GFX-101 · Module 2

Controlling Style

3 min read

Style control is where prompting becomes art direction. You are not just describing what to generate — you are describing how to generate it. The most reliable style controls are concrete references: name a specific photographic medium ("Kodak Ektar 100 slide film"), a time period ("1960s advertising illustration"), an artistic movement ("Dutch Golden Age still life"), or a production technique ("double exposure on expired film"). Concrete references anchor the model to a specific visual vocabulary.

Negative prompts — telling the model what to avoid — are the other half of style control. They work differently across tools: Midjourney uses --no flags, Stable Diffusion uses explicit negative prompt fields, and DALL-E has limited negative prompting. The principle is the same everywhere: if a default behavior keeps appearing that you do not want, name it explicitly. "No text overlays, no watermarks, avoid oversaturated colors" removes the most common AI visual clichés.

Do This

  • Reference specific film stocks, artistic movements, or production techniques
  • Use negative prompts to eliminate recurring unwanted elements
  • Combine style references: "1970s National Geographic shot on Kodachrome" layers two anchors

Avoid This

  • Use vague aesthetic terms: "beautiful," "stunning," "amazing quality"
  • Name specific living artists without checking the tool's policy
  • Ignore negative prompting — it is half of your style control toolkit