Midjourney Portrait Prompts

You tried to create AI portraits but just can’t seem to break past the generic look. If so, this brief article is for you.

Midjourney Portrait Tips - Think Like A Photographer

I won’t go into much writing. Just show you the prompts for creating photorealistic portraits and their results.

young female soul portrait, person, real, smeared mascara, raining, smoky room, smoke, 100mm, f 1.2

In this prompt you will notice I used 85-100mm lens.

I also used f 1.2 aperture which is often used for portraits.

These is the setup used by professional portrait photographers.

A narrow focal length adds that blurry background look.

It also helps you focus on the subject.

Smoke was added for dramatic effect.

Here’s another image generated with the same prompt:

young female soul portrait, person, real, smeared mascara, raining, smoky room, smoke, 100mm, f 1.2

You can add more smoke or reduce it by using weights.

An example of adding weight to smoke would be:

smoke::1

This would give focus to smoke effect. You can reduce it to smoke::0.5

Looks like it’s a fraction-based number.

You can also add weight to other keywords, relative to other weights.

--testp

Along came testp option.

By using --testp option at the end of prompt you switch Midjourney into photorealism mode. No influence from cartoons or stylized images.

This will limit your prompts to 1 image per prompt.

But it will give you abilities not available without this option.

For example you can start using aspect ratios other than 2:3 and 3:2

For portraits, 6:9 is a good aspect ratio.

You can set it by adding --ar 6:9 to end of your prompt.

So with this newfound knowledge, let’s take a look at what Midjourney portrait prompts can be created:

real life female portrait photography, candid photo, ultra detailed, photo realism, dreamlike lighting, magical photography, dramatic lighting, photo realism, ultra-detailed, personal portrait composition, with corn field sunlight in her hair, 85mm, f 1.2, — ar 9

Here’s another prompt:

female portrait, messy hair, shoulder level, blue diamond eyes, personal portrait, candid, intimate portrait, photorealism, ultra detail, 100mm, f 1.2 — ar 6:9 — testp

Sometimes Midjourney will spontaneously make a black & white portrait:

young female portrait, messy hair, blue diamond eyes, personal portrait, candid, intimate portrait, photorealism, ultra detail, 100mm, f 1.2 — ar 6:9 — test

Eyes could always be better but I think Midjourney is actively working on improving that in the next version release.

Other Midjourney portrait resources:

Midjourney Portrait Prompt Tutorial With Examples (Tips, Tricks, Different Styles)

Midjourney Lifelike Portrait Prompts: Part II (Using 85mm lens and F 1.2 aperture)

Hope this helps someone create better portraits 🙂