Tutorial to create ultra-realistic images with Midjourney and the new DALL-E parameters

📌 In brief : Creating ultra-realistic images is no longer the preserve of professional graphic designers. Midjourney and DALL-E, two revolutionary artificial intelligences, are democratizing image creation by offering powerful tools to any creative, amateur or experienced. This tutorial explores how to master these platforms to generate striking visuals, covering the art of the prompt, advanced parameters, and sophisticated editing techniques.

Key points : Understand how diffusion models work • Write effective prompts in English • Master critical parameters (aspect, stylize, chaos) • Use style and character references for consistency • Explore editing tools (Vary, Pan, Zoom) • Navigate commercial and legal considerations • Choose between Midjourney, DALL-E and Stable Diffusion according to your needs.

🎨 Midjourney: when artificial intelligence becomes a creative partner

Since its modest beginnings in February 2022, Midjourney has established itself as one of the most influential platforms in the image generation world. The founder, David Holz—who also co-created Leap Motion and worked for NASA—built the company on a unique philosophy: not to replace the artist, but to provide them with an “engine for imagination”.

Unlike traditional tools, Midjourney doesn't require tedious clicks or nested menus. You simply describe your vision in natural language, and the artificial intelligence interprets it, refines it, and materializes it into images. With about 16 million users registered on its official Discord server, the platform was built on a massive feedback loop where each creation feeds the model's improvement.

It's like being in an artisan workshop, where each brushstroke enriches the collective mastery of the craft. Except here, the brush speaks your language.

🔬 How does Midjourney really work?

At the heart of Midjourney lies a technology called a diffusion model. Rather than “drawing” an image from scratch, this algorithm works in reverse: it starts from pure visual noise—a chaos of random pixels—and progressively refines it, step by step, guided by your textual description.

Imagine a sculptor facing a raw block of marble. The prompt is not a detailed blueprint, but the sculptor's vision and the chisel that gradually reveals the hidden shape. This process, called “denoising,” transforms chaos into clarity, vagueness into detail. It's what gives Midjourney its so recognizable visual signature: an aesthetic often described as more painterly, more “dreamy” than its competitors.

Unlike Stable Diffusion (whose code is open), Midjourney's specific implementation remains jealously guarded. It's this “secret blend” that allows it to produce images of incredible coherence and detail richness without sacrificing artistic interpretation.

⚙️ Advanced parameters: your control palette

If the prompt is your vision, the parameters are your precision levers. They are always preceded by two dashes and placed at the end of your request. Mastering these tools turns Midjourney from a black box into an instrument in your hand.

📐 The essentials: aspect, stylize and chaos

The –aspect (or –ar) parameter defines your image's ratio. By default, Midjourney generates squares. But you can request panoramic (–ar 16:9), portrait (–ar 2:3), or even exotic formats (–ar 1:4 for a bookmark, –ar 10:1 for an ultra-wide frieze). It's the framing choice, like a director deciding whether to shoot a scene with a normal lens or a wide angle.

–stylize (–s) controls the intensity of Midjourney's “aesthetic DNA.” A low value (–s 50) produces an image almost literally faithful to the prompt. A high value (–s 750) allows artistic interpretation more freedom, adding details and nuances you didn't explicitly request. The default value is 100.

–chaos increases the diversity of the four generated images. With chaos at 0, results will be close to each other. With chaos at 100, they will be radically different. It's the ideal tool when you want to stray from beaten paths and explore bold interpretations.

🎯 Exclude, preserve and create patterns

The –no parameter acts like a veto: if you imagine a flower garden but you would love everything except roses, simply write “–no roses”. It saves countless frustrating iterations.

–seed is your reproducibility key. Using the same seed with the same prompt will yield very similar results. It's crucial for progressively refining a creation or maintaining consistency across a series. To discover the seed of an existing image, react to it with the ✉️ emoji.

–tile generates images that seamlessly tile without visible seams. It's the magic wand for repeatable patterns, wallpaper textures, or textile designs. Try “Greek mosaic pattern –tile” and you'll understand the magic instantly.

