LESSON 3 OF 5
Change one thing
BY THE END OF THIS LESSON
Iterate towards an image without losing what already worked.
Rewriting the whole prompt teaches you nothing
- Something almost right
- Rewrite substantially
- Wrong in a new way
The usual pattern is to get something almost right, rewrite the prompt substantially, and get something different that is wrong in a new way. You have learned nothing, because too much changed at once to know what caused what.
This is the same discipline as changing one variable in an experiment, and it is skipped for the same reason: it feels slower.
Keep what worked, in writing
When an image is close, save the prompt before you touch it. Then change one lever, and keep both.
Without this you cannot go back. The version from four attempts ago was better and you no longer have the words that made it — which is the single most common frustration people report with image tools.
Fix the frame before the details
Work outside in. Get the composition and the subject right first, then the style, then the light, then the small details.
Polishing the texture of something that is in the wrong part of the frame is wasted work, because fixing the frame will change the texture anyway.
WORKED EXAMPLE
EVERYTHING AT ONCE
Not quite right — try: warmer, more minimal, different angle, maybe illustration instead of photo, and can the table be round?
ONE LEVER
Keep everything. Change only the composition: same subject and style, but shot from slightly above and move the table to the left third. [keeps the previous prompt saved]
The first changes five things, so whatever comes back cannot be attributed to any of them — and the good parts of the previous image are gone too. The second answers one question and leaves you able to go back.
YOUR TURN
Run a deliberate one-lever iteration.
RUN THIS
Here is a prompt that got me close: [paste it]. Here is what is wrong with the result: [describe it]. Tell me which single lever — subject, style, composition or light — is responsible, and give me the prompt with only that changed. Do not improve anything else, even if you can see something else you would change.
What a good result looks like
The two prompts should differ in one place. If more than one line changed, ask which change was actually responsible and get the other reverted.
KNOWLEDGE CHECK
Answer all 3 correctly to complete this lesson.
1. Why does rewriting the whole prompt teach you nothing?
2. Why save the prompt before changing it?
3. Put these in the order you should fix them.
Click them in order, first to last.
REMEMBER THIS
Save what worked, change one lever, and fix the frame before the details.