How to match the style of an image with Midjourney

I'm sure you've found cool images you like across the interwebs, but don't know how to describe their style in your own prompts. That's where the sref command in Midjourney comes in handy. You don't need to describe the style to apply it to your prompt. Just a reference image. Let's walk through how to use it.

Step 1: Start with a prompt

Let's keep it real simple and use the prompt alien cyborg statue. I'm in a dystopian mood, what can I say. Let's see what image plain jane Midjourney generates for this prompt.

Prompt

/imagine prompt alien cyborg statue

Step 2: Find an image online with the style you want

I thought, wouldn't it'd be cool to see an alien cyborg as a European style statue? Something the aliens might make once they take over. I grabbed the image of the Statue of David from Wikipedia to try it, but you can use any image.

URL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Michelangelo%27s_David_-_right_view_2.jpg

Step 3: Ask Midjourney to combine your prompt with your style

This is where the magic happens.

Add the sref (style reference) parameter, followed by your reference style URL, and voila! In my test, it worked out quite nicely. The alien cyborg statue looks like it belongs in a fancy European museum. I found other examples where it didn't work out so well, so you may have to mess around with it. For example, if you don't want to sleep tonight, repeat this exercise with the prompt teddy bear statue.

Prompt

/imagine prompt alien cyborg statue --sref https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Michelangelo%27s_David_-_right_view_2.jpg

More generally:

/imagine prompt [your prompt] --sref [your style reference url]

Bonus Step: Mess around with the style weight for more control

To make your result look more or less like the style reference image, you can change the weight with the sw (style weight) command. By default, Midjourney sets it to 100. It can be any number from 0 to 1000. 0 is to ignore the style reference, and 1000 is maximum focus on using the reference image style.

Style weight at 750

/imagine prompt alien cyborg statue --sref https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Michelangelo%27s_David_-_right_view_2.jpg --sw 750

Style weight at 1000

/imagine prompt alien cyborg statue --sref https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Michelangelo%27s_David_-_right_view_2.jpg --sw 1000

Thanks for reading! Join our waitlist to recieve access to our community of AI creators and creations.