🗣️ The art of the prompt: when words become images

Writing an effective prompt for Midjourney is not listing keywords like a shopping list. It's crafting a sentence that breathes, that guides the AI without suffocating it, that states “what”, “where”, “how” without drowning nuances in an uninterrupted flood of descriptors.

📝 The ideal structure: 4W1H

The 4W1H method (What, Who, Where, When, How) offers a simple but powerful mental structure. What: the genre or type of work (movie poster, photograph, sculpture). Who: the main subject (a female astronaut, a pensive cat, an old man selling dreams). Where: the setting (in front of a nebula, on a Tokyo street at night, in a 17th-century library). When: the moment or lighting (starlight, dramatic sunset, cyberpunk neon). How: the style and details (80s retro style, highly detailed, 8k, impressionist oil painting).

Take this example: “Science-fiction movie poster of a female astronaut in front of a colorful nebula, lit by starlight, 80s retro style, highly detailed, 8k”. Each element contributes without redundancy. It's elegant, it's complete, it's effective.

💡 Prefer English (but French works)

Midjourney was primarily trained on English-language data, which means it understands nuances, prepositions, and contextual relationships more finely in English. That said, prompts in French are working increasingly well, especially with version V7. If you master English, test your ideas in both languages to compare subtleties.

Be specific. Instead of “a man”, describe “an old explorer with a white beard, wearing a worn linen suit, eyes tired but bright”. The more you detail, the better the AI understands your intention and avoids clichés.

⚡ Multi-prompting with colons

Midjourney allows an advanced technique called multi-prompting using the separator ::. It forces the AI to process concepts separately before blending them. For example, “hot dog” will generate a sandwich, while “hot :: dog” will create a dog that is hot. You can even weight importance: “vaisseau::2 spatial” will give more weight to the word “vaisseau”.

It's a subtle but powerful technique, especially when combining concepts that might “cannibalize” each other in a standard interpretation.

🖼️ References: maintaining consistency across creations

One of the major frustrations with image generators has long been narrative inconsistency: a character who changes face in every image, a style that drifts, an atmosphere that dilutes. Midjourney revolutionized this with references—tools of remarkable power.

👤 Character reference (–cref): permanent faces

Imagine you're creating a comic book or a film storyboard. You need your heroine to be recognizable in all scenes, regardless of pose, environment, or lighting. That's exactly what –cref enables.

You provide the URL of a reference image (your initial illustration of the character), and Midjourney uses it as a fidelity guide. The –cw (Character Weight, from 0 to 100) parameter adjusts the intensity: –cw 100 copies the face, hair, and clothing precisely, while –cw 0 focuses only on the face. It's the key to exploring bold variations—even the same costume on Saturn, aging the character, radically different contexts—while keeping the visual identity intact.

🎨 Style reference (–sref): the secret codes

–sref captures the aesthetic, colors, textures and general mood of an image without copying its composition or subject. It's your “copy-paste” of style. The –sw (Style Weight, from 0 to 1000) parameter dials the intensity.

SREFs are often presented as “secret codes”—numbers like “2192332540”—that open unique visual universes created by the community. Sites like Midjourney 2025 offer collections of SREF codes allowing you to explore styles never imagined before. You can also combine multiple SREFs to merge aesthetics: “A mystical forest –sref 2192332540::2 4136665817”.

📸 Image reference (–iw): guide the composition

–iw (Image Weight) inspires Midjourney from an existing composition without reproducing the subject or style. It's subtle but useful: you point to a photograph you like for its composition, balance, framing, and Midjourney applies it to your new idea.

✏️ Editing tools: transform, extend, refine

After generating an image, Midjourney offers a suite of tools to polish it. It's like going from draft to final manuscript, from sketch to watercolor.

🔄 Vary and subtle or radical variations

Vary (Subtle) generates minor variants, keeping the essence of the original image. Vary (Strong) explores bold interpretations, sometimes surprising. It's your iterative exploration tool: you test, you refine, you discover directions you hadn't considered.

