Best Negative Prompts for AI Art

Negative prompts tell AI art generators what to avoid. While positive prompts describe what you want, negative prompts eliminate common artifacts, unwanted elements, and quality issues. Mastering negative prompts dramatically improves AI art output quality.

How Negative Prompts Work

Negative prompts guide AI generation away from specified concepts. They’re particularly effective in Stable Diffusion-based systems where the model can actively reduce the likelihood of generating specified elements.

Different platforms handle negative prompts differently:

• Stable Diffusion/SDXL: Full negative prompt support
• Midjourney: Limited (—no parameter)
• DALL-E 3: No direct negative prompts
• Multic: Optimized prompting with quality defaults

Platform Negative Prompt Support

Feature	Multic	Stable Diffusion	Midjourney	DALL-E 3
AI Images	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
AI Video	Yes	Limited	No	No
Comics/Webtoons	Yes	No	No	No
Visual Novels	Yes	No	No	No
Branching Stories	Yes	No	No	No
Real-time Collab	Yes	No	No	No
Publishing	Yes	No	No	No
Negative Prompts	Built-in quality	Full support	Limited	None

Essential Negative Prompts by Category

Quality and Artifact Prevention

Core quality negatives:

lowres, low quality, worst quality, jpeg artifacts, blurry,
pixelated, grainy, noisy, oversaturated, underexposed,
overexposed, bad compression

When to use: Almost always. These prevent common quality issues.

Anatomy Issues

Human anatomy negatives:

bad anatomy, bad hands, bad fingers, extra fingers, missing fingers,
extra limbs, missing limbs, extra arms, missing arms,
extra legs, fused limbs, malformed limbs, mutated,
disfigured, deformed, ugly, mutation, bad proportions

When to use: Any generation involving human figures.

Face-specific negatives:

bad face, ugly face, distorted face, asymmetrical face,
cross-eyed, crossed eyes, bad eyes, distorted eyes,
unnatural face, uncanny valley

When to use: Portraits, character close-ups, any face-focused generation.

Style Control

Avoiding photorealistic elements in stylized art:

photorealistic, photo, photograph, 3d render, realistic,
hyperrealistic, photography

When to use: When generating anime, cartoon, or illustrated styles.

Avoiding stylized elements in realistic images:

cartoon, anime, drawing, painting, illustration, sketch,
artistic, stylized, 2d

When to use: When generating photorealistic images.

Content Control

Avoiding unwanted elements:

text, watermark, signature, logo, banner, username,
copyright, label, writing, letters

When to use: Almost always, unless text is desired.

Background control:

busy background, cluttered, distracting background,
multiple subjects, crowd

When to use: When focus on main subject is important.

Negative Prompts by Art Style

Anime/Manga Style

photorealistic, 3d, 3d render, realistic, photograph,
bad anatomy, extra fingers, missing fingers, bad hands,
low quality, worst quality, jpeg artifacts, blurry,
watermark, text, signature

Comic Book Style

photorealistic, photograph, 3d render,
bad anatomy, distorted, deformed, ugly,
low quality, blurry, noisy, grainy,
watermark, text, signature, logo

Photorealistic Style

cartoon, anime, drawing, painting, illustration,
sketch, artistic, stylized, 2d, cel-shaded,
bad anatomy, distorted, deformed, disfigured,
low quality, blurry, grainy, noise,
watermark, signature

Painterly/Artistic Style

photograph, photography, photorealistic, 3d render,
bad anatomy, distorted, deformed,
low quality, blurry, pixelated,
watermark, signature, text

Building Effective Negative Prompt Sets

The Layered Approach

Build negative prompts in layers:

1. Quality foundation: Always include core quality negatives
2. Anatomy layer: Add if humans/creatures present
3. Style layer: Add to control artistic direction
4. Content layer: Add specific unwanted elements
5. Context layer: Add based on specific image needs

Example Layered Negative Prompt

For anime character portrait:

low quality, worst quality, jpeg artifacts, blurry, noisy,
bad anatomy, bad hands, extra fingers, missing fingers,
malformed limbs, disfigured, deformed, ugly,
photorealistic, 3d render, realistic, photograph,
watermark, text, signature, logo,
bad face, cross-eyed, asymmetrical face

The Minimal Approach

Sometimes less is more. Over-prompting can reduce creativity:

Minimal effective negative:

low quality, worst quality, bad anatomy, watermark

Start minimal, add details if needed.

