I enjoy using AI image generators such as those now included in ChatGPT 4o and in Gemini, whether for my own entertainment or for practical uses (for example, the decorated letter “E” at the top of this newsletter was produced by ChatGPT.)
Usually, the more detailed and specific your prompt for these image generators, the better and more detailed the resulting image. Writing these detailed prompts can present a challenge, however. That’s why I frequently lean on the free version of Claude.ai – an LLM that excels at writing – to create the prompts for me. I can give Claude a general idea of the image I want created, and then Claude can write the more detailed prompt for me, which I then use with ChatGPT or Gemini.
Mushroom House
As an example, I gave Claude the following request:
"Mushroom House" – Imagine a haunting, mysterious, somewhat disturbing image of a Mushroom House. Imagine it as a work of art in any visual medium you think appropriate for this image. Now describe the image in detail as if you were writing a prompt for an image generator, with the goal of having it recreate the "Mushroom House" image you have imagined.
And Claude produced the following lengthy prompt:
A haunting dark fantasy digital artwork depicting a grotesque dwelling carved from an enormous, decaying mushroom in a mist-shrouded forest. The massive fungus stands 20 feet tall, its cap a sickly pale yellow-green with dark brown spots that look disturbingly like eyes or wounds. The stem has been hollowed out to create a dwelling, with a crooked wooden door that hangs slightly ajar, revealing only impenetrable darkness within.
Smaller parasitic mushrooms of various sizes sprout from the main structure like tumors - some glowing with an eerie bioluminescent blue-green light, others appearing to pulse and breathe. The texture is unnaturally organic and wet, with visible veins and capillaries running through the mushroom's flesh. Spores drift through the air like ash, creating an oppressive atmosphere.
The surrounding forest is perpetually shrouded in thick, low-hanging fog that seems to emanate from the mushroom itself. Gnarled, leafless trees with bark that resembles diseased skin reach toward the house with branch-fingers. The ground is carpeted with smaller mushrooms in unnatural colors - deep purples, sickly yellows, and bloody reds - forming fairy rings that seem to move when not directly observed.
A single window has been carved into the mushroom's cap, glowing with a dim, flickering amber light that casts dancing shadows. Strange symbols or scratches are etched around the doorframe, possibly warnings or protective wards. The entire scene is rendered in a hyperrealistic style with emphasis on unsettling organic textures and an oppressive color palette of browns, grays, and toxic greens.
The lighting is dim and diffused, suggesting either perpetual twilight or an overcast day, with the mushroom's bioluminescence providing the only real illumination in this nightmarish forest dwelling.
Here is the resulting image from ChatGPT:
An image from someone’s imagination, but not from mine.
Asking AI for prompt ideas or prompt improvements turns out to provide a lot of benefits, whether you’re generating images, asking AI to write code, or generating a detailed report with tools like Gemini Deep Research. The next time you’re stuck with unsatisfactory outputs from an LLM, ask it (or one of its friends) how you can improve the prompt. The results might surprise you.
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