MJ User Guide

User's Guide: Understanding Different Types of Requests for MidJourney Prompts with ChatGPT

The first step is to have ChatGPT 4 be given the instructions it needs, which are in the blog post ChatGPT-MJ Guide. The contents can be copy/pasted in a session with ChatpGPT 4, without the web browser technology turned on, which at this point is a more stable way of doing it, as ChatGPT crashes and burns fairly often when the browsing tool is on.

The other way is to activate the web browsing technology, now in Beta, and type the following as a prompt: "Read the blog post 'ChatGPT-MJ Guide' at https://tomewall.blogspot.com/ and await further instructions." Telling it to await further instructions keeps it from blathering on and on. This should only take a few seconds.

It predictably returns good prompts, meaning effective and structured with correct syntax, but might "forget" if something distracts it, such as your having a conversation with it. If this happens, instruct it to form properly constructed prompts as it was instructed, and paste it an example, such as this:

Landscape painting of the Catskill Mountains during a vibrant sunset. The intricate play of light and shadow, depicted through [focused, detailed brushwork]::6, ::3

Emphasizes the grandeur of nature. Use warm hues to depict the setting sun ::3

And cool colors to accentuate the shadows. HD. ::1 --ar 16:9 --q 2 --s 250 --style raw" and that should induce it to return properly constructed MidJourney prompts.

and it will get back on track.

In this guide, I will be referring to the prompt you give to ChatGPT to create a MidJourney prompt as a "request" to avoid confusion, as the term "prompt" is also used to refer to the prompts for MidJourney.

Type A: Specific Artist, Specific Scene

This type of request involves asking for a specific artist to create a specific scene. These requests are very specific and require a detailed understanding of the artist's style and the kind of scene you want them to create.

Example: "Give me a prompt for Claude Monet to create a scene of water lilies in a pond at sunset."

Type B: Specific Artist, Any Scene

This type of request involves asking for a specific artist to create any scene. These requests are less specific about the content but still require knowledge of the artist's style.

Example: "Give me a prompt for an artwork by Vincent van Gogh."

Type C: Any Impressionist Artist, Any Scene

This type of request involves asking for any Impressionist artist to create any scene. While these requests are more general and do not require the specification of a particular artist or scene, it's beneficial to mention a specific artist in the prompt for a more effective result.

Example: "Give me a prompt for an Impressionist painting where you pick the artist."

Type D: Specific Director/Cinematographer, Typical Scene

This type of request involves asking for a specific director or cinematographer to create a scene that is typical for them. These requests require knowledge of the director's or cinematographer's style and typical scenes they might create.

Example: "Give me a prompt inspired by the atmospheric cinematography of Christopher Nolan."

Type E: Specific Scene from a Specific Movie

This type of request involves asking for a specific scene from a specific movie. These requests are very specific and require a detailed understanding of the movie and the particular scene you want to recreate.

Example: "Give me a prompt for a tense scene from Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining', where Danny is riding his tricycle through the empty hotel corridors."

Type F: Multiple Prompts from Different Photographers, Typical Subject, Camera, etc.

This type of request involves asking for multiple prompts from different photographers, each utilizing their typical subjects, cameras, lighting, mood, and any other relevant attributes. These requests are broader and can cover a range of photographers, subjects, and styles.

Example: "Give me 5 prompts from 5 famous photographers where each utilizes his typical subject, camera, lighting, mood, and anything else you think is relevant."

For your convenience, here is a list of renowned photographers along with their typical type of photography, directors, and cinematographers they work(ed) with. This can be used as a reference when making requests:

Renowned Photographers, Directors, and Their Styles

Photographers:

1. Cindy Sherman – Conceptual Portraits
2. Diane Arbus – Portraits of Eccentrics
3. Ansel Adams – Black and White Landscapes
4. Henri Cartier-Bresson – Street Photography
5. William Eggleston – Color Pioneer
6. Annie Leibovitz – Celebrity Portraits
7. Robert Frank – The Americans
8. Dorothea Lange – Depression Era
9. Vivian Maier – Street Photography
10. Richard Avedon – Fashion and Portraits
11. Steve McCurry – "Afghan Girl"
12. Sally Mann – Intimate Portraits
13. Irving Penn – Fashion and Still Life
14. Walker Evans – American Vernacular
15. Andreas Gursky – Large Scale Landscapes
16. Edward Weston – Abstracts and Landscapes
17. Helmut Newton – Erotica
18. Gordon Parks – Civil Rights and Fashion
19. Sebastião Salgado – Social Documentary
20. Garry Winogrand – Street Photography

Directors and Their Cinematographers:

