Midjourney is an AI image generation tool that transforms written descriptions into visual artwork. Unlike traditional design software, you don’t need technical skills or years of training to create striking images. Instead, you communicate your vision through text prompts, and Midjourney’s AI interprets these instructions to generate images.
The quality of your results depends entirely on how effectively you write your prompts. A vague request produces generic outputs, whilst a well-crafted prompt yields precise, compelling visuals. Think of it as the difference between telling someone “draw a dog” versus “draw a golden retriever puppy playing in autumn leaves, photographed with natural lighting at golden hour”.
Currently operating on Version 7 (launched in April 2025 and set as default in June 2025), Midjourney offers improved prompt understanding, better image coherence, and enhanced detail compared to earlier versions. This makes it an increasingly accessible tool for beginners who want to create professional-looking artwork without extensive experience.
Getting Started: Your First Steps With Midjourney
Before writing your first prompt, you’ll need to set up access to Midjourney. The service operates through two main channels: Discord and their web interface. Both require a Midjourney subscription, with plans starting at £8 per month (approximately $10).
If you’re using Discord, join the Midjourney server and navigate to one of the newbie channels or send a direct message to the Midjourney bot. For the web interface, simply visit midjourney.com and log in with your account. The web version is generally more straightforward for beginners, offering a cleaner interface and easier navigation.
To generate an image, you’ll use the /imagine command followed by your prompt. For example: /imagine a cosy London café on a rainy afternoon. Press enter, and Midjourney will generate four variations of your prompt within 30-60 seconds.
Understanding Prompt Structure: The Essential Building Blocks
Effective Midjourney prompts typically consist of several key elements. You don’t need to include all of these in every prompt, but understanding them helps you communicate more precisely.
The subject describes what you want in the image—a person, object, scene, or concept. The medium defines the artistic format, such as photograph, oil painting, or digital illustration. Environment provides context about the setting, whether indoors, outdoors, or in a specific location. Lighting describes how the scene is illuminated, from soft morning light to dramatic neon glow.
Colour specifications might include terms like monochromatic, vibrant, or pastel. Mood conveys the emotional tone you’re aiming for, such as peaceful, energetic, or mysterious. Composition describes the framing and perspective, like close-up, wide angle, or bird’s-eye view.
A simple prompt might be: “a cat”. A more detailed prompt could read: “a tabby cat sitting on a windowsill, watercolour illustration, soft afternoon lighting, muted colours, peaceful mood, close-up composition”.
Core Prompting Principles for Beginners
Start Simple and Build Gradually
When you’re starting out, resist the urge to cram every detail into your first attempt. Begin with a basic concept and add complexity through iteration. Your initial prompt might simply be “a Victorian house”. If the results are too generic, your next attempt could specify “a red-brick Victorian terraced house in London, autumn day, architectural photography”.
This approach helps you understand how Midjourney interprets different elements and which details have the most impact on your results.
Be Specific but Concise
Midjourney processes prompts more effectively when they’re clear and direct. Rather than writing lengthy descriptions, focus on the most important characteristics. Instead of “I want a really beautiful, stunning, amazing sunset over the ocean with gorgeous colours”, write “sunset over ocean, vibrant orange and purple sky, dramatic lighting”.
Use Descriptive Language
The AI responds well to specific, descriptive terms. Rather than “nice lighting”, specify “golden hour lighting” or “soft studio lighting”. Instead of “looks good”, describe the actual qualities you want: “highly detailed”, “photorealistic”, or “impressionistic style”.
Avoid Negative Instructions
Midjourney struggles with negative phrasing. If you write “a garden without flowers”, the AI often focuses on “garden” and “flowers”, frequently including flowers in the result. Instead, describe what you do want: “a garden with only green plants and shrubs” or “a vegetable garden”.
Essential Parameters Every Beginner Should Know
Parameters are special commands added to the end of your prompt that control technical aspects of image generation. They always begin with two hyphens (–). Here are the most useful ones for beginners.
Aspect Ratio (–ar)
This parameter controls the width-to-height ratio of your image. The default is 1:1 (square), but you can specify others like –ar 16:9 for widescreen or –ar 9:16 for portrait orientation. This is particularly useful when creating content for specific platforms like Instagram (1:1) or YouTube thumbnails (16:9).
Stylize (–s)
The stylize parameter determines how much artistic interpretation Midjourney applies. Values range from 0 to 1000, with 100 being the default. Lower values (–s 50) produce images that closely match your prompt with minimal artistic flourish. Higher values (–s 750) give Midjourney more creative freedom, resulting in more artistic but potentially less literal interpretations.
Quality (–q)
This controls rendering time and detail level. The default is –q 1, whilst –q 2 doubles the processing time but produces more refined details. For quick experiments, you might use –q 0.5, but for final outputs, –q 2 often provides noticeably better results.
Version (–v)
Whilst Version 7 is now the default, you can specify earlier versions if you prefer their aesthetic. For example, –v 6.1 uses the previous version, which some users prefer for certain styles.
Common Mistakes Beginners Make (And How to Avoid Them)
Understanding what doesn’t work is just as important as knowing what does. Here are the pitfalls most beginners encounter when learning Midjourney.
Overloading Prompts With Too Many Details
New users often assume that more description equals better results. In reality, excessively long prompts can confuse the AI, causing it to lose focus on your main subject. A 200-word prompt about a coffee shop scene with detailed descriptions of every element rarely outperforms a focused 30-word prompt highlighting the key features.
