Nano Banana 2 Prompts: 16 Examples and the Structure Behind Them

The difference between a Nano Banana 2 prompt that works and one that does not is almost never the adjectives. It is whether the prompt answers five specific questions, and whether it says anything at all about what you do not want.

Below: the structure, 16 prompts you can paste straight into the Image studio, how prompting changes when you attach reference images, and the failures worth recognising early.

The five slots

Nano Banana 2 reads a paragraph better than it reads a comma-separated pile of keywords. Fill these, in this order:

1. Subject — who or what, and in what state.
2. Composition — shot size, angle, lens. "50mm three-quarter portrait" carries more information than "beautiful."
3. Light — direction, quality, time of day. This does more for realism than any style word.
4. Medium and finish — photograph, oil painting, 3D render, flat vector, film stock.
5. Negative — what must not appear. Say it in plain words at the end of the paragraph.

Two extra rules that are specific to this model:

• Text goes in quotes, with a position. Nano Banana 2's headline improvement over the original is legible lettering inside the image. You get it by writing the exact string and where it sits: the label reads "COLD BREW" in wide sans-serif, centered, upper third.
• One paragraph beats a keyword stack. Weight-syntax and token-stuffing habits from older models do not help here and often flatten the result.

At 20 credits per 1K image, and 1, 2 or 4 images per submission, a four-image exploration run costs 80 credits. That is the unit you should be thinking in while you write.

16 prompts

Portrait and people

A 50mm three-quarter portrait of a ceramicist in her workshop, hands dusty with clay, looking slightly off-camera. Late afternoon window light from the left, shallow depth of field, warm neutral palette. Documentary photography, natural skin texture. No studio backdrop, no props in the foreground, no text.

An environmental portrait of a night-shift baker in a small bakery, shot at 35mm from slightly below, flour suspended in the air. Single overhead practical light, deep shadows, high contrast. Photographic, grainy, unposed. No smiling at camera, no clean apron, no signage.

A head-and-shoulders studio portrait on a seamless mid-grey background, soft large-source light from the front-right, subtle rim light behind. Sharp eyes, natural skin, muted colour. Editorial photography. No harsh shadows, no colour gels, no jewellery.

Product and packaging

A matte navy coffee bag standing on pale concrete, three-quarter view, 50mm, soft window light from the left with one soft shadow. The label reads "MORNING ORDER" in a wide sans-serif, centered, upper third, with "single origin · ethiopia" in small caps beneath it. Clean studio background. No props, no reflections on the bag, no additional text.

A skincare bottle in frosted glass on a wet stone slab, straight-on macro at 100mm, water droplets on the surface. Cool diffused light from above, pale blue-grey palette, one crisp shadow. Commercial product photography. No hands, no branding beyond the bottle, no background clutter.

A pair of running shoes floating against a flat coral background, rotated three-quarters, even soft light, hard-edged drop shadow beneath. Bright, graphic, catalogue-style. No models, no laces untied, no motion blur.

Posters and text-heavy layouts

A minimalist concert poster, portrait orientation. Large type reading "NIGHT SESSIONS" across the top third in a condensed grotesque, with "fri 22 · basement hall · 9pm" in small type at the bottom. Between them, a single grainy photograph of an empty stage lit by one blue spot. Two colours only: deep blue and bone white. Flat print aesthetic, visible paper grain. No gradients, no extra decorative elements.

A vintage travel poster for a coastal town, mid-century screen-print style with four flat colours and visible registration offset. The headline reads "PORT ALMA" in a heavy serif across the lower third. Stylised cliffs, a lighthouse, a low sun. No photorealism, no modern typefaces, no gradients.

A square social graphic with a bold quote set in the centre reading "the work is the reward", generous margins, warm off-white background, single thin rule above and below the text. Editorial minimalism. No illustration, no icons, no logo, no drop shadows.

Illustration and style

A children's book illustration of a fox reading under a streetlamp at dusk, gouache texture with visible brush edges, limited palette of teal, ochre and cream. Soft, storybook, hand-painted. No outlines in black, no digital gradients, no text.

A flat vector illustration of a city skyline at sunrise, geometric shapes, three-colour palette, no strokes, generous negative space at the top for a headline. Clean modern editorial style. No photorealism, no gradients, no people.

A detailed pen-and-ink cross-section of a workshop bench, technical-drawing style, fine hatching, sepia on aged paper. Labelled compartments but no readable text. Precise, analytical, handmade. No colour, no shading gradients.

Scene and atmosphere

A narrow alley in the rain at night, viewed from street level at 28mm, reflections of neon in standing water. Practical lighting only — shop signs, one streetlamp. Cinematic photography, cool shadows, warm highlights, slight grain. Nobody in the frame. No lens flare, no visible brand names.

The interior of an empty train carriage in early morning, wide 24mm, long shadows from low sun through the windows, empty seats receding. Quiet, still, photographic. No passengers, no reflections of the camera, no text on the signage.

Food

A bowl of ramen shot from 45 degrees at 85mm, steam rising, chopsticks resting on the rim. Single soft light from behind-left to rim the steam, dark wooden table, deep shadows. Editorial food photography, natural colour. No hands, no garnish scattered on the table, no text.

A cut fig on a pale ceramic plate, overhead, hard morning light making a sharp shadow, minimal props. High-contrast, modern, sparse. No cutlery, no fabric, no crumbs.

Prompting with reference images

Nano Banana 2 takes up to ten reference images per prompt, and the prompt's job changes completely when you use them. With references attached, the model can already see the subject — describing it again is an invitation to redraw it.

So an image-to-image prompt has three parts:

1. What stays. Name it explicitly: "keep the product exactly as it is in the reference — same label, same shape, same proportions."
2. What changes. One clear instruction, not five.
3. How the new part is lit, so the replacement matches the plate.

Keep the subject from the reference image unchanged, including the face, hair and clothing. Replace the background with a sunlit kitchen counter, shallow depth of field, warm morning light from the right. Match the lighting direction on the subject to the new background.

With several references, say which is which: "use image 1 for the character, image 2 for the room, image 3 for the colour palette." Ten slots is enough for a character sheet plus a background plate plus a style reference in one go.

Four ways these prompts go wrong

You stacked keywords instead of writing a sentence. "beautiful, masterpiece, 8k, ultra detailed, trending" is inherited from a different generation of models. It adds nothing here and dilutes the instructions that matter.

You never said what you did not want. The negative clause at the end of each prompt above is doing real work. Without it you get stock-photo defaults: a smiling face, a clean surface, a decorative extra object.

Your text had no position. "With the brand name on it" gets you lettering somewhere, at some size, possibly misspelled. Quote the string and place it.

You described the aspect ratio in words. Set the aspect ratio in the picker — 1:1, 16:9, 9:16, 4:3 or 3:4 — and describe the composition to match it. A prompt that asks for a "wide cinematic frame" inside a 1:1 selection fights itself.

Iterating without wasting credits

• Explore at 1K with quantity 4: one submission, four rolls, 80 credits.
• Change one slot at a time between runs. Changing three tells you nothing about which one helped.
• Re-run the winner at 2K (30 credits) only at the end.
• Move to Nano Banana Pro (45 credits) only when a render has to hold up printed or zoomed.
• Everything lands in your Library, so a prompt that worked three weeks ago is still recoverable.

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The settings behind these prompts: How to use Nano Banana 2. Model details and full pricing: Nano Banana on SynthPulse. Or open the Image studio and paste one in.