1. Alfred Hitchcock - Cinematographer: Robert Burks. Known for films like "Vertigo" and "Rear Window," they crafted a signature suspenseful and thrilling visual style.
2. Stanley Kubrick - Cinematographer: John Alcott. With films like "A Clockwork Orange" and "Barry Lyndon," they used innovative techniques to create a distinct, often surreal, aesthetic.
3. Quentin Tarantino - Cinematographer: Robert Richardson. Tarantino's stylized violence in films like "Pulp Fiction" and "Kill Bill," coupled with Richardson's dramatic use of lighting, create vivid, unforgettable scenes.
4. Wong Kar-wai - Cinematographer: Christopher Doyle. This team is known for their stunningly beautiful films like "In the Mood for Love" with a unique use of color, light, and shadow.
5. Christopher Nolan - Cinematographer: Wally Pfister. Their collaborations in films like "Inception" and "The Dark Knight" feature grandiose visuals, sharp contrast, and often incorporate elements of illusion.
6. Agnès Varda - Cinematographer: Alain Levent. Known for her work in the French New Wave, Varda's films like "Cleo from 5 to 7" often feature experimental framing and a documentary-like style.
7. Akira Kurosawa - Cinematographer: Asakazu Nakai. Their Samurai films like "Ran" and "Seven Samurai" are known for their dynamic composition, innovative camera movement, and dramatic use of weather elements.
8. Andrei Tarkovsky - Cinematographer: Vadim Yusov. Their collaborations resulted in visually stunning films like "Solaris" and "Stalker," known for their long takes, dreamlike visual metaphors, and naturalistic lighting.
9. Sofia Coppola - Cinematographer: Lance Acord. Films like "Lost in Translation" and "The Virgin Suicides" are known for their dreamy, soft-focus aesthetic, and distinct use of color and light.
10. Wes Anderson - Cinematographer: Robert Yeoman. Their collaborations have resulted in highly stylizedquote("Renowned Photographers, Directors, and", "resulted in highly stylized")

Special Considerations for Art Prompts

When crafting requests for ChatGPT to return prompts for MidJourney, a wide variety of requests should yield satisfying results. However, prompts involving styles of painting that heavily feature brushwork are likely to be especially effective, due to the emphasis given to how ChatGPT was trained to write MidJourney prompts.

Major Artistic Periods

Here are some broad periods in art. Those that heavily feature painting, particularly with brushes, are marked with a check (✔️):

1. ✔️ Baroque (1600-1750)
2. ✔️ Rococo (1730-1760)
3. ✔️ Neoclassicism (1750-1860)
4. ✔️ Romanticism (1800-1850)
5. ✔️ Realism (1840-1900)
6. ✔️ Impressionism (1860-1890)
7. ✔️ Post-Impressionism (1880-1900)
8. ✔️ Expressionism (1900-1930)
9. Cubism (1907-1914)
10. Abstract Expressionism (1940-1950)

Below are some examples of specific art schools or movements within these periods which should work well that you could reference in your requests:

1. Hudson River School: Known for landscape paintings that romanticize the natural wonders of the American northeast.
2. Barbizon School: Recognized for plein air landscape painting, preceding Impressionism in France.
3. Camden Town Group: A group of English Post-Impressionist artists active in the early 20th century known for scenes of daily urban life.
4. Heidelberg School: A movement in late 19th-century Australian art, also known as Australian Impressionism.
5. Norwich School of Painters: A group of early 19th-century landscape painters in England.
6. Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter): An early 20th-century art movement in Germany, considered part of the expressionist period.
7. Ashcan School: Known for their realistic and often gritty depictions of daily life in New York City during the early 20th century.
8. Fauvism: A French art movement that emerged in the early 20th century, characterized by vibrant, non-naturalistic use of color.
9. Nabis: A group of Post-Impressionist avant-garde artists in France who sought to go beyond the naturalistic representation.
10. Peredvizhniki (The Wanderers): A group of Russian realist artists who chose to depict everyday life and the Russian landscape.
11. Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: An English art movement of the mid-19th century that aimed to return to the detailed and vibrant art of the early Renaissance, rejecting the industrial approach of the Victorian era.
12. The Eight: A group of American artists who protested the restrictive exhibition practices of the National Academy of Design, New York, marking a key moment in the development of 20th-century American art.

A request might look like this: "Give me a prompt for a painting from the Hudson River School where you pick the artist." or "Please provide me with prompts from the first seven on the list (from Hudson River School to Ashcan School), one prompt for each school/movement, where you pick a representative artist from the respective school/movement." (Paste the list as part of the prompt for ChatGPT, so it knows what list you're talking about).

You could do the same thing for the lists above, pasting in a list you're interested in, and asking for certain members of the list, or just tell ChatGPT to choose five from the list, etc.

Type G: Detailed Cinematic Aesthetic Narratives

This type of request is tailored for users seeking a vivid, cinematic narrative for their image creation. You have the choice of opting for a highly descriptive, "beautiful" scene filled with vibrant colors, or a more "realistic" and toned-down representation focusing on spatial accuracy and tangible details. These requests require comprehensive knowledge of the subject, location, atmosphere, lighting, cultural or historical context, camera equipment, and technical parameters. Artistic influences are also a crucial component, with a wide range of possibilities from specifying all the influences, some, or none at all.

