Midjourney Masterclass Part 2: Full Guide to Features & Tools

The Moment I Realize Midjourney Is More Than “Pretty Images”

In Part 1 of this series, we talked about how to talk to Midjourney — the mindset, language, and structure behind great prompts.

Now we go deeper.

This is the part where most marketers suddenly see the potential: Midjourney isn’t just an AI that makes images. It’s a creative environment with rules, tools, and workflows that shape how your ideas become visuals.

When I first explored Midjourney’s documentation, it felt like opening the backstage door to a design studio. Every tool had purpose. Every parameter unlocked control. And every reference image was a seed for visual consistency.

This guide distills every major section of Midjourney’s official documentation in plain language, with marketer-friendly storytelling, and in the exact order you’ll use them.

Prompting Basics: The Foundation of Everything

Your prompt is the creative spark. Midjourney’s core idea is simple: you describe what you want and how you want it, and the AI interprets your intent. Your prompt has three parts:

1. Subject — who or what is the focus?

2. Details — environment, lighting, style, emotion, medium.

3. Technical modifiers — parameters at the end of your prompt (like –ar 16:9 or –q 2).

Imagine that you want to create a moody, atmospheric street scene with emotional tone of a girl standing in a street.

A bad example of Prompt:

– a girl outside

This prompt won’t produce good results because it provides no direction — no mood (happy, sad, cinematic), no environment (city, forest, indoors), and no visual cues like lighting, camera style, or aesthetic. With so little guidance, Midjourney will default to something generic and emotionally flat.

The whole point of AI is to reduce guesswork, not create more of it. Iteration is essential, but if every output starts from randomness, it becomes almost impossible to make meaningful progress.

The more intentional the description, the closer the image aligns to your vision. Midjourney doesn’t need perfect grammar — it needs clarity.

A well structured prompt:

-a young woman standing outside a bookstore on a rainy evening, warm streetlights reflecting on wet pavement, soft cinematic mood. –ar 16:9 –q 2 –no text –style raw

Why this succeeds:

• Clear setting (city street, rainy evening)
• Visual specificity (wet reflections, warm streetlights)
• Emotional tone (soft cinematic mood)

Midjourney understands what to make and how it should feel

Aspect Ratio: Choosing Your Canvas Shape

Aspect ratio is one of the most overlooked and most transformative creative decisions.

By default, Midjourney produces 1:1 images. But marketers don’t live in square worlds.

Common use cases:

• TikTok/Reels — 9:16

• YouTube thumbnails — 16:9

• Print posters — 2:3

• Website hero sections — 21:9

To change aspect ratio, add it at the end of your prompt, for example: –ar 16:9.

Midjourney only accepts whole-number ratios, so 1.39:1 becomes 85:110.

Image Size & Resolution: How Big Your Image Really Is

Midjourney’s output resolution depends on the aspect ratio and model version.

Typical defaults for Version 7:

• 1:1 — 2048 × 2048 px

• 16:9 — roughly 2048 × 1152 px

• 9:16 — roughly 1152 × 2048 px

This is excellent for web and social. If you’re printing, you’ll likely need upscaling.

When printing:

• Aim for 300 DPI for high-quality print.

• Midjourney’s ~2000 px output means you can comfortably print around 6–7 inches on the long side at 300 DPI.

• Use an upscaler if you’re creating posters, packaging, or large-format designs.

The Art of Prompting: Style, Structure, and Parameters

This is where your creativity becomes control. Parameters modify how Midjourney processes your request.

Key parameters include:

• –ar — controls aspect ratio.

• –q — quality; affects GPU time and detail.

• –no — removes unwanted elements.

• –chaos — increases randomness and variation.

• –style — changes the aesthetic signature of the output.

• –sref — style reference to match the look of another image.

• –oref — omni reference for consistent objects or characters.

• –iw — image weight to control how strongly your reference image influences the result.

Using Your Own Images: Image Prompts, Style Reference & Consistency

Your own images become ingredients for Midjourney. There are three main ways to use image prompts:

1. Image + text — use an image as a mood or composition base and add instructions.

2. Multiple images — blend composition or style from two or more images.

3. Image + text + parameters — full creative control combining reference, description, and parameters.

Image weight (–iw) controls how strongly your image influences the result.

Example: [imageURL] futuristic sneaker design –iw 1.2 –ar 1:1

Style reference (–sref) lets you upload an image and have Midjourney follow its aesthetic. This is perfect for brand look and feel, moodboards, and campaign visual language.

Character reference (–cref) keeps the same character across multiple scenes.

Omni reference (–oref) keeps objects or characters consistent across different images, even when everything else changes. This is how creative teams maintain visual consistency over time.

Modifying Images: Variations, Inpainting, Panning & the Editor

This is where Midjourney becomes a lightweight, AI-native version of Photoshop.

Tools available include:

• Upscale — sharpen and increase resolution.

• Vary (Subtle) — slight variations of a chosen image.

• Vary (Strong) — more creative deviation from the original.

• Vary Region — inpainting; edit only part of an image.

• Pan — extend the image outward in one direction.

• Zoom Out — expand the canvas while preserving style.

• Editor — an all-in-one interface for fine control over panning, zooming, and inpainting.

I once generated a futuristic café interior and loved the colors, but the chairs looked wrong. Using Smart Select plus Vary Region, I replaced only the chairs and kept everything else intact. No wasted creativity.

Video Mode: Turning Images Into Motion

Midjourney can animate still images with subtle or dramatic movement. Core concepts:

• Default clip length is around 5 seconds.

• You can extend clips up to roughly 21 seconds.

• Motion options include –motion low for subtle cinematic movement and –motion high for dynamic, energetic motion.

• HD output (720p) is available on certain plans.

• The video inherits its aspect ratio from the starting image.

Starter video prompt:

serene forest glade, golden hour, volumetric light –video –motion low –ar 16:9

Organizing Your Workflow: How to Stay Sane

If you generate a lot, Midjourney’s website effectively becomes your design studio.

Organization tools include:

• Folders for different projects.

• Filters by prompt, style, or tags.

• Prompt history to revisit successful ideas.

• Collections for reference styles and characters.

Pro tip: name folders clearly, for example “MJ – CampaignName – 2025 – Characters”. Future you will be grateful.

Putting It All Together: A Real Creative Workflow

Let’s walk through a full story-style workflow.

1. The idea: you want a cinematic poster of a lone explorer in a glowing alien desert at sunrise.

2. The prompt: lone explorer on glowing orange desert at sunrise, dramatic lighting, high contrast, cinematic film still –ar 16:9 –q 2

3. Add references: upload a desert photo for palette and a character reference for consistency.

4. Generate and adjust: choose variation number three, upscale it, and use Vary Region to fix a helmet reflection.

5. Expand the scene: Pan to the right to reveal a crashed alien ship.

6. Final polish: open the Editor, soften shadows, and export the final image.

7. Organize: you save the final image in a folder called “whatever folder you want-final”.

8. Animate (optional): you generate a short video version using –video –motion low –ar 16:9.

Now you have a hero poster, variations, a short animation, and a reusable style and character system. This is modern AI-augmented creativity.

Quick-Reference Tables

Aspect Ratios

Essential Parameters

Editing Tools

Closing — What’s Next? (Part 3 Preview)

In Part 3 of this series, we’ll explore how to build a visual identity system with Midjourney, how to create a brand character that appears consistently, and how to design multi-image campaigns with strong style cohesion.

Marketer Augmented isn’t here to make you feel behind. We’re here to show that with guided, honest experimentation, any marketer can create like a whole studio.

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