A Hundred Commands, Two Lanes: Image Words and Work Words
A hundred commands on one list, and the part nobody explains: they do not all work the same way.
Numbers one to sixty are image words – /droneview, /goldenhour, /bokeh, /macro. They belong inside a request for a picture. Numbers sixty-one to a hundred are work words – /summarize, /email, /studyplan, /roleplay. Those go at the start of an ordinary message.
Mix the two and you will conclude the whole list is broken. Use them in the right place and one word genuinely changes the result.
Two lanes, and what happens if you change lanes
| Lane 1 · Image words → | Lane 2 · Work words |
|---|---|
| Where they go Inside an image request, after the subject |
Where they go At the very start of a normal message |
| Example: “Create an image of a coffee shop, /goldenhour, /bokeh” |
Example: “/summarize [paste the transcript]” |
| Why it works: They name a camera angle, a light, a style – vocabulary the model already knows |
Why it works: They stand in for an instruction you could have typed in full |
| Wrong lane: Put one in a normal chat and you get a definition, not a photo |
Wrong lane: Put one in an image request and it becomes part of the picture |
The card is honest about what these are, in small print at the bottom: shortcuts you type – not built-in. Nothing is installed and no menu exists. They work because the words mean something specific, which is also why the two lanes behave differently.
What is in each block
Read as five blocks rather than a hundred items, the list becomes something you can actually hold in your head.
| Block | What it covers | Examples from the cards | What it changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–20 | Camera angle and shot size | /droneview, /topdown, /lowangle, /eyelevel, /closeup, /fullbody, /tracking, /orbit, /pushin, /portrait | Where the camera is and how much of the subject you see |
| 21–40 | Light, motion and finish | /timelapse, /silhouette, /macro, /longexposure, /nightshot, /hdr, /bokeh, /motionblur, /goldenhour, /dramatic | How the light falls and whether motion shows |
| 41–60 | More image vocabulary | Style and subject words, per the reel’s caption | The same lane – they describe the picture, not the task |
| 61–80 | Work words for getting things done | /planner, /learn, /summarize, /translate, /code, /email, /analyze, /brainstorm, /socialpost, /calendar | An instruction in one word, typed first |
| 81–100 | Work words for life and business | /fitness, /recipes, /itinerary, /business, /invest, /roleplay, /story and more | Same lane, different subjects |
The first two blocks are photography vocabulary, which is why they travel: the same words work in most image tools, not just one. That is the useful discovery hiding in this list – you are not learning a product’s commands, you are learning how to describe a picture, which is the skill behind image prompts in five slots.
The post this came from
Watch the reel
All one hundred commands, twenty per card. Posted on the BANI Academy page.
Six words that improve a thumbnail immediately
You do not need sixty image words. Six cover most of what a channel makes.
| What you are making | Words to add | Why it helps |
|---|---|---|
| Thumbnail with a face | /closeup, /goldenhour | Big face, warm light – readable at phone size |
| Product or gadget shot | /macro, /bokeh | Detail sharp, background soft, nothing competing |
| Establishing shot for b-roll | /droneview or /wideangle | Sets the place in one frame |
| Something in motion | /motionblur or /tracking | Movement reads as movement rather than a blurred mistake |
| Moody or serious topic | /dramatic, /shadowplay | Contrast does the emotional work |
| Clean explainer graphic | /minimalist, /symmetry | Nothing in the frame that is not doing a job |
Two cautions from experience. First, these words shape a picture; they do not fix a bad idea for one. A thumbnail still has to promise exactly what the video delivers – thumbnail ideas and the curiosity gap. Second, change one word at a time. Adding four style words at once produces something confused, and you will not know which word caused it – the pass-by-pass method in four commands to fix a thumbnail.
Why one word changes a picture at all
It looks like magic that adding /goldenhour to a request produces warm, low, directional light. It is not. Those words are decades of photographic shorthand: a phrase that photographers, film crews and stock libraries have used to label a specific look, attached to millions of images that were captioned that way.
So the word is not a command the tool obeys. It is a precise description that happens to be one word long. That explains both why it works so reliably and why inventing your own image word does not: /goldenhour carries meaning, /coolvibe carries none.
It also explains the failure people report most. Asking a chat assistant “/bokeh” in an ordinary conversation gets you a paragraph explaining what bokeh is, because in that context you asked a question rather than described a picture. Right word, wrong lane.
When a hundred is worse than six
There is a cost to a list this long, and it is not the reading time. It is that a hundred options turns every thumbnail into a decision: which three of these hundred words describe what I want? That question is harder than simply writing the sentence you meant.
The people who get consistent images are not the ones who memorised the list. They are the ones who found four or five words that suit their channel’s look and reused them until the look became recognisable. Consistency is worth more than variety here, because a viewer scrolling past should know a thumbnail is yours before they read the title.
So treat the hundred as a menu to read once, and your own shortlist as the thing you actually keep. Six image words and four work words, written down, will outperform the full list every week of the year.
The work words worth keeping
Forty work words is more than anyone uses. For a channel, four of them come up every week: summarising a long transcript, drafting an email, turning research into a plan, and translating something for an international audience.
Those four are worth writing out properly rather than typing as a bare word. A word on its own is a hint; a word with a definition behind it – how long, in what order, what to leave out – produces the same shape of answer every time, which is the whole argument of thirty-one retypes and fifteen short phrases that stack.
Once a definition exists, save it where every chat can see it instead of retyping it – save once, call in one word. That turns a borrowed list into your own small toolkit, which is the difference between collecting prompts and having a system, as we argued in learn, find, build.
Frequently asked questions
Do these work in ChatGPT only?
No. The image words are photography vocabulary, so they work in most image tools. The work words are plain instructions, so any capable assistant follows them.
Why did my command do nothing?
Almost always the wrong lane, or the wrong place in the sentence. Image words go inside the picture request; work words go first in a normal message.
How many can I use at once?
Two or three image words. More than that and they compete, and the result gets muddy rather than better.
Are they official commands?
No. The card says so: shortcuts you type, not built-in features. That is why you can invent your own.
Pick two from each lane this week
Choose two image words for the kind of thumbnail you make most, and two work words for the jobs you repeat. Use only those four for a week. Write the definition for the two work words, so they behave the same on Friday as on Monday.
A hundred commands is a vocabulary list. Four words used properly is a workflow – and the only thing standing between them is typing each one in the right lane.
Learning a lot does not make anyone good. Doing a lot does.
If you want the structure that turns that into a habit, that is what our free challenge is built for: no barrier to entry, a genuine commitment to action, and a refundable commitment fee you get back when you finish. You are not paying for the knowledge. You are betting on yourself finishing, and we hold the stake.
Which one are you trying first? Tell us in the comments on the original reel.
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