Prompt Recipes for Fixing a Picture
Copy-and-paste wording for the changes people ask for most: weather, crowds, the same place as before, time period, time of day and framing
Where the Words Go
Two places take instructions, and they do different jobs.
- Prompt (page menu, then Prompt) describes the whole picture. Change it, choose Mark for redraw, then Create Images. Use it when the scene itself is wrong.
- Edit Image (page menu) changes one thing in the picture you already have and keeps the rest. Use it when the picture is nearly right.
Be specific about what you want to see. "Make it snowier" leaves the amount up to the model. "Knee-deep snow and heavy snowfall" doesn't.
The CONDITIONS Line
Some books end each prompt with a line that starts CONDITIONS (hold on this page):. It records the time period, place, season, weather and time of day for that page, worked out from the whole story, so a blizzard on page 6 is still a blizzard on page 9.
If a page has the wrong weather or place, change that line first. Keep the label and replace what follows it, for example:
CONDITIONS (hold on this page): October 1856, open Wyoming high plains, a raging blizzard, knee-deep drifts, driving snow, grey daylight.
Recipes
Weather that isn't strong enough
Prompt or Edit Image:
Deep snow everywhere, knee-deep drifts, heavy snow falling, wind blowing it sideways, grey sky.
Pouring rain, puddles on the ground, wet clothes and hair, dark clouds.
The same place as the page before
Prompt:
Same place as the previous page: the willow grove by the river, the wagons and tents in the snow.
Name the place the way the earlier page shows it. The model can't see other pages, so "same as before" on its own doesn't work.
People in the background
Prompt or Edit Image:
A crowd of people in the background, small and out of focus, dressed for the 1850s.
Two other men on horseback arriving in the background.
People added this way are strangers. To show someone from your cast, add them under Characters in Scene instead.
The wrong time period
Prompt:
1850s pioneer setting: wooden wagons, canvas tents, homespun clothes, dirt trails. Nothing modern.
Time of day
Early morning, low golden light, long shadows.
Night, lit only by a campfire and a lantern.
Closer or wider
Close-up on Harvey's face and hands.
Wide view of the whole camp, with the people small in the landscape.
Keep the picture, change one thing
Edit Image:
Keep everything the same, but add snow on the ground and on the tents.
Keep everything the same, but remove the trees on the left.
Changing the Words on a Page
Click the text and edit it directly. To have a paragraph reworded, ask the assistant in the editor, and say what has to stay:
Rewrite page 4 so it reads more smoothly aloud. Keep every name, date and fact exactly as they are.
Still Not Right?
See Fixing an Illustration That Came Out Wrong for reverting for free and reporting a broken picture.