Styles

AI Image Style Keywords: 6 Style Families and the Words That Steer Them

5 min read · Published 26 Oct 2026 · By the Picslot team

A style keyword tells the model what kind of picture to make: a photo, a painting, a film still, a cartoon. Because keywords from the same family tend to pull in the same direction, it helps to think in families and pick words from one of them rather than collecting words at random.

The six families

• Photoreal: "35mm photo", "natural light", "shallow depth of field", "film grain", "candid". Aims to look like a photograph.
• Cinematic: "film still", "anamorphic lens", "teal and orange", "volumetric light", "moody". Looks like a frame from a movie.
• Anime and illustration: "anime key visual", "cel shading", "clean line art", "vibrant colours", "manga". Flat colour and strong outlines.
• Painterly: "oil painting", "watercolour", "impasto", "visible brush strokes", "muted palette". Looks hand-made.
• 3D render: "3D render", "soft studio light", "clay material", "isometric", "ray traced". Smooth, product-like surfaces.
• Graphic and retro: "flat vector", "retro poster", "bold shapes", "limited palette", "risograph". Great for logos, posters and icons.

Choosing and mixing

• Start with one family and add detail from the seven parts of a prompt.
• Mixing two families can work ("watercolour with clean line art") but the result is less predictable. Change one thing at a time.
• Style keywords interact with lighting and camera words. Photoreal plus "85mm, soft window light" is a natural pairing; anime plus "35mm lens" is not.
• Naming a living artist or a specific brand is not needed to get a style, and may be restricted by the tool. Describe the look instead.

Not sure which generator suits which style? See Midjourney vs Flux vs SDXL vs DALL·E.