Prompting Guide
← Viewport & comparison · User Guide · Next: Workflows & recipes →Prompting is the highest-leverage skill in Mago. The same model can produce excellent or terrible results depending on the prompt.
The two schools of prompting
Mago integrates two model families with opposite prompting philosophies.| Approach | Models | Format | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Descriptive | All Mago video models | Describe the output | ”A medieval stone castle at dusk with torchlit walls” |
| Instruction | Closed-source video + all image models | Tell the model what to do | ”Change the building into a medieval stone castle. Keep the character, composition, and lighting.” |
⚠️ Critical distinction — Writing instructions to a Mago model produces poor results. Writing descriptions to a closed-source model often produces something, but less controlled. Always match the prompt style to the model family.
Descriptive prompting (Mago models)
Describe the final image. Be specific about what the viewer should see. Use nouns and adjectives.Prompting Mago Transform — Task: turn an office scene into a wooden forest. ❌ “Stylize the office as a wooden forest.” ✅ “A dense temperate forest with tall oak and pine trees, soft golden light filtering through the canopy, mossy forest floor.” The model isn’t being told to transform anything — it’s being shown what the result should look like.
Instruction prompting (closed-source & image models)
Tell the model what to change and what to keep. Use imperative verbs.Prompting GPT Image 2 — Task: change the background building to a castle. ❌ “castle” ✅ “Change the building in the background to a medieval stone castle. Keep the character in the foreground unchanged. Keep the original composition, lighting, and outlines.” The model needs preservation directives or it will change more than intended.
Auto Prompt
Auto Prompt generates a starting prompt from a description of the source video, the action, and the reference image (if provided). Use it for: a starting point when unsure how to describe a complex scene, quick prototyping, and adapting prompts when changing scenes (it adjusts to context — e.g. dropping human terms for a nature scene). Available for: Mago Transform, Mago Style Transfer, Mago Inpaint, Mago Character, and Kling 2.6 Motion Control.Image references vs. prompts
For most video transformations, an image reference is more powerful than a long prompt. The image shows the model exactly what the result should look like; the prompt fills in motion, style direction, and edge cases. Order of investment for best results:- Generate a strong reference image in Modify Frame.
- Write a short descriptive prompt that matches.
- Tune ControlNet and other settings only if results need refinement.
Negative prompts
Available on some models. Use to exclude unwanted artifacts or content. Common values:- low quality, blurry, distorted
- extra faces, extra limbs, deformed
- NSFW (in mixed contexts)
- text
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