After spending way too many hours testing prompts on Nano Banana Pro through the Nano AI workbench, I noticed a pattern: this model rewards a specific prompt structure that's different from what you'd write for DALL-E 3 or Midjourney.
This isn't a "1000 prompts you can copy" listicle. It's 5 actual recipes I keep coming back to, with the why behind each.
Why Recipes Beat Random Prompting
Most "prompt engineering" advice is just "add more adjectives." That works on bigger models like DALL-E 3 because they have huge prompt-following capacity. Smaller models like Nano Banana Pro reward terseness — long prompts confuse them.
The recipes below all share a structure:
[subject] + [lighting/time] + [medium/style anchor]
Three slots. Short. The model fills in everything else.
Recipe 1: The "Cinematic Portrait"
cinematic close-up of [subject], golden hour, photorealistic, 35mm film
Examples:
cinematic close-up of a fox, golden hour, photorealistic, 35mm filmcinematic close-up of an elderly fisherman, golden hour, photorealistic, 35mm film
Why it works: "35mm film" is a strong style anchor that the model recognizes from photography metadata in training data. "Golden hour" forces warm lighting. "Close-up" prevents the model from getting lost in background detail.
Recipe 2: The "Flat Editorial Illustration"
flat illustration, [scene description], muted palette, editorial style
Examples:
flat illustration, retro 90s computer terminal on a wooden desk, muted palette, editorial styleflat illustration, a person reading on a balcony at dawn, muted palette, editorial style
Why it works: "Editorial illustration" is a specific genre with clean lines, limited color, and intentional composition. The model latches onto it cleanly. Try it for blog hero images.
Recipe 3: The "Studio Product Shot"
studio product shot, [object] on [surface], soft shadows, [color] background
Examples:
studio product shot, ceramic coffee mug on marble surface, soft shadows, beige backgroundstudio product shot, vintage pocket watch on velvet, soft shadows, deep blue background
Why it works: This is the most "generation-ready" recipe — Nano Banana Pro produces near-photoreal product shots with this template that you can drop straight into a landing page.
Recipe 4: The "Mood Landscape"
[place] at [time], [weather/atmosphere], wide shot, atmospheric
Examples:
Tokyo back alley at night, light rain, wide shot, atmosphericMongolian steppe at dusk, gathering storm, wide shot, atmospheric
Why it works: "Wide shot" and "atmospheric" together push the model toward landscape composition. Without them, it tends to default to mid-range portrait framing.
Recipe 5: The "Character Card"
[character description], full body, neutral pose, [background], concept art
Examples:
cyberpunk courier, full body, neutral pose, gray studio background, concept artmedieval librarian, full body, neutral pose, gray studio background, concept art
Why it works: "Concept art" + "neutral pose" + "studio background" gives you a character reference sheet that's useful for further editing or as a placeholder asset.
Pattern: Anchor Words
The thing all 5 recipes share is anchor words:
-
cinematic,photorealistic,35mm film -
flat illustration,editorial -
studio product shot,soft shadows -
wide shot,atmospheric -
concept art,neutral pose
Anchor words are short phrases that the model treats as style/composition triggers. They do more work than 5 adjectives.
Try Them
If you want to test these recipes, Nano AI's free workbench has no signup wall — paste any of the prompts above and you'll get an output in a few seconds.
I keep meaning to write a longer post on why the model responds to anchor words rather than long descriptions. Let me know in the comments if that's interesting.
Disclaimer: I'm an active user of Nano AI but not affiliated with the company. These recipes are from my own testing.
