20 Documented Nano Banana Prompt Patterns That Hold Up

Most "best Nano Banana prompts" lists you find online are unsourced screenshots. This one is the opposite: every pattern below is either lifted from Google's own Nano Banana prompting guide on Google Cloud, Google DeepMind's prompt guide page, the official Gemini API docs, or a community resource that has been widely reshared (the awesome-nanobanana-pro list on GitHub, the r/Bard character-consistency threads, the viral 1/7 figurine prompt). Each pattern is cited inline.

The 20 patterns are grouped into four buckets (five photoreal portraits, five product shots, five illustrations, five stylized/cinematic), followed by the general prompting principles Google itself promotes. Each entry has a pattern template, what it does, and a source. Patterns work on both Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) and Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image); the Pro model handles longer prompts and native 4K. Model lineage in our what is Nano Banana 2 explainer.

Photoreal portraits (5 patterns)

1. The "describe-the-scene" portrait template

Template

A photorealistic [shot type] of [subject], [action], set in [environment].
The scene is illuminated by [lighting], creating a [mood] atmosphere.
[Camera/lens specification].

What it does: Google's canonical photorealistic-scene template. Used as the worked example in the official Gemini API image generation docs.

Source: Gemini API image generation docs, where the official sample reads: "A photorealistic close-up portrait of an elderly Japanese ceramicist with deep wrinkles and warm smile inspecting a freshly glazed tea bowl in his rustic workshop, illuminated by golden hour light through a window, captured with an 85mm lens."

2. The five-component DeepMind portrait

Template

[Style] + [Subject] + [Setting] + [Action] + [Composition]

What it does: DeepMind's official five-component framework for "detailed prompts." Matches how the Gemini app team teaches portrait construction.

Source: Google DeepMind, How to create effective image prompts with Nano Banana. The page lists Style, Subject, Setting, Action, Composition as the five core components.

3. The "selfie with X" character-consistency prompt

Template

I'm taking a selfie with [character/person] on the set of [scene].
Keep the person exactly as shown in the reference image with 100%
identical facial features, bone structure, skin tone, facial expression,
pose, and appearance. 1:1 aspect ratio, 4K detail.

What it does: A reference-image lock that keeps the user's likeness while changing the scene. Cited often in r/Bard discussion as the prompt that showed Nano Banana Pro's identity-preservation strength.

Source: r/Bard thread surfaced via Rohan Paul on X, upvoted for character-consistency results.

4. The Silicon Valley business headshot

Template

Professional studio headshot of [subject], 85mm f/1.4 lens, three-point
lighting setup with key light from camera-left, fill light from
camera-right, soft rim light, neutral gray seamless background, sharp
focus on eyes, shallow depth of field, business casual wardrobe.

What it does: Mimics a corporate LinkedIn or company-page headshot. The lens and lighting language are what make the result read as professional rather than as "AI portrait."

Source: awesome-nanobanana-pro, Photorealism & Aesthetics section ("Business Photo (Silicon Valley)" entry).

5. The Kodak Portra film portrait

Template

Candid portrait of [subject] during golden hour, shot on Kodak Portra
400 film, 35mm lens, natural light, warm color grading, slight grain,
shallow depth of field, [environment], emotional expression.

What it does: Triggers the warm-skin-tone, slightly-grainy look that Portra 400 is known for. The model recognizes named film stocks and reproduces the look.

Source: awesome-nanobanana-pro "Emotional Film Photography" entry. Google Cloud's prompting guide notes that named film stocks like "As if on 1980s color film, slightly grainy" work as color-grading cues.

Product shots (5 patterns)

6. The Google "studio product photograph" template

Template

A high-resolution, studio-lit product photograph of [product] on [surface].
The lighting is [setup] to [purpose]. Camera angle is [angle] to
showcase [feature].

