GUIDES
Guides
Each photograph on charmgen is a finished argument about light, lens, and surface. These notes spell out the three arguments that keep showing up. They are not a catalog of adjectives. They are the controls we actually write into a prompt.
The light is the prompt
Polished metal copies the shape of the key light. A square softbox prints a square on a ring; a tiny round key prints one circular highlight on a pearl. Dark-field, bright-field, raking sidelight, and even toplight are fixture choices, not moods.
Macro is a depth problem
At 100mm, close enough that a pearl fills the frame, depth of field is a sliver. The phrase "focus-stacked appearance" is in the prompts because one exposure cannot hold the front of the pearl, the rim, and the post at once.
Change one thing
Copy a prompt that already worked. Change one control — the hour, the lens, the surface, or the light shape — and generate again. Adding more adjectives usually makes the picture worse, not better.