Step 03 — Understanding How AI Sees Your Prompts

This might sound weird, but AI doesn't actually understand language the way we do. It's doing pattern matching based on millions of images it learned from. When you type cinematic lighting, it's basically searching its memory for images tagged with those words. Specific language produces more accurate results. Change one word, get a completely different image. I tested this myself – dark forest gives you one vibe, shadowy forest gives you another, and mysterious forest creates something else entirely. The AI treats these as distinct concepts. Same with bright daylight versus golden hour lighting. Here's something most people don't know: the stuff at the beginning of your prompt usually gets more emphasis. So if you write beautiful flowers in a garden with mountains, you're emphasizing the flowers. Flip it around to majestic mountains with a flower garden in the foreground and suddenly mountains are the star. Too vague equals unpredictable garbage. Too detailed equals the AI getting confused. There's a sweet spot where you're giving enough direction without overwhelming the system. Genlab's prompts nail this balance. When your image doesn't match what you imagined, look at what came out versus what you asked for.