🎬 Pan and Zoom: expand the frame

The Pan arrows (⬅️ ➡️ ⬆️ ⬇️) shift the framing, intelligently generating new elements beyond the original borders. Zoom Out pulls the camera back, revealing the surrounding context. Custom Zoom is the supreme function: it lets you change the prompt during the zoom out, creating striking narrative transitions. Imagine a flower that turns out to be in a lady's hat, which is itself in a painting in a museum, all in a single progressive image.

✂️ Editor: Midjourney's inpainting

After upscaling an image, the Vary (Region) button opens an editor where you can select a precise area and regenerate it with a modified prompt. Need to change the color of a dress? Fix an unfortunate detail? Place an object in a character's hand? The editor understands your intention and intelligently regenerates in harmony with the rest of the composition.

💰 Pricing and subscription models: which plan for which creative?

Midjourney abandoned free trials in 2023 and now operates on a pure subscription model. Prices range from $10 to $120 per month, each offering a different amount of “fast GPU hours”—the currency Midjourney charges for generations.

📊 Decoding the plans

The Basic plan ($10/month) offers 3.3 fast hours monthly, about 200 images. It's enough to taste the tool but limiting for a serious creative. The Standard plan ($30/month) unlocks 15 fast hours (~990 images) and, importantly, Relax mode—the real key. In Relax mode, once your fast hours are used up, you continue to generate indefinitely but more slowly (1 to 10 minutes depending on load). It's ideal for experimenting without counting every click.

The Pro plan ($60/month) adds Stealth mode, crucial for confidential or commercial projects. By default, all your creations are public. Stealth keeps them private. The Mega plan ($120/month) is reserved for high-volume production.

For most creatives and freelancers, the Standard plan offers the best value. That's where unlimited experimentation becomes possible, transforming Midjourney from a trial tool into a real production platform.

🔀 Midjourney vs DALL-E vs Stable Diffusion: choosing your tool

The landscape of AI image generation has fragmented into three main approaches. Each excels in different areas, and the choice depends on your priorities: artistic quality, ease of use, technical control, or pricing.

🎬 Midjourney: for inspiration and aesthetics

Midjourney shines when you seek artistic quality “out of the box.” Its default style is cinematic, detailed, evocative. Advanced parameters (–cref, –sref, Pan, Zoom) offer unmatched narrative control. It's the tool for artists, designers, creatives who want the AI to be a muse, not a servant.

Downside: the Discord interface can be confusing at first, and the parameters require a learning curve.

💬 DALL-E 3: for ease and literal understanding

DALL-E 3 (accessible via ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot) excels at understanding complex natural language. If you write a nuanced sentence with prepositions, spatial relations, and subtle intentions, DALL-E grasps the intent better. The conversational interface of ChatGPT makes iteration simple and intuitive: “generate this, no wait, change that”.

Downside: editing and control parameters are limited, and the default aesthetic is smoother, less artistically rigorous.

⚙️ Stable Diffusion: for total control and free use

Stable Diffusion, open-source and runnable locally on your computer (with a decent GPU), offers absolute control. You can tweak every parameter, use thousands of alternative models, specialized LoRAs, ControlNet to guide composition… It's the platform for tech enthusiasts and developers who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty.

Downside: installation and configuration are complex, the technical interface (like Automatic1111) can be intimidating, and quality depends heavily on the chosen model and your expertise.

⚖️ Commercial and legal considerations

Yes, paying Midjourney subscribers can use their creations commercially. You own the generated images and can sell them, print them on products, include them in advertising campaigns. Exception: companies generating more than $1 million annually must have a Pro or Mega subscription.

⚠️ The legal murk remains

However, complex legal questions still hover. The U.S. Copyright Office has ruled that works created entirely by an AI cannot automatically be copyrightable because they lack a “human author.” That means your Midjourney image, although you own it, might not be legally defendable against copying.

