Improve Your Midjourney Portraits: Essential Prompting Tips

A Midjourney generated image using Midjourney Automation Suite

Getting great portraits in Midjourney is easier than you think once you know the right words to use. Midjourney V5 is quite good at making realistic images, but adding specific details to your prompts makes a big difference. Let's look at simple ways to guide Midjourney to create stunning portraits.

Choose the Right Size for Your Portraits

The shape of your image matters for portraits. While Midjourney's standard square (1:1 aspect ratio) works okay, taller images usually look better.

• Square (1:1): This is the standard. It's fine, but not always ideal for portraits.

• Vertical (2:3 or 4:5): Vertical shapes are much better for portraits. Midjourney's data includes many vertical portrait images. Using a vertical ratio matches this.

• My Favorite (4:5): This size seems to offer a good balance, not too short, but tall enough to show off the subject well.

• Too Tall (1:2): Images that are too long or 'squished' might not fit everything you want in the frame easily.

• Horizontal (16:9): This wide screen size often feels wrong for traditional portraits and may cut off your subject.

You can set a preferred size that gets added to all your prompts using `/prefer suffix`. But you can always type ` --ar 4:5` (or any ratio) in your prompt to use a different size for that specific image idea. The size you put directly in the prompt overrides your saved setting.

Stylize and Chaos: Control Midjourney's Creativity

Two important settings, Stylize and Chaos, change how Midjourney creates your images. They are added at the end of your prompt like `--s [number]` and `--c [number]`.

Stylize (--s)

Stylize controls how much Midjourney adds its own artistic flair versus sticking strictly to your words. It uses a number from 0 to 1000.

• Low Stylize (e.g., --s 0 - 300): Midjourney follows your prompt very closely. Images might look less artistic or polished.

• High Stylize (e.g., --s 750 - 1000): Midjourney adds more creativity. For realistic photos and interesting styles, bumping Stylize up often leads to better results.

• Experiment with different values to see what you like, but --s 1000 often works well for realistic portrait ideas.

Chaos (--c)

Chaos affects how different the four images in your starting grid are from each other. It uses a number from 0 to 100.

• Low Chaos (e.g., --c 0 - 20): The images in your grid will be fairly similar but still distinct. This is usually good for finding different options of the same basic idea.

• High Chaos (e.g., --c 50 - 100): The images can be very different, sometimes not related at all. This can be useful for finding something you didn't expect, but low chaos is generally better for portraits.

Try combining a small Chaos value (like --c 3) with a decent Stylize value (like --s 300) for interesting variations in your outputs.

Simplifying and controlling your prompts with parameters is key. If you want to automate testing different parameter combinations or keep track of your best portrait settings, exploring tools like the Midjourney Automation Suite from TitanXT can save you time and effort. It helps manage your Midjourney work flow.

Adding Subject Details and Setting the Scene

You can add many descriptive words to make your portraits specific.

• Fashion/Style: Specify the clothes or overall look (e.g., "Rococo fashion style", "intricate pastel fashion").

• Pose: Describe how the subject is sitting or standing (e.g., "contemplating pose", "triumphant pose"). Experiment with different poses to add mood.

• Background: Describe the setting (e.g., "Victorian set background", "science fiction set background", "Neolithic set background"). This creates atmosphere.

• Full Body: If you want to see the whole person, add "full body" to the start of your prompt. This zooms the camera out slightly while keeping the portrait feel.

Color and Tone

Changing the color style is easy:

• Specific Colors: Just add the color you want (e.g., "sepia tone", "black and white", "monochrome"). You can put these at the beginning or end of your prompt, and Midjourney usually understands.

• Multi-Prompting for Control: For more control over color intensity, use multi-prompting. Separate the color word using two colons (::) and give it a weight (e.g., `sepia tone::2`). A weight of 2 means it's twice as important as the rest of the prompt. This lets you fine-tune the color effect.