What it does: The official commercial-photography template from the Gemini API docs. Google's worked example: "High-resolution studio photograph of minimalist matte black ceramic coffee mug on polished concrete, three-point softbox lighting creating soft highlights, 45-degree elevated shot focusing on steam rising from coffee."

Source: Gemini API image generation docs, Product Mockups & Commercial Photography category.

7. The beauty-shot with rendered text

Template

A high-end, glossy commercial beauty shot of a [product] resting on a
[background]. The lighting is soft and radiant. Next to the product,
render three lines of text with the following exact styling: For the
top line, the word '[WORD]' in a [font] font. For the middle line, the
text '[WORD2]' in a [font2] font. For the bottom line, the text
'[WORD3]' in a [font3] font.

What it does: Combines product photography with multi-font typography, one of the capabilities Nano Banana Pro is most credited for. Useful for ad creative that needs both product and copy in one render.

Source: Verbatim example in Google Cloud's Ultimate prompting guide for Nano Banana, Text Rendering section. The published example uses 'GLOW' / '10% OFF' / 'Your First Order' across Brush Script, Impact, and Century Gothic.

8. The luxury floating-product shot

Template

[Product] floating on dark water with [floral element] surrounding it,
golden hour glow, soft reflections, dramatic shadows, commercial luxury
product photography style.

What it does: High-contrast luxury look for fragrance, jewelry, skincare. "Floating on water" sidesteps the surface-and-prop problem common to product mockups.

Source: awesome-nanobanana-pro, E-commerce section ("Luxury Product Shot").

9. The sketch-plus-fabric multimodal product render

Template

Using the attached napkin sketch as the structure and the attached
[material] sample as the texture, transform this into a high-fidelity
3D [product] render. Place it in a [environment].

What it does: Shows Nano Banana's multimodal input by combining a structural reference, a texture reference, and a context prompt. Useful for furniture design, fashion sampling, and packaging mockups.

Source: Google Cloud's Ultimate prompting guide, Multimodal Generation section. Worked example: napkin sketch + fabric sample produces a high-fidelity 3D armchair in a sun-drenched minimalist living room.

10. The packaging mockup with brand text

Template

Create a [product type] packaging mockup for [brand name], with the
product label reading "[BRAND NAME]" in [font style] and tagline
"[tagline]" in [secondary font]. [Color palette]. Studio lit on [surface].

What it does: Generates packaging concepts with legible text. Mirrors the Google logo example ("The Daily Grind" coffee shop with bold sans-serif).

Source: Adapted from the official Gemini API docs example: "Create a modern, minimalist logo for 'The Daily Grind' coffee shop in clean bold sans-serif font, black and white color scheme." See Gemini API image generation docs.

Illustrations (5 patterns)

11. The kawaii sticker template

Template

A [style] sticker of a [subject], featuring [key characteristics] and a
[color palette]. The design should have [line style] and [shading style].
The background must be white.

What it does: Google's official sticker/illustration template. Reliable for assets that need a transparent or knockout background.

Source: Gemini API image generation docs, Stylized Illustrations & Stickers category. Worked example: "A kawaii-style sticker of a happy red panda wearing a tiny bamboo hat munching on a green leaf, with bold clean outlines, simple cel-shading, and vibrant colors on white background."

12. The isometric miniature city / diorama

Template

Present a clear, 45° top-down isometric miniature 3D cartoon scene of
[place], featuring its most iconic landmarks and architectural elements.
Use soft, refined textures with realistic PBR materials and gentle,
lifelike lighting and shadows.

What it does: The "miniature world" look that has been one of Nano Banana's most-shared outputs since launch. Strong on recognizable cities.

Source: Quoted in DEV Community's Nano Banana prompting guide and reproduced in awesome-nanobanana-pro ("USA 3D Diorama" entry).

13. The educational craft-style diagram

Template

A craft-style diagram of [process/system] featuring [labeled
components], with hand-drawn arrows showing [relationships], muted
paper-tone palette, sketched annotations, [aspect ratio].

