If you haven’t heard about DreamUp, it's DeviantArt’s state-of-the-art image-generation tool that lets you turn your dreams into reality. Now is a great time to get creative with DreamUp, but if you’re new to image generators, or just having trouble getting the image you want just right, here are tips to perfect your prompt!

In order to get the best results, begin your prompt with the subject of the image you want to generate. If you want art of a llama, for example, then start your prompt with the word "llama"!

Prompts can definitely be detailed, but sometimes it’s better to start with a simple prompt instead of overcomplicating. You can make the prompt more detailed from there based on the things that aren’t matching up with what you imagined.

For example, you can start with the prompt, “princess inside a castle, portrait photo,” and if the clothing or castle isn’t the style you’re looking for, you can get more specific.

You should always specify the genre or style of art you want to get. (If you don’t, DreamUp will choose one for you!) The genre can be more broad (e.g. “drawing” or “photo”) or more specific (e.g. “children’s crayon drawing” or “polaroid photo”), depending on what end result you want to get.

Example keywords to try: portrait photo, pixel art, isometric, movie poster, 3D, polaroid photo, ceramic statue, watercolor

Adding a keyword that invokes a mood can change the overall appearance of your finished image. Keep that in mind when planning out your prompt, so you can generate a variety of different results for different frames of mind!

Example keywords to try: cute, sinister, creepy, dreamy

Just like choosing a genre, specifying a background is an important part of getting the most out of your prompt! Spell out what background you want the image to have so there’s a better chance of getting the result you want in fewer prompts.

Example phrases to try: Solid white background, ocean sunset background, country hillside background

If you like the results of a prompt and want to see more takes, you can run the same prompt again to generate different results.

If the results of a prompt are nearly there, but you want to make small changes to fine-tune your idea, click the "Create Variation" option! It will use the previously generated image as the seed for the new prompt, so you can tweak it to get a similar result to the one you already love.

DreamUp will try to interpret what you mean based on the words in your prompt, so try to be as direct and specific as possible! 

For example, if you try the prompt “a woman holding a bat,” you might get an image of the animal when you meant a baseball bat. In that case, you’d want to use “a woman holding a baseball bat” instead.

If you’re not sure what sort of images you want to generate, browse DeviantArt and see what prompts other deviants are using to generate images! You may be inspired to create based on what you find!

All deviants get free DreamUp prompts, but Core Members are able to generate more images! Upgrade to Core to let your imagination dream up even more!