Turn any reference image into a Midjourney prompt without guesswork

Midjourney's own Prompt Basics guide keeps warning that overly long but unstructured prompts confuse the model, while community walkthroughs (like Beebom's Discord-based tutorial) remind us that you must already be subscribed before /imagine works, so the best way to save GPU minutes is to diagnose the real pain points first and then run a consistent extraction-to-parameter workflow.

1. Pain map straight from creators

• onboarding friction: new users must log into midjourney.com, join the Discord server, buy a plan, and only then can they test /imagine, which means every failed attempt literally costs credits;
• prompt chaos: stacking random nouns without a structure (subject, environment, lighting, mood, camera) leads to unpredictable faces, warped limbs, or generic stock-photo looks;
• missing --seed: forgetting to log the seed makes it impossible to reproduce a composition you loved;
• parameter drift: copying prompts between teammates often drops --ar, --style, or stylize values so banners and mobile crops no longer match;
• cross-model rewrites: SDXL, Flux, and DALL·E each expect different syntax, so you end up rewriting the same idea four times.

2. Thirty-second image brief

Take half a minute to note one long sentence for each lever: subject (who, wardrobe, expression), environment (location, weather, time), lighting (key source, color, intensity), camera (lens, angle, distance), mood (emotional tone, pacing). Example: “black female astronaut in a reflective chrome suit pausing under a rain-soaked launch gantry while orange rocket exhaust paints the skyline, captured from a cinematic low-angle wide shot with moody volumetric fog and hyper-detailed metallic reflections.”

3. Compose the Midjourney string

Order matters, so keep the pattern subject → environment → lighting → mood → camera → material.

black female astronaut in a reflective chrome suit pausing beneath a towering launch pad during a rainy night, orange rocket exhaust painting the skyline and bouncing off puddles, cinematic low-angle wide shot, moody volumetric fog, hyper-detailed metallic reflections, Midjourney prompt

4. Glue parameters to the same line

Attach the exact switches that Discord creators cite most often:

--ar 16:9 --style raw --chaos 12 --stylize 250 --seed 483920

• --ar 16:9 keeps hero images and landing-page sections consistent;
• --style raw preserves real materials when you already have strong lighting;
• --chaos 12 explores variations without going fully random;
• --stylize 250 adds detail but stays controllable;
• --seed 483920 locks the composition so future edits reuse the same frame.

5. Reuse the brief across models

Model	What to change	Why it matters	Snippet
SDXL	add Negative: blurry, lowres, watermark, bad anatomy	denoise upscales and keep limbs correct	Negative: blurry, lowres, watermark, bad anatomy
Flux	rewrite as natural sentences with fewer commas	Flux prefers narrative phrasing over comma-separated tags	a reflective chrome suit astronaut under rainy neon floodlights, captured in low-angle cinematography
DALL·E	mention an art direction such as “in the style of retro-futurism poster”	DALL·E responds well to style metaphors	... in the style of a retro-futurism space-race poster

6. Run the ImgtoPrompt loop

1. Upload the reference (JPG/PNG/WebP ≤ 5 MB) to ImgtoPrompt and let the extraction engine capture subject, lighting, and mood descriptors in under 30 seconds.
2. Copy the Midjourney card that already includes the ordered description plus --ar, --style, --chaos, --stylize, and --seed.
3. Grab the SDXL, Flux, and DALL·E cards generated from the same source so you never rewrite prompts manually.
4. Use the edit drawer to tweak keyword weights, swap synonyms, toggle negative prompts, or change the aspect ratio, then re-copy.
5. Share the /result?job_id=... URL so teammates paste the exact same Midjourney prompt—including parameters—inside Discord.

7. Long-form checklist

• Always finish the descriptive sentence before adding parameters, so nothing gets chopped off when copying from Discord;
• Keep a running log of --seed values per project;
• Copy negative prompts into a reusable snippet for SDXL;
• Revisit lighting keywords every time you change aspect ratio;
• Lean on ImgtoPrompt caching so re-uploads hit the same job without burning credits.