Midjourney — Advanced techniques

Section 10.5.2 : Midjourney — Advanced techniques

🎯 Learning objective

Leverage Midjourney to create high aesthetic quality visuals through advanced parameters, style references, and visual prompting techniques. You'll master the complete professional workflow, from creative exploration to production-ready final files.

Midjourney: the king of aesthetics

Midjourney is the image generation model most used by professional creatives. Its strength: exceptional aesthetic quality "out of the box" and granular control via advanced parameters. Midjourney images are immediately recognizable for their visual quality — it's often the choice of art directors, designers, and photographers.

Midjourney works via Discord (or the website midjourney.com since 2024). Pricing: from $10/month (Basic) → $30/month (Standard, recommended) → $60/month (Pro).

Basic syntax and complete parameters

The basic command: /imagine [your prompt in English] --parameters

/imagine a modern workspace with warm lighting, minimalist design --ar 16:9 --v 7 --style raw --s 250

All important parameters:

Advanced prompting techniques

1. Style References (--sref) — The most powerful:

Have an image whose style you love? Use it as a reference:

/imagine futuristic city skyline at sunset --sref [image URL] --sv 100

• →--sv 0: subtle influence from the reference style
• →--sv 100: faithful copy of the style (default)
• →You can combine multiple --sref: --sref URL1 --sref URL2

Use case: you created an illustration you love for chapter 1 of your book. You want all subsequent illustrations to have the same style → use the first one as --sref for the entire series.

2. Character References (--cref) — Character consistency:

/imagine [your mascot] in a coffee shop reading a book --cref [character URL] --cw 100

• →--cw 0: copies only the face
• →--cw 100: copies the entire character (clothing, posture, style)

Use case: you're creating a series of posts with a recurring character → it stays visually consistent from one image to the next.

3. Multi-prompts with weighting (::):

The :: separates and weights concepts:

/imagine cyberpunk city::2 neon rain::1.5 lonely figure::0.5 --ar 16:9

• →cyberpunk city::2 = double importance
• →neon rain::1.5 = 1.5x importance
• →lonely figure::0.5 = 0.5x importance (subtle, in the background)

Negative weighting (remove a concept):

/imagine beautiful garden::2 flowers::1 insects::-0.5

The -0.5 reduces the probability of seeing insects.

4. Permutation prompts (bracketed options):

Test multiple variants in a single prompt:

/imagine {a cat, a dog, a robot} sitting on a {red, blue, green} chair

Generates 9 images: all combinations of [subject] × [color].

5. Prompt stacking for hybrid styles:

/imagine [subject], in the style of [artist/movement], 
blended with [other style], [specific color palette],
[type of lighting], [mood], award-winning, highly detailed

Concrete example:

/imagine ethereal portrait of a jazz musician, in the style of 
renaissance oil painting, blended with cyberpunk neon aesthetics, 
palette of deep blues and warm golds, dramatic chiaroscuro lighting, 
atmospheric and mysterious, masterpiece quality --ar 3:4 --v 7 --s 400

Professional Midjourney workflow in 6 steps

Total time: 15-30 minutes for a professional visual (vs 2-4h with a photographer + traditional retouching).

Common mistakes and how to avoid them