Using multi-prompts and weights is a powerful way to make sure specific parts of your prompt, like a color style, are emphasized correctly.

Camera, Lighting, and Stock Photos

You can mention camera types or lighting, but specific camera brands often don't make a huge difference. However, some camera terms do.

• Camera Brands: Saying "Nikon photography" or "Canon photography" might not noticeably change the look.

• DSLR: Using the term "DSLR" can sometimes cause the photo to include a camera in the image. If you don't want a camera in the picture, you'll need to use negative prompting (`--no camera` or a negative weight).

• Unsplash: Using the word "unsplash" can create a distinct style, often with specific contrast and lighting similar to popular stock photography websites. This is a useful way to get a particular photo look.

• Cinematic/Dramatic: Terms like "cinematic scene" or "dramatic lighting" can also give your images a specific, polished look, similar to using "unsplash."

Creating Non-Realistic or Styled Portraits

If you want a portrait that isn't a real-life photo, you still use the word "portrait," but you need extra steps.

Negative Prompting Realism

Use negative prompting to tell Midjourney what *not* to include. To reduce realism, you can use `--no photography` or, more effectively, multi-prompt with a negative weight on the word "photography" (e.g., `photography::-0.75`). This tells Midjourney to make "photography" less important or even avoid that style, pushing the image towards a less realistic look.

Specific Artistic Styles

Combine "portrait" with style words and negative prompting for realism.

• Examples: "digital illustrated portrait," "cell shaded portrait," "graphic novel portrait."

• Remember to use negative prompting for photography or realism if you want to avoid a photo look.

• High Stylize values often pair well with artistic portrait styles.

Adding "Vintage" or Damaged Effects

To make a portrait look old or damaged, use multi-prompting with negative weights.

• Use terms like "damaged photo," "torn," "abrasive marks."

• Apply a small weight to these terms (e.g., `damaged photo::0.5`). A weight below 1 makes the effect subtle. Adjust the weight to change how strong the effect is.

• Sometimes, just adding the imperfection terms without "sepia tone" can create a more natural old photo effect.

Managing complex prompts with multiple parameters and weights can get tricky. For automating prompt creation, testing variations, and handling multi-prompts efficiently, look into the Midjourney Automation Suite from TitanXT. It’s built to help simplify these advanced techniques and boost your Midjourney output.

Specifying Subject Appearance

You can surprisingly add facial and hair attributes to your prompt and Midjourney will often include them.

• Hair and Eye Color: Say things like "blonde hair blue eyes" or "curly brown hair and emerald green eyes." Midjourney is usually good at including these features.

• Exaggerating vs. Stating: Using descriptive words like "emerald green" might make the color look more intense or styled compared to just saying "green eyes."

• Combining Attributes: You can list multiple attributes like "spiky black hair." If Midjourney doesn't blend everything perfectly at first, try adjusting weights with multi-prompting.

Putting It All Together

A basic successful portrait prompt often follows this pattern:

• Start with "portrait" or a style like "cell shaded portrait."

• Describe your subject (e.g., "an Instagram model," "a humanoid").

• Add subject details (attributes, fashion, pose).

• Include background details.

• Mention camera type or style (optional, consider "unsplash" or "cinematic").

• Add color/tone (sepia, black and white, monochrome, or colored filters).

• Include parameters (--s, --c, --ar).

Using some or all of these elements will help you make many different kinds of portraits in Midjourney.

Creating many variations to find the perfect portrait can be time-consuming. Speed up your creative process and explore more possibilities faster with the Midjourney Automation Suite from TitanXT, designed to streamline your generating.

Conclusion

Midjourney offers powerful tools for creating diverse portraits. By playing with aspect ratios, using Stylize and Chaos, adding detailed descriptions for subjects, backgrounds, poses, colors, and even using negative prompting to control realism, you can create exactly the images you envision. Don't be afraid to mix and match these techniques and experiment with multi-prompting and weights to fine-tune your results. Happy creating!