More troubling: Midjourney, like all generative AIs, was trained on billions of images scraped from the Internet. Groups of artists have sued, accusing Midjourney of systematic plagiarism. Recently, Disney and NBCUniversal launched a massive lawsuit accusing the platform of reproducing their iconic characters (Mickey, the heroes of Star Wars). This legal instability means that if an unfavorable court decision is rendered, the legal status of all Midjourney-generated images could be called into question.

For sensitive commercial projects, add a visible human touch—a manual edit, a conceptual modification—to strengthen your argument of mixed creation. Consult a copyright expert if your income depends on it.

🚀 The future: beyond still images

Midjourney doesn't intend to stop at static images. The company's roadmap targets much more ambitious horizons, turning the platform into a true world-building engine.

🎥 Video and 3D generation

Early versions of video generation are already in testing, allowing the creation of short 5-second videos from an image and a prompt. The goal is a coherent video model capable of generating fluid sequences with advanced controls over movement and camera.

David Holz described Midjourney as a “very slow game engine.” His ultimate ambition? Generate volumetric 3D worlds in real time at 60 frames per second. It's a science-fiction horizon that could redefine how we design, plan, and communicate creative projects.

Explore the complete guide to generating realistic images to deepen your current knowledge.

🎯 Three prompts to try immediately

To put these lessons into practice, here are three prompts designed following best practices: 4W1H structure, advanced parameters, and an orientation toward photorealism.

🌊 Prompt 1: hyperrealistic landscape

« A serene waterfall cascading through a lush enchanted forest at sunrise, crystal-clear water tumbling over moss-covered boulders, morning mist and golden light rays filtering through vibrant green foliage, ultra-realistic photography shot with a Canon EOS R5, 35mm, f/2.8, ISO 100, dramatic wide-angle composition, hyper-detailed, saturated natural colors, 8k –ar 16:9 –v 7 –s 750 –style raw –q 2 »

This prompt structures each layer: the subject (waterfall), the environment (enchanted forest), the lighting (sunrise, golden rays), the technique (Canon R5 photography), and the output parameters (cinematic ratio, high stylize, maximum quality).

🚀 Prompt 2: cosmic portrait

« Close-up portrait of an intense-eyed green-eyed female astronaut in a futuristic metallic spacesuit with cosmic reflections, set against a colorful starfield nebula background, dramatic Rembrandt-inspired chiaroscuro lighting, contemplative and powerful expression, oil painting blended with high-resolution photography, fine skin and hair details, cosmic blue and violet color palette, centered immersive composition –ar 2:3 –v 7 –s 600 –cref [character image URL] –cw 100 »

This one includes a character reference, allowing you to recreate the same face in radically different contexts.

🌃 Prompt 3: urban cyberpunk

« Panoramic view of a vibrant neon-lit Tokyo street at night, futuristic cyberpunk buildings towering above a bustling crowd, wet pavement reflections from recent rain, dynamic immersive atmosphere, Blade Runner-inspired cinematic style, shot with a Sony A7R V, 24mm, f/1.4, long exposure capturing motion blur in lights, ultra-detailed, saturated red and electric blue colors, epic wide composition –ar 21:9 –v 7 –c 50 –no blurry people –tile »

The latter adds chaos for more diversity, the “no” parameter to exclude an annoying element, and “tile” to create a seamless pattern if you want to use it as a texture.

Also check the complete Midjourney tutorial for detailed demonstrations.

🎓 From curiosity to mastery

The path to mastering Midjourney and the advanced parameters is a gradual adventure. In the beginning you test, fail, discover. Gradually, patterns emerge. You learn that a –s at 750 creates gold, that a good style reference eliminates hours of iteration, that a well-chosen seed is your key to reproducibility.

It's a bit like bookbinding: on the first day, the gestures are clumsy. After hundreds of projects, the hands know, the eyes see, and each creation becomes a conversation between your vision and the material. With generative AI, it's the same. Your vision and the algorithm dance together.

True creative freedom does not emerge from the absence of constraints, but from mastering the tools at your disposal. And now, you have the keys.