Understanding srefs' Effect on Colors

When crafting a prompt you typically specify a color or colors to tell Midjourney what you want. However, when using an sref code, there are a few things to take into consideration.

Let's take a look.

No Colors Specified in the Prompt

When you are first discovering or using an sref code, it's a good idea to use a prompt without adding any colors to it.

No colors specified in a prompt allows you to see what the sref 's natural color influences are.

For example, if you have an sref that predominantly has a pastel color palette, it can be challenging to make Midjourney create neon color images with that sref.

Specifying Color/s in the Prompt

If you add a color or multiple colors to your prompt when using an sref code, you may, or may not get the color you are asking for! This is because the particular sref code's color influence is strong and typically much different than the color you are trying to get.

Examples

These image all have the same prompt.
Each pair of images has the same sref code.

The prompts I used:
Left (the baseline sref without any color specified in the prompt)
Right (a color specified in the prompt - bright orange)

a Moroccan model wearing a blouse, fashion photography --ar 2:3 --style raw --sref [code] --stylize 500

vs.

a Moroccan model wearing a bright orange blouse, fashion photography --ar 2:3 --style raw --sref [code] --stylize 500

Srefs that have the color you want to achieve already present in the style are much easier to guide to the color you want.

With some srefs, like sref 1904839033, no matter what color you add to your prompt, it doesn't take. Unless it's close to the existing color in the style ref.

If you really want to use an sref and generate a pastel pink blouse there are a few things you can do.

1. Lower the style weight value by adding e.g. --sw 50 to your prompt.

2. Use vary region. Highlight the area of the blouse and prompt 'a pastel pink blouse'. This method works the best.

3. Add an image reference (cref) to your prompt. It works, but you can get some mixed/interesting results, depending on what your image reference is. For the examples below I used the following image references:
1) a pastel pink background
2) an image of a woman wearing a pink shirt

These are more advanced techniques and can take more time and effort. The easiest thing to do it to find an sref that is close to what you want and use that or use vary region to change the color.

Examples.

I ran each method two times. These are still with --sref 1904839033.

You have options to get the colors you want. Test and iterate and create your magic.

~Alie