Beyond the Basics: 10 AI Prompt Keywords You're Not Using (But Should Be)
We all know the popular AI prompt keywordsphotorealistic, watercolor, digital painting. But what about the hidden gems? The subtle modifiers and advanced descriptors that take your prompts from ordinary to jaw-dropping?
In this guide, we’ll uncover 10 lesser-known but incredibly powerful keywords that can transform your AI-generated art. For each keyword, we’ll explain what it does, how it influences your output, and give you a ready-to-use sample prompt.
Let’s dive in:
1. Depth of Field
What It Does: Adds focus and blur to foreground or background, mimicking real-world camera depth.
Depth of Field Controls how much of an image is in focus, guiding viewer attention.
Example Prompt: “A tiny mushroom village in a forest, depth of field, macro lens, soft lighting”
“Use Depth of Field to make your subject pop against the background, creating a professional photography look.”
2. Volumetric Lighting
What It Does: Creates dramatic rays of light passing through fog, smoke, or windows. Great for mood!
Example Prompt: “Ancient cathedral interior, gothic arches, volumetric lighting, dust particles”
"Use Volumetic Lightening to show visible beams of light rays scattering through a medium to enhance realism and depth in 3D scenes
3. Rim Lighting
What It Does: Highlights the edges of a subject with a soft glow, adding 3D realism.
Example Prompt: “A lone warrior on a cliff at sunset, rim lighting, dramatic sky”
USe Rim Lighting to highlight the edges of a subject in order to create a distint outline that separates the subject from the background"
4. Cinematic Grade
What It Does: Adds a movie-like tone to your image with balanced contrast and color grading.
Example Prompt: “Cyberpunk city street at night, neon lights, cinematic grade, shallow focus”
"USe Cinematic grade to adjust colors, tones, and contrast to create a unique atmosphere and visual style enhancing storytelling"
5. Tilt-Shift
What It Does: Makes scenes look like miniatures by selectively blurring portions of the image.
Example Prompt: “A futuristic city from above, tilt-shift, isometric angle, hyper detailed”
"Use Tilt-Shift to correct perspective distortion of tall subjects like buildings, manipulating the plane of focus to achieve selective blur
6. Unreal Engine 5
What It Does: Tells the AI to mimic hyper-realistic 3D rendering as seen in modern games.
Example Prompt: “Post-apocalyptic highway, ruined cars, unreal engine 5, dynamic lighting”
7. Global Illumination
What It Does: Simulates how light bounces off surfaces, creating natural indirect lighting.
Example Prompt: “Cozy indoor cafe scene, global illumination, warm color palette, ambient glow”
"Use Global illumination to account realistic direct light from light sources and indirect light that bounces off surfaces"
8. PBR Texturing
What It Does: Refers to realistic surface details like gloss, roughness, and bump mapping.
Example Prompt: “A worn medieval shield, PBR texturing, scratches, rust, hyper realistic”
"Use PBR Texturing to create realistic effects of light interacting with different parts of the subject in focus to show subject's surface reflects, absorbtion, and scatterring of light"
9. Cinemascope
What It Does: Adds ultra-wide aspect ratio, often used for epic landscapes or film scenes.
Example Prompt: “Texas landscape desert, cowboys on horseback with sun setting in the front, golden sun on the horizon, cinemascope, lens flare, camera position from behind shot”
10. Ambient Occlusion
What It Does: Enhances shadow detail in creases and corners, adding depth and realism.
Example Prompt: “Abandoned industrial warehouse, ambient occlusion, overgrown vegetation”
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