Thoughts Brewing Blog

AI Quick Tips 215: You aren’t being specific enough with your image prompts

Written by Damien Griffin | Aug 28, 2025 12:15:00 PM

ChatGPT image generation has gotten a lot better with GPT-4o.


If you still struggle to get the types of images you want, it may just be because your prompts look like this -

Create an image of a black sedan


You can do better than that..

Here’s an example of a slightly longer prompt that gave me almost exactly what I was looking for - 

Create an image of a 2000 Toyota Camry sedan.  The car should be black with tinted windows.  The image should be photorealistic.

Simulate using a Sony A7Rv camera body with a Sony FE 135mm f/1.8 GM lens.

The background should be a mountain with a setting sun.


Longer prompt, yes, but look at this image -


I said that it was almost exactly what I wanted.  Ideally, I wanted the background to be blurry.  The 135 lens is buttery smooth and it creates a really nice bokeh (blurs the out of focus parts of the image).  


I didn’t really ask it to do that though, did I?  Let’s fix that


Follow-up prompt -

Generate a similar image but this time keep the car in focus and add a strong bokeh behind it


Brilliant!


Yeah, the 135 would produce a better image.  This is still pretty damn good.


Back to 1 - if you aren’t getting exactly the images that you want, you aren’t being specific enough with your prompts (seriously, when is the last time you specified a camera and lens?)


Don’t take my word for it, try it out…