The solution is to identify your three to five most important elements and build your prompt around those. If the initial result is close but missing something, add one or two details in your next iteration rather than rewriting the entire prompt.
Assuming Midjourney Understands Context Like Humans
When you ask for “a flat white”, you might picture a specific coffee drink. Midjourney might interpret this literally and generate a flat white surface. Similarly, requesting “a brilliant piece” could yield anything from jewellery to artwork to fragments.
The AI lacks real-world context and cultural understanding. It interprets words literally and statistically based on its training data. Being explicit rather than relying on implied meaning dramatically improves your results.
Not Experimenting With Different Phrasings
If your first attempt doesn’t work, many beginners give up or assume Midjourney can’t create what they want. However, the AI might simply need different terminology. “Autumn” might work better than “fall” for certain aesthetics. “Vintage photograph” might produce different results than “old photo”.
Try synonyms and alternative descriptions. If “cheerful” doesn’t capture the mood you want, experiment with “joyful”, “lighthearted”, or “upbeat”.
Forgetting About Artistic and Technical References
Midjourney has been trained on countless artistic styles, photography techniques, and visual references. Rather than describing every detail of how you want something to look, you can reference established styles. “In the style of Wes Anderson” immediately conveys symmetry, pastel colours, and distinctive framing. “Shot on 35mm film” suggests a particular texture and colour palette.
These references work as shorthand, conveying complex visual information efficiently.
Ignoring the Importance of Iteration
Professional Midjourney users rarely generate perfect results on their first attempt. The creative process involves generating multiple variations, identifying what works, refining your prompt, and generating again. Beginners often expect immediate perfection and feel discouraged when it doesn’t happen.
View each generation as part of a process rather than a final attempt. Save promising results and use them as references for further refinement.
Practical Prompting Strategies That Actually Work
Use the /describe Command for Learning
One of the most valuable learning tools is the /describe command. Upload an image you like, and Midjourney will generate four possible prompts that could have created it. This reveals how the AI interprets visual elements and what terminology it responds to effectively.
This technique is particularly useful when you’re trying to achieve a specific style but aren’t sure how to describe it.
Build a Personal Reference Library
As you generate images, save examples that worked well along with their prompts. Over time, you’ll develop a collection of effective phrasings and parameter combinations. When starting a new project, you can reference these proven approaches rather than starting from scratch each time.
Combine Multiple Concepts Thoughtfully
Midjourney can blend disparate concepts in interesting ways, but the results are more controlled when you’re strategic about it. Rather than listing random elements, think about logical combinations. “Victorian architecture” plus “cyberpunk aesthetic” creates an intentional juxtaposition. “Grandmother’s kitchen” plus “1970s colour palette” evokes a specific nostalgia.
Pay Attention to Word Order
Whilst Midjourney doesn’t follow strict grammar rules, elements mentioned earlier in your prompt often receive more emphasis. If your subject is a person, mention them first. If the environment is more important, lead with that.
Advanced Techniques Worth Knowing Early
These approaches require a bit more understanding, but they’re not as complex as they might seem, and learning them early can significantly improve your results.
Image Prompting
You can include image URLs at the beginning of your prompt to use existing images as visual references. Midjourney will blend the style, composition, and elements from your reference image with your text prompt. This is particularly useful when you’re trying to match a specific aesthetic or maintain consistency across multiple generations.
Multi-Prompting With Weights
You can emphasize certain elements by using double colons and numerical weights. For example: “red house::2 blue sky::1” tells Midjourney to emphasize the house twice as much as the sky. This granular control helps when the AI isn’t focusing on the right elements.
Blend Command
The /blend command allows you to combine 2-5 images, creating something new from their merged characteristics. This is excellent for exploring unexpected combinations or creating unique hybrid concepts.
Draft Mode for Rapid Experimentation
When you’re in the early stages of developing an idea, use Draft Mode (–draft) to generate images 10 times faster at half the cost. The quality is lower, but it’s perfect for testing concepts before committing to high-quality renders.
Developing Your Prompting Skills Over Time
Becoming proficient with Midjourney prompts is a gradual process. Most users report that they start seeing significant improvement after generating 100-200 images, as they develop an intuition for what works.
Make use of Midjourney’s Explore page to study how other users construct their prompts. When you see an image you admire, examine the prompt that created it. Notice which details the creator included and which they omitted. Over time, you’ll recognise patterns in effective prompting.
Join communities on Reddit, Discord, or dedicated forums where users share their work and techniques. The Midjourney subreddit and official Discord channels are particularly active, with users happy to help beginners troubleshoot prompting challenges.
Consider keeping a simple document where you note which phrasings, parameters, and approaches produced your best results. This personal reference becomes increasingly valuable as you work on more projects.
Moving Forward With Confidence
Learning to write effective Midjourney prompts is fundamentally about communication—teaching yourself to describe visual ideas in ways the AI understands. It’s a skill that improves with practice, patience, and experimentation.
Start with simple prompts and build complexity gradually. Pay attention to which approaches work for your particular needs. Don’t be discouraged by unexpected results; they’re often part of the creative process and sometimes lead to discoveries you wouldn’t have planned.
The most successful Midjourney users aren’t necessarily those who write the longest or most complex prompts. They’re the ones who understand the balance between specificity and creative freedom, who iterate thoughtfully, and who remain curious about exploring what the tool can do.
With these foundations in place, you’re well-equipped to begin your journey creating AI art. The learning curve exists, but it’s far less steep than traditional artistic skills, and the creative possibilities are genuinely exciting.