Platform-Specific Strategies

Stable Diffusion / SDXL

Full negative prompt support. Use comprehensive negatives:

SD 1.5 baseline:

lowres, bad anatomy, bad hands, text, error, missing fingers,
extra digit, fewer digits, cropped, worst quality, low quality,
normal quality, jpeg artifacts, signature, watermark, username, blurry

SDXL baseline:

low quality, worst quality, jpeg artifacts, blurry,
bad anatomy, bad hands, deformed, distorted, disfigured,
mutation, extra limbs, missing limbs, floating limbs,
disconnected limbs, malformed hands, long neck,
watermark, text, signature

Midjourney

Limited negative support through —no parameter:

--no text, watermark, blur, distortion

Less effective than SD negatives. Focus on positive prompting instead.

DALL-E 3

No direct negative prompts. Use positive alternatives:

• Instead of “no watermark” say “clean image without text or watermarks”
• Describe what you want explicitly

Multic

Quality defaults are built-in. Focus on positive prompts describing your story needs. The platform handles common quality issues automatically.

Common Negative Prompt Mistakes

Over-Prompting

Problem: Adding too many negatives restricts generation creativity.

Symptom: Images look generic or fail to generate interesting compositions.

Solution: Start minimal, add only what’s needed.

Contradictory Negatives

Problem: Negating concepts you actually want.

Symptom: Missing expected elements in generation.

Solution: Review negatives for conflicts with positive prompt.

Wrong Priority

Problem: Putting important negatives at the end (some models prioritize earlier terms).

Symptom: Specific unwanted elements still appearing.

Solution: Put critical negatives earlier in the string.

Style Mismatch

Problem: Using photorealistic negatives for photorealistic images.

Symptom: Weird, uncanny results.

Solution: Match negatives to intended style.

Negative Prompts for Specific Issues

Fixing Hands

bad hands, malformed hands, missing fingers, extra fingers,
fused fingers, too many fingers, mutated hands,
poorly drawn hands, extra digits, fewer digits

Fixing Faces

bad face, ugly face, distorted face, extra faces,
multiple faces, clone face, deformed face, ugly,
disfigured, mutation, mutated

Fixing Bodies

bad anatomy, bad proportions, extra limbs, missing limbs,
extra arms, extra legs, mutated, disfigured, malformed,
asymmetric, unnatural body, deformed body

Fixing Backgrounds

cluttered background, busy background, distracting elements,
messy, chaotic, noisy background, blurred background

Advanced Techniques

Weighted Negatives (Stable Diffusion)

Use weights to emphasize certain negatives:

(bad hands:1.5), (extra fingers:1.3), low quality

Higher weights = stronger avoidance.

Embedding Negatives

Pre-built negative embeddings:

• EasyNegative
• BadDream
• UnrealisticDream
• FastNegativeV2

Load once, use with simple trigger.

Dynamic Negatives

Adjust negatives based on subject:

• Portraits: Emphasize face/hand negatives
• Landscapes: Reduce anatomy negatives, add composition negatives
• Action: Add motion blur control

When Platforms Handle This For You

Manually crafting negative prompts requires understanding AI generation mechanics. For creators focused on storytelling rather than technical prompt engineering, integrated platforms offer advantages.

Multic applies quality optimization automatically, letting creators focus on describing what they want rather than what they don’t want. The platform’s generation is tuned for visual storytelling, handling common issues behind the scenes.

This doesn’t mean negative prompts are unnecessary everywhere—for local Stable Diffusion users seeking maximum control, mastering negatives is valuable. But for story-focused workflows, platform-level handling removes friction.

Making Your Choice

Master Negative Prompts if:

• Using Stable Diffusion / SDXL locally
• Maximum generation control is priority
• You enjoy technical optimization
• Creating standalone art pieces
• Troubleshooting specific recurring issues

Use Platform Solutions if:

• Story creation is primary goal
• Technical prompting should be minimized
• Consistent quality without manual tuning
• Collaboration and publishing matter
• Time better spent on narrative than prompts

Both approaches produce quality results. The right choice depends on whether you want to optimize generation technically or focus on creative storytelling.

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Want quality AI generation without prompt engineering? Multic handles optimization automatically so you can focus on your visual stories.

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Related: AI Art Prompts Guide and AI Comic Art Generator