Picasso, Dali, van Gogh, and, errrrm…. I’m sure there’s other artists, right? Construct a DALL·E prompt less ordinary with these thorough resources, documenting hundreds of artistic styles, movements, and other modifiers that can bring your subject to life. And if you get really stuck, there’s even a random prompt generator to inspire you! Happy prompting.
1. The DALL·E prompt book
An 82-page guide to getting the most out of DALL·E, with plenty of basic prompt tips for photography, illustration 3D styles and more.
2. The DALL·E Dictionary
A Notion-powered resource documenting DALL·E prompt and tips. It automatically imports highly-voted suggestions from the official DALL·E Discord group, so expect it to grow over time!.
3. A View From AI
A stunningly thorough collection of art styles that work with DALL·E, including 168 art mediums on paper, 82 photographic film types and 52 3D art mediums.
4. Aesthetics fandom
A fascinating, playful collection of 600+ ‘aesthetics’ from acidwave to zombiecore. Chances are remote that DALL·E understands most of these, but it’s still a great starting point once you’re sick to the back teeth of vaporwave and steampunk. (Sleepycore, anyone?)
5. DALL·E 2 artist studies, Google Drive
A hefty collection of over 400 artists, tested with DALL·E, although currently only in alphabetical order. Curated by the must-follow @sureailabs on Twitter.
Best viewed in ‘thumbnail’ mode, for obvious reasons.
6.Prompt Engineering Google Doc
Shout out to the OG prompt guide, this handy notebook of successful prompt tests from Randy & Luc, developed early in the artist test phase. Some good stuff!
7. Wikipedia, naturally
Take a random wander from one of Wikipedia’s mighty art lists: art techniques, art media, art movements, sculptors, painters, photographers, crafts, photographic techniques, architectural styles, film directors, decorative arts, cinematography, fashion and plenty more besides.
8. Film types
A simple archive featuring 56 (and counting) film types, both black and white and colour, with examples of each in action.
Not invented with DALL·E in mind, but may well be applicable.
9. Weird Wonderful AI Art
An epic archive of artist styles, prompt modifiers and -punk aesthetics.
Created by a collaborative team of AI enthusiasts, all prompts are illustrated using Disco Diffusion, a less-advanced artistic tool that’s nevertheless also based on CLIP (i.e: if Disco Diffusion recognises the term, so should DALL·E.)
Also check out the huge spreadsheet behind the scenes!
10. Google Arts & Culture Hub
A definitive guide to all things art from Google, covering 124 art movements, 240 mediums and 13,473 artists, featuring work from galleries and art museums around the world.
A real treasure trove!
11. Flickr Camera Finder
Browse the photography archives of Flickr by camera type, so you can see how different cameras and lenses look. Check the EXIF data on any image to see shutter speed, aperture, ISO speed and more, for advanced DALL·E prompting.
Or use Flickr’s Creative Commons search to find photos you’re allowed to inpaint and vary to your heart’s content.
12. Search 25,000 DALL·E images with these free tools
Two bare-bones search engines that launched on the same day, both ingesting DALL·E submissions from Reddit, Discord and other social channels, and making them searchable.
A good way to see if other people have tried similar prompts, and if they worked!
Visit dalle2.gallery or dalle2.app (I’m not sure the latter one is still updating.)
13. Generate a random prompt
Totally stuck? This fun tool generates a list of random prompts to try, featuring a variety of quirky characters, animals, and artistic styles.
To your left, for example, you’ll see ‘a sloth dressed as a doctor planting peas in a submarine, Baroque painting.’
Great if you’re totally stuck.
14. Social & accounts to follow
Twitter: peep the #DALLE hashtag, and follow this list of AI artists – and me!
Instagram: try the #dalle and #dalle2 hashtags, follow the official @openaidalle account, this site at @dallery.gallery, and check out who I’m following to fill your feed with AI artists!
Reddit: don’t miss the primary /r/DALLE2 subreddit and /bigsleep for AI art more generally.
Discord: the official DALL·E Discord is full of discussion (look for an invite when you’re invited to use the tool) but also check out the unofficial DALL·E Community Server and AI Prompt Sharing communities! The Weird Wonderful AI Art site has a Discord, also.
Newsletters: the DALL·Ery SUMM·Ary, from yours truly, AI Future and Multimodal,
Got a useful resource that belongs in this list? Let me know!
