Spent 6 months tweaking prompts wrong before a Reddit comment tipped me off

I was always adding 'photorealistic' and '8K' to every prompt thinking that made the AI work harder. Then someone posted a comparison showing those words actually make it ignore composition and lighting details. Tried removing them and my character portraits suddenly had actual depth instead of that plastic look. Anybody else fall for the same trap or have other useless keywords to dump?

2 comments

2 Comments

angela_coleman1d ago

Tried that 'cinematic' keyword for months before realizing it was the problem.

hall.ruby1d ago

Spent way too long chasing that "cinematic" tag myself (and my photos still looked like they were shot on a potato, just with more lens flare). It's like the keyword equivalent of putting fancy rims on a beat-up car, you know? Finally dropped it and suddenly my engagement actually made sense, people were seeing my actual photos instead of some generic "cinematic" mess.