Image Style: Editorial Product Photography

What it does

A ready-made image prompt for an editorial product look: a matte black stone pedestal, one soft key light, a thin warm-gold rim light, a near-black background with faint haze. You change only [PRODUCT] and [MATERIAL DETAIL], so every product in a catalogue or campaign shares the same light, the same camera height and the same size in the frame.

It is written in full sentences, so the same text works in Midjourney, FLUX.2, Nano Banana and GPT-Image. It also fixes three things a quick prompt usually leaves to chance: where the shadows fall, how big the product sits in the frame, and whether the product stays sharp from front to back.

Use it when

• You need hero or social images for several products that should look like one shoot.
• You are mocking up a premium brand look before booking a photographer.
• You want one style reference your whole team pastes, instead of rewriting prompts per product.

Skip it when

• The image must show your exact product on a shop listing and you have no photo of it to attach. A prompt made of words gives you a product like yours, not your product.
• Your brand is bright and playful. The bright variant below helps, but the block is built around a dark, moody palette.

The prompt

Editorial product photograph of [PRODUCT], standing on a matte black stone pedestal. The camera is at the product's mid-height, looking straight on, and the product fills about 60% of the frame height. One large soft key light from the upper left; a thin warm-gold rim light tracing the right edge of the product; soft shadows falling to the lower right. Deep charcoal background fading to near-black, with faint haze behind the product. 85mm lens look: the product is sharp from front to back and the background is softly out of focus. Colour palette: warm ivory, antique gold and near-black. A faint reflection of the product on the polished front edge of the pedestal. True-to-life material detail: [MATERIAL DETAIL]. The background is clean and empty; the only lettering in the frame is the product's own label. Vertical 4:5 frame, product centred.

How to use

1. Replace [PRODUCT] with a short physical description: what it is, size cue, material, colour, one key detail. Example: "a 50 ml amber glass perfume bottle with a brushed brass cap".

2. Replace [MATERIAL DETAIL] with the one surface that sells it. Example: "light passing through the amber glass, fine brushing lines on the cap".

3. If you have a photo of the real product, attach it and add this sentence at the very start: "Use the attached photo as the product: keep its shape, proportions, colours and label exactly as they are." This works in Nano Banana, GPT-Image, FLUX.2 (reference images) and Midjourney's Edit Model.

4. For a series, change nothing except the two placeholders. Keep the lighting sentences word for word.

5. Bright variant: replace "a matte black stone pedestal" with "a honed travertine ledge" and "front edge of the pedestal" with "front edge of the ledge", replace "Deep charcoal background fading to near-black, with faint haze behind the product" with "Warm greige background with a soft, even gradient", and replace "near-black" in the palette with "warm greige". Leave the lighting sentences as they are.

6. Check before you use an image:

   • Shape and proportions match the real product.
   • Label text and logo position are correct.
   • The colour is still right: a gold rim light warms everything, so compare with a plain photo of the product.
   • The pedestal reflection shows only the product, nothing extra.
   • No stray lettering in the background.

   If an image will sell the product and any of these checks fails, regenerate it with the reference photo, or composite your real product photo into the scene. Don't publish a product that differs from what the buyer will receive.

How to run (Oct 2026)

• Midjourney (V8.2, the default): paste it into the Imagine bar on midjourney.com or in Discord and add --ar 4:5 --raw at the end; --raw gives a plainer photographic look. Add --hd for native 2K finals. For quick drafts, --v 8.1 is the fastest version. To keep a series matching, use your best result as --sref. With a real product photo, use the Edit Model, which takes up to 4 references.
• FLUX.2 ([pro], [max] or [klein]): paste it as it is; FLUX.2 follows prose better than keyword lists. Set 4:5 in the tool. Through the API, [pro] and [max] take up to 8 reference images, so attach the product photo there. Brand colours can be given as hex values (for example #C9A227 instead of "antique gold"). On [klein], add a final line "Style: editorial product photography. Mood: quiet, premium." to steady the look.
• Nano Banana (2.1 by default; Pro for complex jobs): use it in the Gemini app, Google AI Studio or the Gemini API. The prompt already states 4:5; in AI Studio or the API you can also set the aspect ratio in the request. Choose 2K or 4K for finals (uppercase K). Attach the product photo as an object reference. If label text must read perfectly, use Nano Banana Pro, which Google suggests for professional text rendering.
• GPT-Image (2.5 Flare by default): in ChatGPT Images (all plans), attach the product photo, paste the prompt, and fix details with short follow-ups in the same chat. In the Images API, 4:5 is a custom size such as 1024x1280 (both sides multiples of 16). Use quality low for drafts and compare higher settings, up to max, for the final.

Example

Input

• [PRODUCT]: a 50 ml amber glass perfume bottle with a brushed brass cap
• [MATERIAL DETAIL]: light passing through the amber glass, fine brushing lines on the cap
• A phone photo of the real bottle is attached.

The prompt you paste (Nano Banana 2.1, 2K):

Use the attached photo as the product: keep its shape, proportions, colours and label exactly as they are. Editorial product photograph of a 50 ml amber glass perfume bottle with a brushed brass cap, standing on a matte black stone pedestal. The camera is at the product's mid-height, looking straight on, and the product fills about 60% of the frame height. [... the rest of the block unchanged ...] True-to-life material detail: light passing through the amber glass, fine brushing lines on the cap. [...]

What to expect: the bottle centred on the pedestal, the amber glass glowing where the rim light passes through it, a gold highlight along the right side of the cap, the background dissolving into haze. A typical catch in the check: the brass cap comes out polished instead of brushed. A follow-up fixes it: "The cap is brushed brass with fine lines, not polished. Keep everything else exactly the same."

Illustrative example written by Meevra to show the format; your results will differ.

Troubleshooting

• The product shape or label is wrong. Attach a real photo (step 3). Without one, shorten [PRODUCT] to shape, material and colour, and add the label in an image editor afterwards.
• The gold light overwhelms the product. Change "a thin warm-gold rim light" to "a faint warm rim light" for the whole series, not just one image, so the shots still match.
• The products come out at different sizes across the series. Keep "fills about 60% of the frame height" unchanged; for very wide products, write "fills about 60% of the frame width" for all of them.
• Props or text appear in the background. In FLUX.2 [pro] and [max], don't add "no props": describe the background you want in more detail instead ("a smooth, empty charcoal backdrop").
• Midjourney looks too painterly. Keep --raw and lower --stylize.

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