This visual layer defines the personality of the image, how it should look, feel, and behave visually.Subject and composition decide what you see and where it sits, and style and medium determine how it appears. They control lighting, texture, depth, and emotional tone, the qualities that make an image cinematic, hand-drawn, playful, or severe.
Medium describes the visual format or production method. It tells the model which visual conventions to follow: photograph, watercolor painting, oil on canvas, digital 3D render, flat vector illustration. Each medium carries its own rules about light, edge sharpness, texture, and color blending. A watercolor prompt will interpret outlines softly and diffuse detail, while a vector prompt will create flat shapes and clean geometry. Being explicit about medium helps the model adopt the right visual language from the start.
Style narrows the aesthetic within that medium. It can refer to genre (editorial fashion photography, mid-century modern poster, Baroque painting), movement (Bauhaus, impressionist, cyberpunk), or even technique (collage, ink sketch, isometric render). Style phrases help the model pick palettes, lighting setups, and composition patterns that feel authentic to a tradition.
Vibe adds mood and emotion, the intangible atmosphere that connects everything. You can use tone words like serene, dramatic, conceptual, grunge, dreamlike, high-energy. Vibe isn’t about what’s physically visible but about how the scene should feel. You can also blend multiple moods as long as they align: moody cinematic lighting with a sense of quiet tension. If they compete, simplify to one central emotion.Together, these three elements work like film direction. The medium is your format, the style is your visual grammar, and the vibe is the emotional filter. Used with intention and control, they give the model both artistic context and creative license, allowing the final image to carry a consistent tone rather than a collage of mismatched aesthetics.
Portrait of a dancer in soft cinematic photography, inspired by 1970s editorial style, calm and introspective mood.Compare that to:Portrait of a dancer as bold vector art in bright pop-art colors, energetic and abstract.Here we see the same subject and composition, but radically different outcomes. This is proof that style, vibe, and medium are what make an image speak its emotional language.
