Summary:

A prompt guide compiled after a month of running GPT Image 2. Category-by-category breakdowns for cinematic landscapes, product shots, portrait photography, and thumbnails — covering formulas that actually worked and 5 common mistakes. Conclusion: for ads and landing pages, it outperforms Midjourney.

When the GPT Image 2 API first dropped, I went absolutely wild for about 3 days straight. After burning through ₩10,000 worth of credits, I realized one thing: longer prompts don't mean better results.

In fact, prompts stuffed with ultra realistic, cinematic, 8k, masterpiece, trending on artstation, dreamy, dramatic consistently produced the most generic output. At first I thought the model was broken, but it turns out when prompt elements conflict, the model loses its way.

This post is a collection of patterns I noticed after a month of using GPT Image 2 — things I kept thinking "this approach works." It should be useful if you're making landing page hero images, thumbnails, or ad creatives.

GPT Image 2로 작업 중인 야간 AI 아트 작업실 사진

Short Prompts ≠ Bad Prompts

Let me clear up the biggest misconception first. "Longer, more detailed prompts are always better" is a Stable Diffusion 1.5 mentality. GPT Image 2 has strong natural language comprehension, so clearly defining visual decisions works far better than listing keywords.

The difference is obvious when you compare:

  • Weak: "woman in the city"
  • Average: "stylish young woman walking through neon-lit Tokyo streets"
  • Strong: "rainy Tokyo alley, pink and blue neon reflecting off wet pavement, cinematic framing, candid street photo feel, detailed clothing textures, natural motion blur"

The third one isn't better because it's longer. It's better because it makes clear visual decisions — time of day, atmosphere, lighting, and shooting style are all specified. The model is always trying to resolve ambiguity. Leave it unresolved and the model decides — and that result will be the most average thing possible. That's why "just a cool image" prompts produce the most uncool images.

A Formula Worth Memorizing

Just keep this one in your head and 90% of your problems are solved.

[Subject] + [Environment] + [Style] + [Lighting] + [Composition] + [Key Details]

You don't need to fill all six, but if results are consistently bad, check which ones you're missing. In my experience, lighting and composition are almost always the culprits.

Prompts That Actually Worked, by Category

1. Cinematic Landscapes

These work nearly 100% of the time. Probably because atmosphere, lighting, and composition naturally intertwine in this domain.

안개 낀 새벽 산봉우리 위에 선 여행자 시네마틱 사진

The key isn't just dropping the word "cinematic" — it's actually including the elements that make something cinematic. Writing cinematic man standing outside just gives you a photo of a man standing outside. The word is there but the substance isn't — the model can't work with that.

2. Product / Commercial Photography

Personally, this is where I think GPT Image 2 genuinely shines. Getting a usable product shot from Midjourney means locking seeds, spinning variations, all sorts of fuss — with this, you get something workable in one or two tries.

베이지 돌 위에 놓인 프리미엄 스킨케어 제품샷

A Shopify-selling friend I told about this swapped all her Amazon main product images to AI-generated ones. She took me out to dinner to say thanks — a ₩50,000 tasting menu. I feel guilty, but honestly she could've spent more.

3. Portrait Photography

This is the hardest category. Faces are unforgiving — if a single pixel looks off, it's immediately noticeable. Seven fingers in a landscape? Nobody sees it. Slight facial asymmetry? Spotted instantly.

파리 스튜디오의 젊은 패션 디자이너 에디토리얼 인물 사진

Age range / emotional tone / clothing / location / camera style — always specify all five. "Pretty woman photo" will never get you good results.

4. Thumbnails and Social Graphics

The category I find myself using most while running a blog.

AI 작품을 보고 놀란 크리에이터 유튜브 썸네일 스타일 이미지

For thumbnails, visual hierarchy matters more than aesthetic balance. Make one thing dominant, suppress everything else. Build your prompt around that principle. Adding words like "balanced, harmonious" actually produces flat, lifeless thumbnails.

Honestly, There Are Downsides Too

I don't want this to read like an ad, so let me be straight.

1. Text rendering is still imperfect. English has improved, but Korean is nearly unusable. If you need Korean typography on a poster, just composite it in post — it's faster.

2. Character consistency is hard to maintain. Generate the same character across 5 shots and the face subtly shifts each time. There's no powerful tool yet comparable to Midjourney's character reference.

3. Hands still fail occasionally. Much better than before, but complex hand poses still come out wrong about 1 in 4 times. Nothing you can do — just regenerate.

4. Credits aren't cheap. Pull 100 high-res images and it starts to add up. A realistic workflow: iterate in low-res to nail the concept, then go high-res only for finals.

5 Common Prompt Patterns That Always Fail

Things I personally messed up.

실패한 AI 이미지 출력물로 어지러운 작업실 사진
  • Too short: Something like AI artwork. Drop the fantasy that the model will just figure it out.
  • Too chaotic: Cramming in 30 adjectives. When they conflict, output goes completely off the rails.
  • Style without a scene: Words like epic, dramatic, beautiful need substance beneath them to actually work.
  • No composition defined: Don't specify wide shot vs. close-up and you'll get an awkward medium shot every time.
  • Trying to control everything equally: Tell the model everything is equally important and it averages it all out.

Especially the second one — this seems to be a trap many Korean users fall into. There's lingering culture from old SD days of thinking more keywords = better results.

Conclusion: For Ads and Marketing, I Reach for This Before Midjourney

The key isn't writing more — it's reducing ambiguity. A good prompt has already answered the model's question: "What kind of image is this?"

Personally, I think GPT Image 2 is far stronger than Midjourney for commercial use. Midjourney has more artistic flair, but for the clean product shots and landing page hero images clients actually want, GPT Image 2 delivers in one shot more often. Midjourney can be artistic — you end up with images that feel wrong for ads.