Decoder. plain-English AI glossary

Negative Prompt

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Specifying what you dont want in a generated image - telling the model to avoid certain concepts or styles.

Think of it like

A restaurant order: "Ill have a burger, extra cheese. No pickles, no mustard." The "no" parts guide the chef.

Example

"A dog running, negative: blurry, low quality, deformed." "A sunset, negative: people, buildings, text."

How it actually works

Implemented via classifier-free guidance by steering away from the negative condition. If you want to avoid "blurry," compute pred_avoid_blurry and pred_blurry, then interpolate away: final = pred_avoid - scale x (pred_blurry - pred_avoid). Doesnt require training on negative prompts; just reframes guidance. Effective but sometimes over-corrects (oversaturation of details). Combined with positive prompts: balance both. Empirically improves coherence and reduces artifacts.

For product teams

Lets users refine outputs without iterating - powerful for creative control.

For engineers

Uses guidance formula with reversed interpolation. Works best with concrete descriptions (blurry, ugly) vs. abstract (bad).

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