Cuttlefish Sand Ripple, made with GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst
Example made with GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst

Text to imageAnimals

GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst wildlife photo promptCuttlefish Sand Ripple

The exact text-to-image prompt behind this picture, made with GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst.

Prompt

Vertical 3:4 portrait frame. A cuttlefish hovers just above rippled cream sand, its softly ruffled fins outlined in mint and its mottled body shifting between warm brown and pale lavender. A few strands of seagrass lean across the distant background. Natural shallow water sunlight creates moving caustics, 60mm underwater macro photography, anatomically accurate form and suspended particles, poised intelligent marine beauty, no text.

Prompts are kept in their original English to help reproduce the example. Copy one as it is, or adapt it for your project.

Opens GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst with this prompt and the settings below filled in.

135 tested GPT Image prompts →

Settings

Mode
Text to image
Aspect ratio
3:4
Quality
high
Price
From 2 credits

The exact price shows before you generate.

Make your own version

  1. For a different mood, rewrite only the light: Natural shallow water sunlight creates moving caustics.
  2. 60mm underwater macro photography sets the whole feel of the shot. Swap it for another camera style to change the vibe.
  3. The prompt ends with no text. Leave that in, or the model may add random lettering.

Scene prompt guide

How the scene is composed

A solitary cuttlefish glides over sea floor ripples, caught in the crystalline shimmer of shallow ocean daylight. GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst excels here because it balances organic micro-textures on the cephalopod's skin with physically accurate underwater optical phenomena like sun caustics and floating backscatter.

  1. composition and primary subjectVertical 3:4 portrait frame. A cuttlefish hovers just above rippled cream sand,

    This establishes the vertical orientation, subject positioning, and the seabed texture. Changing it to horizontal or removing the hovering posture places the creature directly on the seafloor, flattening the composition.

  2. color palette and textureits softly ruffled fins outlined in mint and its mottled body shifting between warm brown and pale lavender.

    This guides the model to reproduce the delicate undulating edges and dynamic camouflage hues typical of living cephalopods. Omitting these specific colors yields a generic, drab grey animal.

  3. depth cue and framingA few strands of seagrass lean across the distant background.

    This adds soft environmental depth behind the main creature without cluttering the foreground. If altered to dense kelp, the focal animal loses prominence against the backdrop.

  4. camera and lighting styleNatural shallow water sunlight creates moving caustics, 60mm underwater macro photography,

    This dictates the aquatic lighting patterns and lens perspective, keeping focus crisp on the creature while gently blurring the periphery. Without caustics, water illumination becomes flat and artificial.

  5. realism details and negative restraintanatomically accurate form and suspended particles, poised intelligent marine beauty, no text.

    This anchors biological accuracy, introduces natural floating ocean dust for realism, and prevents unwanted watermarks. Removing suspended particles makes the seawater look like empty air.

Camera and light

Underwater macro work relies heavily on realistic optical physics and controlled focal planes to simulate authentic ocean depth.

Lens
The 60mm focal length mimics a dedicated underwater macro prime lens, rendering the cuttlefish sharp with smooth, shallow depth-of-field falloff.
Light
Shallow overhead sunlight creates rippling water caustics across both the cream sand and the cuttlefish mantle, establishing genuine daytime depth.
Mood
Suspended marine snow particles give the water column realistic volume without muddying the creature's fine skin detail.
Scale
Keeping the cuttlefish close to the camera against soft distant seagrass preserves the intimate macro scale instead of feeling like an aquarium panorama.

Variations on the scene

Night Dive Fluo Scene

Switches the environment from bright daylight to a dark reef night dive using biofluorescent torch colors.

Prompt

Vertical 3:4 portrait frame. A cuttlefish hovers just above dark rippled sand, its ruffled fins glowing in neon green and its mottled skin lit by deep ultraviolet blue torchlight. A dark reef wall sits in the distant background. Night scuba macro photography, 60mm lens, anatomically accurate form and floating marine particles, no text.

Top-Down Seabed View

Changes the camera angle to a top-down aerial perspective to emphasize caustic patterns across the ocean floor.

Prompt

Vertical 3:4 portrait frame. Looking directly down from above onto a cuttlefish drifting over rippled cream sand, its ruffled fins spreading mint highlights across wide patterned skin in warm ochre and violet. Overhead tropical midday sunlight casts sharp webbed caustic patterns onto the sand, 50mm underwater documentary photography, pristine clarity, no text.

Blue-Ringed Octopus Subject

Replaces the cuttlefish with a smaller venomous cephalopod while maintaining the same shallow sandbed setting.

Prompt

Vertical 3:4 portrait frame. A tiny blue-ringed octopus rests atop rippled cream sand, its iridescent azure rings glowing against textured ochre skin. A solitary shell sits in the soft blurred background. Natural shallow water sunlight creates delicate moving caustics, 60mm macro photography, precise biological details and tiny suspended particles, no text.

Model and settings

Keep the aspect ratio at 3:4 to flatter the vertical water column and give the animal room to hover above the seabed. If you intend to use the result as a computer wallpaper or cinematic banner, switch to landscape 16:9 while ensuring the subject remains centered. Set quality to high so GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst renders the chromatophore dot patterns and sand ripples without smearing.

  • FLUX.2 ProChoose FLUX.2 Pro when you want strict, photoreal optical fidelity and precise control over the lavender and mint hex color balance on the cuttlefish skin.

When the scene falls apart

Flat, lifeless seawater illumination
Ensure the phrase natural shallow water sunlight creates moving caustics remains intact, or explicitly specify dappled overhead sunbeams breaking through the surface.
Seagrass overwhelms or tangles the cuttlefish
Keep the phrasing strictly as a few strands of seagrass lean across the distant background to prevent the model from generating a dense kelp forest.
Water appears unnaturally clean like an empty room
Re-insert suspended particles or add fine marine snow floating in seawater to give the water column realistic liquid thickness.

Questions about this scene prompt

How do I make the cuttlefish skin patterns look more vibrant?

Add specific color descriptors such as shimmering turquoise chromatophores or electric violet speckles to the body description. GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst responds well to distinct color names paired with tactile adjectives.

Why does the sand ripple look blurred or smudged?

Macro prompts focus sharply on the main subject, causing nearby ground to blur. If you want crisp ridges on the seabed, adjust the camera prompt to deep depth of field, sharp foreground sand ripples.

Can I turn this prompt into a wide landscape shot?

Yes, replace Vertical 3:4 portrait frame with Horizontal 16:9 frame at the start of the prompt. Make sure to specify that the cuttlefish stays off-center to maintain balanced marine composition.