ChatGPT will be looking for the words "cinematic narrative" (short for "cinematic aesthetic narrative" to know to construct these types of prompts.

Example for a "beautiful" scene: "Give me a detailed beautiful cinematic narrative for a forest scene at sunrise, resembling the works of Terrence Malick, Emmanuel Lubezki, and Ansel Adams, with a hint of Japanese culture and history, captured with a Leica camera on Kodak film stock, with hyper-realistic details in a 21:9 aspect ratio."

Example for a "realistic" scene: "Provide a realistic cinematic narrative of a bustling cityscape at dusk, with influences from Wong Kar-wai and Christopher Doyle, denoting the 1960s New York, captured using a Canon camera and Fujifilm."

If you are not aware of specific artistic influences to incorporate, you can allow ChatGPT to pick the influences based on the scene, subject, and mood you aim to portray.

Example: "Provide a detailed beautiful cinematic narrative for a serene beach at sunset with influences chosen by you, with a nod to local Hawaiian culture, captured on a Nikon camera with Kodak film stock."

Similarly, you can let ChatGPT choose from a list of influences you're interested in, even if you don't know all or the exact number of influences to incorporate.

Example: "Provide a detailed realistic cinematic narrative for a bustling market scene in Marrakech at midday, influenced by a selection from this list: Steve McCurry, Sebastião Salgado, Richard Avedon, Henri Cartier-Bresson, or Gordon Parks. Give the scene a historical twist, captured with a Hasselblad camera and Ilford film stock, in a 4:3 aspect ratio."

Type H: Requests to Transform Prompts into DTF Prompts

Transforming an existing prompt into a DTF (Descriptive Tagging Format) prompt is a simple process. DTF includes three variations: RDTF (Regular DTF), MDTF (Movie DTF), or you could just say "DTF" if you want ChatGPT to choose the type of DTF for you.

You can say something like "Transform this prompt to MDFT" (or "RDTF" or "DTF", and provide the prompt) or colloquial equivalently stated ideas like "I'd like this prompt as an RDTF", should work as well. (The "transform" language is explicit, but ChatGPT has been told to accept colloquially equivalently stated ideas like the example given).

Type I : Requests for Suites and Suites with Prose

A "suite" in MidJourney is a set of diverse creative prompts designed around a specific theme. They can include various types of prompts such as regular camera prompts, cinematic narrative prompts, painting prompts, and DTF prompts. A suite can also be augmented with a continuous narrative prose to provide a rich and immersive storytelling experience. Here's how you can request them:

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Requesting a Suite

To request a suite, simply include the word "suite" in your request to ChatGPT. You can specify the theme, the number and type of prompts, and provide specific details for each prompt. For example, you might request: "I'd like a suite about a day in Paris, with two painting prompts of Parisian streets, a cinematic narrative about a romantic encounter at a café, and a camera prompt of the Eiffel Tower."

If you do not provide specific details, ChatGPT will use default configurations to create your suite. The default suite includes 1 regular camera prompt, 2 cinematic aesthetic narratives, 2 painting prompts, and 2 DTF prompts (one of each type).

If you're interested in a smaller collection, you can request a "mini suite" which includes 1 cinematic aesthetic narrative, 1 painting prompt, 1 DTF prompt (ChatGPT chooses the type), and another cinematic aesthetic narrative.

Requesting a Suite with Prose

To request a suite accompanied by prose, include both "suite" and "prose" in your request to ChatGPT. ChatGPT will write a narrative in prose that aligns with the chosen theme and number of images. The prose may be presented in various styles which specifically are prose poetry, narrative prose, descriptive prose, verse poetry, and haiku. For example, you might request: "I'd like a suite with prose for a day in Paris, using narrative prose" or ""I'd like a suite with prose for a day in Paris, using Haiku".

ChatGPT will generate the prose before creating the image prompts, ensuring a rich and cohesive narrative experience. If you do not specify a specific prose style, ChatGPT will choose a suitable style based on the theme or use a blend of styles.

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Refreshing the Context Window

ChatGPT is capable of generating both technical and non-technical prompts as described in the respective guides. However, due to limitations in the context window, it can only "hold in memory" the instructions for one type at a time.

To switch between the types of prompts, refresh the context for ChatGPT by providing the relevant instructions for the type of prompt you wish to work on. Follow the steps below to do this:

1. Decide whether you want to generate technical or non-technical prompts.
2. Open the appropriate guide ("X" for technical prompts or "MidJourney Non-Technical Guide to Prompts" for non-technical prompts).
3. Copy the relevant instructions from the guide.
4. Paste the instructions into the chatbox for ChatGPT. This action effectively refreshes ChatGPT's "memory" and primes it to generate prompts of the selected type.

Feedback

Feedback is appreciated. If something isn't working correctly, or as expected, or if you have any suggestions - including new types of prompts you'd like me to work on creating - please leave a comment. Or I can be reached at Twitter ("Tom Ewall", @ptattmbtc_).