What it does: Generates labeled instructional graphics. The "craft-style" cue triggers the hand-drawn-on-paper look instead of polished infographic-style output.

Source: DeepMind's prompt guide page shows an "instructional graphic" example using the water cycle diagram with this exact phrasing.

14. The typographic cut-out poster

Template

A typographic poster with a solid [color] background. Bold letters spell
"[WORD]", filling the center of the frame. The text acts as a cut-out
window. A photograph of [scene/subject] is visible ONLY inside the
letterforms.

What it does: Word-shaped photographic cutouts. Shown as one of the "creative director" prompts Google highlights for Nano Banana Pro.

Source: Quoted verbatim in Google Cloud's Ultimate prompting guide, Text Rendering & Localization section. The published example uses "New York" with the city skyline visible inside the letterforms.

15. The split-view 3D render

Template

A [subject], rendered with a perfectly vertical split down the center.
Left half: photorealistic textured rendering. Right half: clean white
wireframe / blueprint view of the same model. Studio lighting,
[background], 1:1 framing.

What it does: A "before/after" or "design vs. final" reveal popular with product designers and 3D artists. Forces the model to render two interpretations of the same object aligned at a precise seam.

Source: awesome-nanobanana-pro, 3D & Illustration section ("Split View 3D Render" entry).

Stylized & cinematic (5 patterns)

16. The vintage cinematic wide shot

Template

A cinematic, wide-angle shot of [subject] in [environment] at [time of
day], enveloped in a thick, [color]-tinted fog. [Lighting source]
casts long shadows. Color graded for [film reference], slight grain,
21:9 aspect ratio.

What it does: Sets up a moody cinematic frame with named camera and color cues. The fog-and-shadow combination is what makes the result feel "filmic."

Source: Adapted from the DeepMind prompt guide cinematic example: "A cinematic, wide-angle shot of a vintage orange sedan parked on a dark, asphalt road at night...enveloped in a thick, teal-tinted fog." See deepmind.google/models/gemini-image/prompt-guide.

17. The 1/7 scale collectible figurine

Template

Create a photorealistic 1/7 scale PVC figure of the person in the
reference image, displayed on a circular acrylic base on a computer
desk. Behind the figure, place the original character art on a computer
monitor. Beside the figure, place a printed cardboard box with the
character art on the front. Studio product photography lighting.

What it does: The viral "turn me into a collectible" pattern that drove a large share of Nano Banana's launch traffic. Specifying "1/7 scale," "PVC figure," "acrylic base," and "cardboard box" anchors the output as a physically plausible figurine rather than a generic 3D render.

Source: mukeshkdesigns.com's viral 3D figurine guide. The trend is reported to have generated more than 200 million images.

18. The Van Gogh / named-artist style transfer

Template

Recreate this photo's exact content in [Artist] style painting, keeping
[subject and composition] identical, applying [artist]'s characteristic
brushwork, palette, and texture.

What it does: Style-transfer pattern using a named artist as the style anchor. Quoted verbatim in Google Cloud's prompting guide.

Source: Google Cloud's Ultimate prompting guide, Style Transfer section. The published example reads: "Recreate this photo's exact content in Van Gogh-style painting."

19. The cinematic keyframe storyboard

Template

Generate four sequential keyframes for [scene]:
Frame 1 — Setup: [shot description, lighting, composition].
Frame 2 — Build: [shot description, escalation cue].
Frame 3 — Turn: [shot description, change of state].
Frame 4 — Payoff: [shot description, resolution].
Maintain wardrobe, lighting, and character consistency across all frames.

What it does: Multi-beat storyboard generation. The "setup, build, turn, payoff" arc is the structure documented in the awesome list's cinematic keyframe template.

Source: awesome-nanobanana-pro, Cinematic & Sequential section. Background on character consistency across frames is in our Nano Banana reference images guide.

