Try specifying what text you want. It’s so close (but so far).

Marketing/Blog Illustrations

As I’ve mentioned, vectors are super clean. These could go straight on a brand website:

Web Design

While we can’t get vector web design just yet, think about how easy it is to get custom design inspiration now:

website design for a Fintech startup --no 3d device photo --ar 3:2

Illustration

In the home office, kids and a cat and a dog sit in front of the laptop screen. On the laptop you can see a construction drawing. The coffee mug on the table is knocked over. A potted plant are all over the room. The office walls are painted with felt-tip pen. Cinematic lighting, 16k, in cartoon style, intricate details, GLSL, raytracing, FXAA, bokeh, --ar 3:2 --s 800

Anime

Portrait of an attractive young woman with a gun on abstract sideways city background with copy space and sunlight. Illustration Line Art, Stipple, comic, dark fantasy cyberpunk Sci-Fi, distant future, highly detailed, elaborate, Double exposure, Shirow Masamune and Ghost in the Shell and Granblue Fantasy style, dot matrix, risograph --ar 3:2 --c 10 --s 500 

Architecture

Structure by Calatrava, Stunning photography in the style of Thomas Struth, --ar 3:1 --chaos 10

multiple perspectives of a monolithic skyscraper by zaha hadid, inspired by hellenic architecture, magazine photography --s 1000 --ar 3:2

balcony of a hotel design by eero sarinen, atmospheric background style of blade runner 2049, photography in the style of Thomas Struth --ar 3:2 --chaos 10

Prompting Tips

Midjourney V5’s system default is the photographic style. It’s what shows up if the prompter does not specify any other styling.

In --v 5, to generate something other than a photographic image, you will need to reference art movements, artistic techniques, genres, media types, games titles, directors, artist names, influences, time periods, etc.

To create an aesthetic, try referencing two or more of these:

• Art movement: Identifying the art movement in the prompt will introduce its style and techniques. Examples include Impressionism, Surrealism, or Pop Art.
• Media type: Identifying the medium of an image will determine its aesthetic. Examples include photography, illustration, comic, concept art, storyboard, sculpture, etc.
• Media title: – Identifying a media influence will influence its look. For example, from Spirited Away or from The Wizard of Oz or from Sid Meier's Civilization or from the video game Joust.
• Artist name: Referencing the name or the work of a specific artist will roughly invoke their unique style. Examples include Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, or Banksy.
• Technique: Referencing techniques will add that style to the image. Examples include impasto, pencil sketch, watercolor, or digital art.
• Time period: Identifying the historical context of an image will invoke its aesthetic. For example, images from the Renaissance, Baroque, or Modernist periods.
• Geographic location: Referencing regions and countries will influence style. Examples include Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, African tribal art, or American Abstract Expressionism.

Remember, –v 5 has more powerful styling and aesthetic potential than any other model, especially if you set --s 0 to get Midjourney out of your way.

Your own artistic style (crafted in your prompt) will replace Midjourney’s defaults.

To create a style, reference two or more: art movements, media types, art techniques, artist names, media genres, media titles.

Right now I’m in the process of updating my old (100% free) book of high quality Midjourney prompts from V4 to V5. In the meantime, check out the V4 version:

Download Free Midjourney Prompt Book

Or, join our community and I’ll let you know as soon as it’s ready!

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