Stable Diffusion Prompts for Realistic Photos Reddit

Stable Diffusion is a powerful AI system for generating realistic images from text descriptions. However, writing effective prompts requires skill and practice. Here are some tips and techniques for constructing prompts that produce photorealistic results.

Understand How Stable Diffusion Works

Stable Diffusion is trained on image-text pairs to learn associations between words and visual concepts. When you provide a textual description, Stable Diffusion generates an image that matches the text by sampling from its learned visual concepts [[1]][[2]].

To produce realistic results, prompts should describe the desired photo using language that commonly describes real-world photographs. Terms like “photograph”, “photo”, “picture”, etc. tell Stable Diffusion you want a realistic image [[3]][[4]].

Use Specific, Detailed Descriptions

Prompts should describe exactly what you want to see, including details like:

  • Subject matter
  • Composition (framing, angle)
  • Fine details (facial expression, clothing, accessories)
  • Lighting
  • Background

The more detailed the description, the less Stable Diffusion has to “imagine” missing details, resulting in more photorealistic images [[5]].

Structure the Prompt from General to Specific

Start prompts with the general subject, then get progressively more detailed:

A photo of a woman 
    -> looking at the camera 
    -> with green eyes 
    -> wearing a red dress
    -> standing in a field of flowers

Describing the most important elements later in the prompt helps Stable Diffusion emphasize them [[6]].

Use Real-World Descriptors

Describe lighting, composition, etc. the way a photographer would to cue Stable Diffusion to render things realistically. Useful terms:

  • shot with a [Canon 5D]
  • 50mm lens
  • f/2.8 aperture
  • 1/60s shutter speed
  • golden hour lighting [[7]]

Limit Unwanted Variation

Constrain unwanted aspects so Stable Diffusion focuses on what you want:

A photo of a woman 
    -> front angle 
    -> looking at camera
    -> standing

The more variation allowed, the more chances for unrealistic imagery [[8]].

Guide Style/Mood

Describe the style or mood of the image to steer the aesthetic:

  • serious
  • somber
  • bright and cheerful

This helps direct lighting, expressions, etc [[9]].

Refine Through Iteration

View initial results and refine prompts to fix issues:

The lighting is too dark -> gently lit
Background is distracting -> clean white background

Iterating prompts based on results trains your ability to effectively describe desired images [[10]].

Example Prompts for Realistic Portraits

Here are some examples of full prompts that tend to produce photorealistic portraits with Stable Diffusion:

Female Portrait

A photograph of a beautiful young woman with long blonde hair, green eyes, and light makeup, looking directly at the camera with a slight smile on her face. She's wearing a red sweater and standing in front of a blurred forest background. Shot on a full frame camera with a 85mm lens at f 2.8.

Male Portrait

Photograph of a middle aged bald man with a beard, wearing glasses and a black suit jacket. He has a serious expression on his face and is looking directly into the camera standing against a plain grey background. Shot at 50 mm with a shallow depth of field and good lighting.

Child Portrait

High quality photograph of a smiling toddler boy with short curly brown hair, looking directly into the camera. He is wearing a striped blue shirt and sitting down on the grass outdoors on a sunny day. Shot from his eye level with a wide aperture for a blurred grass background.

Advanced Techniques

Here are some more advanced techniques you can try to further refine your prompts:

Direct Style/Medium

Explicitly describe the style or medium for additional realism cues:

A candid 35mm film photograph...

Weight Key Elements

Use a weight parameter (e.g. 1.5x) to boost elements you want to emphasize:

A beautiful woman 
    -> 1.5x with green eyes
    -> 1.5x smiling

Negate Unwanted Elements

Remove unwanted elements by prefixing with - :

-blurry, -grainy, -distorted, -poorly lit

Try Different Samplers and Settings

Change the sampler and settings like batch size, CFG scale, seed, etc. to iterate on results.

I hope these tips help you create better prompts and get excellent photorealistic results with Stable Diffusion! Let me know if you have any other questions.

References

  1. https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/xqv5tf/people_who_share_their_prompts_are_awesome/?rdt=37411
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_Diffusion
  3. https://www.reddit.com/r/midjourney/comments/12bqpjo/what_are_the_best_prompts_for_photo_realistic/?rdt=40260
  4. https://www.reddit.com/r/midjourney/comments/12uij2l/one_is_a_real_photo_and_one_is_ai_generated_can/?rdt=60689
  5. https://stable-diffusion-art.com/prompt-guide/
  6. https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/14wwlzu/how_to_give_a_good_prompt_in_stable_diffusion_15/?rdt=35410
  7. https://mspoweruser.com/best-stable-diffusion-prompts/
  8. https://stable-diffusion-art.com/prompt-guide/
  9. https://www.fotor.com/blog/stable-diffusion-prompts/
  10. https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/14wwlzu/how_to_give_a_good_prompt_in_stable_diffusion_15/?rdt=35410

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