Step 2 — Your Words Become a Target
That numerical summary of your meaning now becomes a target — a standing instruction that will be consulted at every single step of the painting process.
The useful mental picture is an art director standing behind the painter, holding your brief, and at every stage saying "more like this, less like that."
The director does not paint. It only judges direction. And critically, it judges the whole picture at once against the whole brief at once — it does not tick off your requirements one by one.
That single fact explains a lot of behaviour you have probably found maddening, and we'll come back to it two sections from now.
How hard the director pushes is usually a setting you control. Different tools call it different things — guidance, prompt strength, stylize, CFG, creativity — but it is always the same dial:
- Push too gently → the model wanders off and makes something pretty that isn't what you asked for
- Push too hard → the model over-corrects: scorched colours, crunchy contrast, stiff and literal compositions
- The sweet spot is usually near the default. When results look burnt or over-saturated, this dial is the first thing to turn down, not your prompt.