20. The JSON structured prompt

Template

{
  "subject": "[subject description]",
  "composition": "[framing, e.g. medium close-up]",
  "lighting": {
    "key": "[key light type and direction]",
    "fill": "[fill light]",
    "rim": "[rim light]"
  },
  "camera": {
    "lens": "[focal length, e.g. 85mm]",
    "aperture": "f/[number]",
    "angle": "[angle]"
  },
  "color_grade": "[grade reference]",
  "background": "[environment]",
  "aspect_ratio": "[e.g. 3:2]",
  "negative": "[what to avoid]"
}

What it does: Structured-prompt format that the community has converged on for Nano Banana Pro when reproducibility matters. Treats lighting, camera, and color grade as nested objects so individual fields can be swapped without rewriting prose.

Source: Documented in fofr.ai's Prompting Nano Banana Pro with JSON and Alex Ewerlöf's JSON schema gist. Community write-ups claim ~92% precision on color and composition vs. ~68% for prose; we treat that figure as claimed-not-confirmed because the comparison methodology has not been independently audited.

General prompting principles

The 20 patterns above sit on top of three principles Google itself documents in every Gemini image-prompting page. If a pattern stops working, this is the checklist to tune.

Principle 1: describe the scene, do not list keywords

Google's guidance, repeated across the Gemini API docs, DeepMind prompt guide, and Developers Blog post, is the same sentence: "Describe the scene, don't just list keywords. A narrative, descriptive paragraph will almost always produce a better, more coherent image than a list of disconnected words." Comma-separated tag lists are a Stable Diffusion idiom; Nano Banana was trained on prose.

Principle 2: photographic vocabulary controls camera and lighting

The model recognizes named lenses (85mm portrait, 35mm wide), aperture notation (f/1.4, f/8), camera angles (low angle, Dutch, aerial), film stocks (Kodak Portra 400, 1980s color film), and lighting setups (three-point softbox, chiaroscuro, golden hour backlighting). Swapping concrete photographic vocabulary in for vague qualifiers ("better," "more cinematic") is the single biggest quality lever Google highlights in its prompting tips.

Principle 3: reference images lock identity, materials, and style

Nano Banana Pro accepts up to 14 reference images per prompt. Use them to anchor identity ("the person in image A"), materials ("the fabric in image B"), and art style ("the line work in image C") instead of describing those qualities in words. Google explicitly markets "the consistency and resemblance of up to five characters and the fidelity of up to fourteen objects in a single workflow." Walkthrough in our reference images guide.

Bonus principle: positive framing beats negation

Say "empty street" instead of "no cars." Image models weight tokens you mention; the thing you don't want often appears anyway. Documented in the Google Cloud prompting guide's best-practices list.

Try the patterns

Pick one, fill in the brackets, iterate. Google's guidance is to start short and add detail one element at a time (camera, then lighting, then wardrobe) rather than rewriting the whole prompt every pass.

Try these patterns free at /nano-banana. The studio runs both Nano Banana and Nano Banana Pro, with daily free credits, no Google API key needed.

Sources

• Ultimate prompting guide for Nano Banana (Google Cloud Blog)
• How to create effective image prompts with Nano Banana (Google DeepMind)
• Gemini API image generation documentation (Google AI for Developers)
• How to prompt Gemini 2.5 Flash Image for the best results (Google Developers Blog)
• Nano Banana Pro prompt tips (Google Blog)
• awesome-nanobanana-pro (curated community prompt list)
• Prompting Nano Banana Pro with JSON (fofr.ai)
• Nano Banana JSON prompt schema (Alex Ewerlöf gist)
• r/Bard character-consistency prompt via Rohan Paul
• Viral 3D figurine prompt walkthrough (mukeshkdesigns.com)

Last reviewed against source pages: 2026-04-18. Templates and example phrasing change as Google updates its docs; verify against the linked source pages before relying on a specific quoted line.