Amazon Nova Canvas prompting best practices

Prompting for image generation models differs from prompting for large language models (LLMs). Image generation models do not have the ability to reason or interpret explicit commands. Therefore, it's best to phrase your prompt as if it were an image caption rather than a command or conversation. You might want to include details about the subject, action, environment, lighting, style, and camera position.

When writing an image generation prompt, be mindful of the following requirements and best practices:

  • Prompts must be no longer than 1024 characters. For very long prompts, place the least important details of your prompt near the end.

  • Do not use negation words like "no", "not", "without", and so on in your prompt. The model doesn't understand negation in a prompt and attempting to use negation will result in the opposite of what you intend. For example, a prompt such as "a fruit basket with no bananas" will actually signal the model to include bananas. Instead, you can use a negative prompt, via the negativeText parameter, to specify any objects or characteristics that you want to exclude from the image. For example "bananas".

  • As with prompts, omit negation words from your negative prompts.

  • When the output you get from a prompt is close to what you want but not quite perfect, try the following techniques one at a time in turn to refine your result:

    • Using a consistent seed value, make small changes to your prompt or negative prompt and re-run the prompt. This allows you to better understand how your prompt wording affects the output, allowing you to iteratively improve your results in a controlled way.

    • Once the prompt has been refined to your liking, generate more variations using the same prompt but a different seed value. It is often useful to generate multiple variations of an image by running the sample prompt with different seeds in order to find that perfect output image.

An effective prompt often includes short descriptions of...

  1. the subject

  2. the environment

  3. (optional) the position or pose of the subject

  4. (optional) lighting description

  5. (optional) camera position/framing

  6. (optional) the visual style or medium ("photo", "illustration", "painting", and so on)

Prompt: realistic editorial photo of female teacher standing at a blackboard with a warm smile

Negative Prompt: crossed arms

editorial photo of female teacher standing at a blackboard with a warm smile

Prompt: whimsical and ethereal soft-shaded story illustration: A woman in a large hat stands at the ship's railing looking out across the ocean

Negative Prompt: clouds, waves

whimsical and ethereal soft-shaded story illustration: A woman in a large hat stands at the ship's railing looking out across the ocean

Prompt: drone view of a dark river winding through a stark Iceland landscape, cinematic quality

drone view of a dark river winding through a stark Iceland landscape, cinematic quality

Prompt: A cool looking stylish man in an orange jacket, dark skin, wearing reflective glasses. Shot from slightly low angle, face and chest in view, aqua blue sleek building shapes in background.

A cool looking stylish man in an orange jacket, dark skin, wearing reflective glasses. Shot from slightly low angle, face and chest in view, aqua blue sleek building shapes in background.
Topics