Anatomy of an Image Prompt: The Five-Block Method

Most image prompts fail not because they lack detail, but because their detail is unstructured. A prompt that reads “beautiful photo of a cat, cinematic, dramatic lighting, professional” gives the generator five disconnected adjectives. A structured prompt gives it a scene to construct.

The five-block method organizes your prompt into functional segments, each targeting a different aspect of the final image. This approach works across generators because it mirrors how photographers and cinematographers think about image-making.

Block 1: Subject

The subject block answers: what is the primary focus of this image?

Effective subject descriptions include material properties and spatial context, not just identity.

Weak: a bottle

Strong: a dark glass bottle with a matte black label, standing upright on a polished concrete surface

The second version tells the generator about reflectivity (dark glass), texture (matte label), orientation (standing upright), and environment (polished concrete). Each of these becomes a rendering decision.

Rules for the subject block:

Block 2: Composition

The composition block answers: how is the frame arranged?

This includes camera angle, depth of field, negative space, and the relationship between elements.

Weak: close-up shot

Strong: medium close-up, subject centered with generous negative space on the left, shallow depth of field with the background dissolving into soft bokeh

Key composition terms generators understand:

Block 3: Lighting

The lighting block answers: where does the light come from and what quality does it have?

This is where most prompts can improve the most. Generators respond strongly to lighting language because their training data (photographs) is fundamentally organized by light.

Weak: dramatic lighting

Strong: soft key light from upper left, strong rim light from behind creating edge separation, warm fill light from below at low intensity

Three dimensions of lighting to specify:

  1. Direction: from above, from the left, backlit, overhead, from below
  2. Quality: soft (diffused), hard (directional with sharp shadows), ambient, specular
  3. Color temperature: warm, cool, neutral, golden hour, blue hour, mixed

Describe light sources individually when you want multiple lights. “Three-point lighting with a warm key from the right” is more actionable than “well-lit.”

Block 4: Style

The style block answers: what visual tradition does this image belong to?

This is where you reference looks — the photographic, artistic, or cinematic styles that define the image’s aesthetic identity.

Weak: cinematic

Strong: color graded with deep teals in the shadows and warm amber highlights, film grain, shot on medium format digital, editorial product photography aesthetic

Style elements to consider:

Block 5: Finish

The finish block is your quality control layer. It contains technical qualifiers and negative constraints.

Positive finishes: professional studio photography, high resolution, sharp focus on subject, magazine quality

Negative prompts (if your generator supports them): cartoon, illustration, painting, text, watermark, low quality, blurry, deformed

The finish block is the least creative but often the difference between a usable output and one that needs regeneration.

Putting it together

Here’s a complete prompt using all five blocks, separated for clarity:

Subject: A dark glass bottle of perfume on a brushed brass tray.

Composition: Medium close-up, bottle slightly off-center to the right, shallow depth of field, dark background with gradual falloff.

Lighting: Soft key light from the upper left catching the glass surface. Rim light from behind the bottle creating a glowing edge. Subtle warm fill from below reflected off the brass tray.

Style: Cinematic product photography aesthetic. Color graded with deep shadows and warm golden highlights. Film grain. Medium format lens character with smooth bokeh.

Finish: Professional studio product photograph. Sharp focus on the bottle label. Magazine advertisement quality.

When you send this to a generator, you can combine the blocks into a single flowing paragraph or keep them as separate sentences — both work. The structure is a thinking tool, not a formatting requirement.

Practice exercise

Take any image you admire and try to reverse-engineer it into five blocks. What is the subject? Where is the camera? Where does the light come from? What style tradition does it belong to? What technical qualities make it look professional?

This reverse-engineering skill translates directly to writing better prompts. Browse our prompt posts to see the five-block method applied to real examples, with detailed breakdowns of why each element was chosen.